It's Short Story Time!

I began the year with poetry (for my 10th grade English class) because: (a) it is a big part of the Cambridge program and I needed to get refreshed myself; (b) it is a good way to review literary terms students will use the rest of the year; and (c) honestly, it was the easiest to plan for. It's been years since I have "taught" all of the elements of ELA. Of course, I incorporated it in my methods classes (and I did teach YA lit and writing); however, going back to teach it to high school students is like starting all over again. Now, that we are at the point to take the first quarter test and move on, I am going to do a unit of short stories. Again, I can review and reinforce key terms students will need for novels and plays. Also, I want to get some foundation work in so we can really dive into the longer works the rest of the year. So . . . it is time to really hit literary theory and critical literacy! (I did try it a little with poetry, but our anthology has old, old poems for the most part). I wanted to share this chart I made because over the past five years as I have written about and presented research from my YA lit class some colleagues have asked for it. I didn't come up with this--I just compiled from some really smart people:

The District Visit!

Today was the much anticipated (and dreaded?) visit from the district-level reading folks. Like many other places our district purchased packaged programs and technology for the reading classes. I won't comment on those right now other than to say that we are supposed to be doing rotations every day with them, and--frankly--there is not enough with one of them to do that. The other one, although adults think is wonderful, the kids are not in love with. Yes, they read a lot of non-fiction articles, which is good, but still. I ask you: how much non-fiction reading (of online articles) do you do for fun (and reading journals for work does not count)? I know that when I was in high school I did not choose non-fiction articles about volcanoes, the electoral college, bikes for rent, etc. for my reading pleasure. Back to my topic. So, I knew I could not put on a dog and pony show. And, I was not going to do rotations just to do rotations. I stuck with my plan, which was related to the readings in the one mandated text--I just wasn't using that text yet. I found some great teacher-made videos about figurative language in pop culture. I showed those--as a bridge between the short story we read last and the poem coming up AND because literary devices is on our state graduation exam--and then had students label music lyrics with what the devices were. This is nothing new, I know, but it is more interesting and more relevant than the stuff in the textbook. Then, I did shades of meaning (since tone and mood are part of our "cluster" we have to study at this time of year). The students did great, and they really seemed to love it. My non-native speakers did really well with it, too. While I kept teaching, the entourage had 10 minute visit and then 10 minute pow wow outside my door (I saw it going on while I continued teaching). After class ended, I met with my AP . . . she said they thought it was a "creative" lesson and they liked that I was doing shades of meaning with them. I wonder if I will get nailed for no rotations?

Too Much Knowledge Can Be a Bad Thing

Overwhelmed. If there was one word to describe myself in terms of planning for instruction that would be it. When I first began teaching in 1996, I was six years out of my teacher education program and four years post-masters. In between I subbed and waited tables. Pretty far removed from where I thought I would be. In fact, when I got the call to come teach, I was living 13 hours away waiting tables at a Cajun restaurant. It was what I had been waiting for, so I packed my car and drove back to Florida--and started teaching. My teaching toolbox at that time was pretty small. I think I did a good job, but I only had so many good strategies to pull from. Now, nearly two decades and a PhD later, my toolbox is essentially the size of a garage. I have TONS of really, really good tools from a ton of really, really smart folks (Jago, Beers, Blau, Probst, Smagorinsky, Milner, etc.). It is almost crippling because I want to use ALL of what I know, and that is simply impossible. Every day a war wages in my mind about whose ideas to use. In thinking too much and too long maybe I am just missing out on the obvious. My fear is that this back and forth and indecision is hindering rather than helping my students . . .

Some Very Tardy Musings on Professional Development

I should have posted this long ago, but--frankly--I am still thinking about it. Professional Development. In particular, mandated professional development. I was a classroom teacher before, during, and after the insanity of NCLB (and that insanity started long before 2002 here in Florida due to Jeb Bush being Georgie Porgie's brother). Before NCLB, there were very high-quality professional development offerings that I attended, some of which had stipends. I remember CRISS training and Discipline with Dignity. I took part in action research regarding vocabulary and I spent the summer with other teachers working on creating a Differentiating Instruction manual for our peers. These were wonderful experiences--and I still use the materials from them. However, a lot has changed. First, it was all about the FCAT and beating the test. These types of strategies only work for the test; they don't carry over into real-life. Now, with CCSS, it is all about text-dependent questions. I am SO over taking (already poorly written) questions in the textbook and (simply) turning them into text-dependent questions by adding, "according to the text" or "the text says." That is NOT high-quality nor higher-order questioning.