Back On Track

Yes, I skipped seven days of blogging. Why? I was trying to be good at my job. So last weekend when my husband said I needed to go away with the family I did it. I had been working hard and my family needed some quality time away from the house and work. And then last week when my students turned in their rough drafts I was reading and responding to their drafts in preparation for writing conferences.

I learned something very important. I can have a great goal, but it might have to take a backseat to my actual jobs as wife, mom, and teacher. I'm back on track, I hope.

So...tired

Four weeks into the semester and today was exhausting. I really had a good day teaching. The lesson plans went as planned, grading got done, I got in a full post-work workout, and I would like to believe that most of my students were fairly attentive today, even in the 95 degree heat. I have a lot to write about right now, but I am wiped out and while I am feeling like I'm not drowning under the work, I still have plenty that needs to be done. Once I have outlines graded for the next paper assignment I will get to writing a much longer and more thought provoking blog.

A New Experiment

Last year when I taught Julius Caesar I decided for the first time to try having students listen to and read the whole text in class. Shakespeare is meant to be heard, not just read silently to ones self. Plays are meant to be performed, read aloud. Students have difficulty hearing the iambic pentameter when they are reading it to themselves. Students stumble over words that cause their classmates to lose the text when we are reading as a class. Students lose track and get distracted when their classmates are reading a text aloud unless they have a specific text. When students can't hear the individual voices they have a more difficult time understanding the text. When students see Shakespeare performed and can hear the language the way it is supposed to be spoken it suddenly isn't "old" English. It is their English. They can understand it. It makes sense to them.

So I have decided to try the same thing when I start teaching The Crucible tomorrow. I have taught this play nearly 10 times, but this will be the first time I try it with having students listen to the play while reading at the same time. I have no idea how this will go. I have no idea if this will significantly improve student learning. I have no idea if this will change enjoyment and appreciation for the play. But I am optimistic. I believe that it has the potential to help my students better understand the text. And combined with the new activities I have devised, I am more than a little optimistic that this will be my best experience with The Crucible yet. But it is early. I will let you know.

Still Their Teacher

It's one of those little things they don't tell you when going through education classes in college. There's the ideal that you will influence young lives. But not only will you influence those young lives. You hope that you will know someway, somehow, that you influenced those lives. Then they come back to tell you about college, how your class impacted them once they got to college, the new things in their lives, and it feels good because you are important enough to them that they want to talk to you. They want to share with you. But what education profs don't tell you is that if you did your job right when those students were in your classroom your job doesn't stop once they leave your classroom.

The reminder of that came this summer when I got the first requests for letters of recommendation and help with college application essays. After my first year teaching an honors level class to juniors I knew that those requests (which have always been there) would start coming in more frequently.

It's not the part of the job that we teachers get paid for. We don't have to do it. We don't have to write letters of recommendation and we don't have to look at application essays to assist students with improving their essays. But if we care about our students, past and present, we do it. Why? Because our desire to see them succeed extends beyond what we are teaching them in the classroom. Because we care about them. Because even though we are not teaching them anymore we still have the ability to make a difference in their lives.

So now I have more essays to look at. I just hope that it helps them get where they want to go. Until tomorrow.

Feeling Good

I like those days when I feel like a rock star. Not a "I'm-totally-being-recognized-for-all-the-work-I'm-doing" rock star. A "something worked" rock star. A "I might be on the right track" rock star. A "something I came up with is doing what I wanted it to do" rock star.

I have professional goals. I want to get published (I am pursuing all sorts of venues for publication and hey, I'm young) and I want to work my way to presenting at NCTE. But more important than those professional goals, every year I make new discoveries of what I want my students to be able do. The more I learn the better I get. Some experiments blow up in my face, but while I graded one of my more recent experiments I excitedly discovered that I might be on to something.

We watched Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee at the end of our Native American Indian myth unit. i had students complete a response guide, not a study guide, that I worked on during the summer months. The form was simple enough, but it did what I wanted it to. It forced students to consider their own personal responses to the film and make connections to the project they had just completed, and challenged them to think outside of the unit and see how experiences and knowledge, past and present, helps enhance their understanding of a single piece we were watching in class. Not everyone did exactly what I wanted them to do, but many of them were on the right track, and many more did better than stay on the right track.

Today's grading experience gives me hope for this year, that maybe I have started to crack the code. I know that I will still have frustrating moments, that sometimes they will fail to do what I want them to do. It won't likely be due to them willfully ignoring instructions. It will most likely be related to a need for clarification and re-emphasis of the importance of following those instructions, but in the end I hope they will leave my classroom able to analyze and connect everything that they do in my classroom. That would make me feel like a real rock star.

Lunch Randomness

Today was a good teaching day full of learning by all groups of students but today it is randomness that sticks out. Students really do pay attention to everything their teachers are doing. Yes, it does feel like we spend forever prepping lessons that students either do not pay attention to or do not fully absorb, but they are paying attention to what we are doing. This came home after lunch today. I do lunch duty, mostly because it means a free lunch and I don't have to spend the time in the morning packing my lunch, but I also enjoy spending time with my fellow faculty at the lunch table and the extra student interaction doesn't bother me. I also eat a salad almost every day. Part of that is due to putting myself on a diet last January (and losing over 20 pounds) and part of that is just that I like the salad bar. It usually has great, healthy options that free me up to eat less healthy options later in the day. Apparently a couple of my fourth hour students have noticed. They also noticed that I do not use salad dressing.

Student: Mrs. Styf, do you always eat salad without dressing?

Me: Pretty much.

Student: Why?

Me: I've just never used it. I don't like to use dressing. Besides, I know it's healthier.

Student: So are you always dieting or something?

There are elements of the above conversation which are paraphrased, but it captures the gist of the conversation. It's minor, but even behaviors that I believe to be minute are significant enough to at least one student that it comes up in conversation. That would be why I watch what I say in class, what music I listen to at school, what books I discuss reading, and any other aspect of my life that may be under a teacher microscope.

I believe that celebrities have a legitimate point when they say that they never intended to be a role model. They are in the business of entertainment, not inspiration. We could discuss the philosophy of that all day, but the reality for me as a teacher is that I did pick a job that puts me front and center in my students' lives. I did pick a job where I am to be a role model, even if it is just influencing students through my eating habits. And sometimes it is the most random of moments that bring that truth home.

And if I'm really going to be a model of healthy eating, maybe next time I should pass on the cookie...nah.

Getting the Idea

I love teaching writing. There are many things I love about teaching writing and one of those things is helping students figure out what they want to write about. This week I assigned the first writing challenge of the semester to my AP students: the experience narrative. The writing assignment takes students beyond the typical, tired narrative. They've written narratives before. The experience narrative is a narrative with a purpose. It teaches them about audience. It teaches them about argument. It teaches them that our experiences define who we are and why we think about things in a certain way.

The challenge is the argument and finding a topic that forms an argument. I know it isn't easy and they are supposed to struggle with it. Today my students worked on a freewriting activity and many were freaking out. I was asking them to think about something they had never thought about before and it was upsetting their world. But as I talked with individual students about their topics and helped them dig deeper I watched light bulbs go off. There were a lot who left my classroom without a real idea, but there were some who left knowing what they were going to do. Over the last two days I've been getting emails. Helping students find their voice and their purpose in writing is inspiring. I love to see their ideas come to life. I love to see them figure out how to express themselves. And I love that this is part of their growing process. I'm looking forward to what they come up with.

Oops!

I missed yesterday. Oops. I guess that means a quick make up blog before I force myself to remember to do my blog tonight.

Life happens and yesterday I had a rough afternoon. Of course, it is safe to say that I had a rough afternoon by First World standards. It wasn't really difficult. Nothing really bad happened. But even teachers have those days, especially if they have a personal life.

Yesterday personal life took over my daily blog post. So until tonight, I will just admit that I forgot. Oops! Hope it won't happen again.