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This semester...

Goals for the semester
A) Develop lessons that address Essential Questions
B) Get to know students as individuals
C) Find and settle into a teaching style
D) Tailor instruction to needs of different students
E) Improve/Develop my questioning/presentation skills

How will I achieve these goals?
Mostly, I think these goals will be achieved through working with my coop teacher; specifically, by observing what she does, asking questions about her teaching, and using her as a model. I also will look to my subject area and pedagogy mentors for suggestions, criticism, and support. Last, I will turn to my fellow TFL classmates and RG as resources. Of course, I will take ultimate responsibility for whether these goals are met or not.

Why are the goals important?
I believe if I can make significant progress in achieving goals A) through E), I'll be on my way from being a student of teaching to a teacher of students.

Here's the Power Point slide show I created to teach a chapter from THE STRANGER by Albert Camus.

Journal Entry 8 (12/6 LHS visit)

I was happy to learn that Mr. T. has decided to keep the girl complaining about sitting next to the child with Asperger's exactly where she is. We agreed that part of growing up is being able to deal maturely (and compassionately, though that might be a stretch) with the "other."

A further nice note with regards to "Richie," the Aspergian, was how gently the three boys in group work treated him. I wasn't sure what the dynamic there was going to be like, but they were nothing but lovely to him.

The best and worst part of my day was when I tried to go over a Dwight Garner book review from the New York Times with the journalism class. I started out OK, but when I looked up I saw dozens of eyes gazing at me and I lost my confidence and shut down. I know it was a wasted opportunity, but I can't beat myself up too much, I suppose.

I am going to be working on a lesson for The Stranger next Thursday. I'd love for that to come off well to close out my experience at the school.

Journal Entry 7 (Nov. 29 LHS visit)

Before homeroom began today, I ran into a teacher who coaches the Quiz Bowl team at LHS. This is a sort of intramural form of Jeopardy, and at this school, it is not played for laughs: There are rigorous tryouts and a very selective student nominating procedure. If Quiz Bowl is any indication, academics are taken seriously, even competitively, at LHS.

Journal Entry 6 (11/15 LHS visit)

Today was a mix of things great and disheartening, inspiring and strange. I'll start with the positives. In first period, I observed a 9th-grade honors class taught by Ms. J. (My coop teacher, Mr. T., was giving a test so I took the opportunity to check out another teacher at work.) It was Character Debate day, which meant each of the participating students were charged with impersonating a character from their course reading and viewing for a student-moderated verbal joust. Characters included a few from the class's main text, Great Expectations (e.g., Pip, Estella, Miss Havisham), and several from ancillary stuff: Winnie and Kevin from The Wonder Years, the kid from John Updike's short story "A&P," etc. It was really interesting to see how to pull off a creative approach to characterization that helped students practice their speaking and debating skills. There were clear expectations in the form of a rubric and very little input from the teacher, as she was turning over control to the cast of characters and the moderators. My only question is how much those not participating derived from this. There was an attempt to incorporate the nonparticipants by having them ask questions and everyone seemed engaged, so perhaps this is a nonissue.

Also wonderful and worth remembering was student reaction to "Boys" by Rick Moody. Several senior honors students mentioned that this was perhaps one of the only short stories they read during their high school careers that really engaged them. I have it socked away for the future, even though there is some content that might be objectionable in a more conservative school.

High among the things I found bizarre was a short-essay test Mr. T. administered. The test was handed out, but what followed was not the quiet scratching of pens on paper with pensive pauses I expected. One student after another, after another, after another would raise his/her hand or wander back to Mr. T. to ask questions, have him read what they'd written, etc. I can't understand how this is fair to anyone trying to concentrate or to anyone who didn't get individualized help. Especially disturbing was that Richie (not a real name for a student with Asperger's) came back from a restroom break after the test had begun and that it took at least another ten additional minutes to get Richie the necessary materials for him to start. Later in the day, I saw that Richie did get additional time, but all I can say is the way this test was administered to him and the whole climate in general seemed non- or substandard to me.

I continued to attempt to insinuate myself into discussions and help out students where I could. I want to get more involved in the few sessions I have left!

Journal Entry 5 (11/8 LHS visit)

Sometimes factors outside our control intrude with undeniable force and must be reckoned with. Such was the case with Hurricane Sandy, which shortly after my last visit to LHS, knocked out power to millions, cost the Atlantic seaboard billions in damages, ruined homes, destroyed vital infrastructure, and--worst of all--resulted in more than a hundred deaths. On top of all this, a nor'easter blew through last night, cruelly dumping about 6" of snow on a beleaguered populace.

Life goes on, and to prove it, I rallied myself from my nest of blankets in front of my fireplace to my fifth observation. Because of the nor'easter, LHS had a delayed opening. The practical effect of this was far less instructional time. Not only was there a time crunch throughout the day, but the school's computer system was on the blink. All day long my coop teacher had to find creative workarounds to no Internet access and no way to get to his documents.

Other than these hardships, there were a few moments that stood out:

• I got to see Mr. T. call on a child with (what I think is) Asperger's. It was heartening to see him engage this child in the grammar lesson and allow the student the time to wrestle with the question he posed. Mr. T. showed excellent patience and was warmly encouraging as the student thought his way to the right answer.
• I involved myself in class discussions a number of times today. During the grammar discussion, I told students that in my day job at an insurance services company people made subject/verb blunders all the time, particularly when indefinite pronouns were used. I tried to motivate them by showing them that grammar was important outside the classroom and that mastering it would give them a competitive advantage in the workplace. In the journalism class, I suggested students doing survey research for articles should try doing them through Google docs because it would let them effortlessly gather the opinions of a much broader sample of respondents.
• In general, I laughed more and interacted less awkwardly with students than ever before. It is becoming easier and easier to do this as they become accustomed to me and me to them.

I will close with a fervent prayer that my power gets restored soon and that I won't need to resort to posting from the town library...