The First Day!

Today marked the first day of school. Talk about jitters! I felt unprepared this year because there was so many new things I wanted to do, but I made it through. While today was mostly a discussion of procedures with a bit of learning activities, it was a solid day. I love the class that I have been given, and I think the year will be fantastic! I just have to get used to being on my feet for so long and for talking so long!

How did your first day go this year? What was special about it? What did you do differently on this first day?

Back Again

It has been a while since I blogged. I planned on blogging more often since class officially ended, but the schedule of a new school year has left me with little time. However, I have finally found a good time to get in a blog entry.

This Wednesday we officially started our work days. We met together for a breakfast at the high school, met the new people, talked about benefits, etc. This day got me super excited for the school year. First of all, we have a new superintendent as our superintendent received a position at my alma mater, Dordt College. I have gotten to know him a bit over the past few weeks, and he is a great man to be around and has some great plans for our school. We also are bringing in several new teachers, both at the elementary and high school levels. This amongst other changes has me thinking about how great the year will be.

One of the main things our superintendent wants us to focus on is collaboration. We have developed collaboration teams for specific grade levels as well as departmental teams. Hopefully this brings unity between the different sectors of school, and we can create a fluid academic plan for the students as they come through our school.

I also got my class list, and I am so excited to have the students I do. This class was my wife's first class, so she knows many of my students and I have gotten to know them as well. I have high expectations for myself this year as I have reflected on my teaching practices. I know I won't be able to fix all of the issues, but I know that there is plenty for me to work on.

We have two more work days before the students come. I don't feel fully ready because we usually have more work days before the weekend comes. I still need to meet with our other teachers to develop our schedule, but hopefully that doesn't take us too long to figure out! The students come in on Monday evening to meet me and find their locker assignments, so I need to be pretty well prepared for then. Hopefully I can get plenty done that morning.

Classroom Blogging Activity

Course: 6^th Grade Reading

Learning Objectives:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.6.1 Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.6.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.6.3 Describe how a particular story’s or drama’s plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.6.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of a specific word choice on meaning and tone

Blogging: Students will be invited to the classroom blog, so they can make entries. The students will be required to respond to teacher entries and will have to post at least one entry themselves. Students will need to respond to other student entries as well.

Activities: Throughout the school year, we read a classroom novel, and when we finish, we break up into small groups to read a smaller novel. We work on specific reading skills throughout each literature circle unit. For this activity, the teacher will post entries based on each group’s book. The entries will ask the students to explain what a piece of the text meant, draw conclusions from a question, define a new word based on context, or summarize what was read. The entries will rotate from group to group as there won’t be enough time or computers for each group to do it each day. The students will also be required to post at least one entry of their own. This could include questioning what a section means, asking for others’ thoughts when reading, etc.

Assessment: Students will be assessed by their blogging activity: are they commenting, are there comments thoughtful, did they post their own entry? Many of the entries posted by me won’t necessarily have a right or wrong answer, but I do want them to develop certain reading skills. The demonstration of those skills, such as searching the text for evidence or using clues from the text will factor into the assessment as well.

Activity Timeline: While we have not decided on what books we will use for this project this year, this is what the timeline would look like:

Day 1: After reading the title, viewing the cover, and reading the back, what do you think will happen in this story? (Read assigned pages)

Day 3: Now that you have read a bit of the book, what is your impression of the main character(s)? (Read assigned pages)

Day 5: Pick out three new/difficult words. Based on the context, what do you think these words mean? Respond to others as well. (Read assigned pages)

Day 7: Write a detailed summary of what has happened so far. Remember to include key details. Do not make your summary too long.

Day 9: Look at your entry from day 3, where you shared your impression of the main character(s). How does the character compare now? What events shaped the character to be this way? (Use specific references from the text, not your personal opinions). (Read assigned pages).

Day 12: Now that you are finished with the book, have a blogging discussion with your classmates (We will allow the discussion to continue for a few days, so you can respond to your classmates). What was your favorite part about this book? Why? What did you like least about this book? Why? What do you still have questions about? Describe what you believe to be the main conflict and how it was resolved. How would you resolve it?

Final Notes: The different groups would have a different blog so the posts do not intertwine with each other and confuse students. The activity timeline is only a general timeline that could be used for the majority of the different novels. During the “missing” days, students would be reading a section and possibly working on a different activity. More specific questions could be addressed when the books are finalized. This is also a general overview of how long it might take to read through the novel. Reading sections could be extended or shortened to allow for a different length of the unit.