Les Feuilles d'Automne

Les Feuilles d'Automne

Saturday, 24 March 2012

Week 3 - English unit has begun

So I'm halfway through my English unit plan and so far so good.  I accomplished what I was hoping to accomplish and I started my learning wall.  I had no idea how that was going to go.  I asked the children to put up a post it note with a question about their novels, or vocabulary from their novel, or answer a question that they found on the board.  I was really impressed with some of the questions that they had, as well as with some of the answers they were able to answer.  I don't know the answers to all of the questions, which is pretty cool because we'll all be learning something together.  I think I will use the learning wall as a way to get into the issues that have come up from the book, because it is a way of responding to what the students are interested in, is directly related to the novels that we are reading, that will make them more engaged/interested in what we are learning.

I'm pretty exhausted from teaching 100% of the classes this last week.  All I could do on Friday when I got home was to eat dinner, put on a movie for my kids, and sleep until Saturday.  I have to teach 100%, for one more week, and I just feel so very wiped.  I don't know how teachers do it for the whole year.  I am really looking forward to a special guest that I have arranged to come and talk to my class on Thursday.  One of the novels we are reading is called "Shattered" by Eric Walters, and it talks a lot about what happened in Rwanda.  I have a friend who does work there, and he will come in to talk to the kids about what it's like in Rwanda and what is happening now.  I think it'll be really interesting for the kids, and great to get to talk to someone who has been there.  They have a lot of questions about why the genocide happened, and the history.

I've already done the first assessment for the English unit - an oral assessment of dramatic presentations the kids gave in groups for specific chapters in the book.  They didn't know what happened before their chapters or what happened after.  Each group went in order, so that over 2 days, the kids knew the complete story of the book.  While the class watched the presentation, my AT suggested I give the kids a handout to take notes about what was happening, to keep them engaged while watching by giving them something to do; and to make sure that they finished the 2 days knowing the whole story.  We used "Freytag's Triangle" for our handouts - Freytag is someone who said that every narrative has 5 parts: The exposition (introduction), rising action, climax, denouement (falling action), and conclusion.

My next assessment piece is a reflection journal that the children will submit based on what they thought about the story.  There are 6 sections - general response, asking questions, making inferences, making connections, making predictions, and determining importance.  I went through each section with them, and I modeled both of those activities before I had the children do them.  To model the dramatic presentatino, I did a monologue of 2 of the characters to introduce chapter 1 of each book (the grade 7's had one book and the grade 8's had another book.)  I realize in hindsight I didn't do a great job of modeling what I wanted.  I should have either improvised my monologue, making sure I knew the important points I wanted to get across; or I should have memorized my monologues.  Instead, I read them (with as much drama and acting and feeling as I could - but I was still stuck to the page).  I did tell the groups that I didn't want them to be reading but wanted a dramatic interpretation, and some of the groups really delivered, but others did basically read a script, and I do feel my modeling of it was probably a big part of why they did it that way.  And to model the reflection journals, I filled one out and then typed it out so that the students could see what kinds of things I put down for each category, if they were unsure of what to do.

Next week, the last assignment that will be do will be to write a personal opinion paper about one of the issues we discuss from the novels (on Monday we'll talk about poverty and on Tuesday we'll talk about racism).  I am going to give them Wednesday in class to write their papers and to give them a chance to show me their work before Thursday morning when it is due - so that they can get some feedback before I am actually marking it for a mark.  Thursday, as I mentioned, my friend will come in to talk to the grade 8's about Rwanda, and the grade 7's will have a free class because one of the younger grades needs an "older class" to interview, and my AT offered our grade 7's.  Friday, I will give everyone back their work, and anyone who had to miss the dramatic demonstration will present their personal opinion papers orally, as an alternate oral assessment.

One more week.  Hope I survive it!  Look forward to getting back to OISE.

2 comments:

  1. Drink Red Bull. Lots of Red Bull.

    caveat: I've never even tried RB, I don't use caffeine, and RB may cause heart attacks. possibly.

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  2. Thanks for the tip - but I would never drink RB :) I am stressed as it is, I don't want to give myself a heart attack :) Hope your practicum is going well. I assume it is since you last said if it's going smoothly, then there's nothing to write (and I have been looking out for your blog ;)

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