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?