Student Opinion Survey

Please spend a few moments answering the following questions. Your opinions and thoughts matter. You are not required to give your name, so please answer as honestly as possible.

1. Do you enjoy your freshman English class? Explain why or why not.
2. Do you believe that it is important to take English classes in high school? Explain why or why not.
3. Do you enjoy the reading assignments required for this class? Explain why or why not.
4. Do you read outside of school? If you answered yes, describe what you enjoy reading.
5. Do you enjoy writing? If yes, describe what kind of writing. If no, explain why.
6. Do you believe that reading and writing are valuable? Explain why or why not.
7. What are your plans after you graduate from High School?
8. This is a two part question: Do you enjoy classroom discussions? Do you prefer small group discussions versus whole class discussions?
9. What do you believe the value and purpose is of classroom discussion?
10. When you have had classroom discussions, what role do you play in the discussion:

____              Discussion Leader
____             Discussion Contributor
____              The Thinker (silent but listening)
____              The Uninterested (unprepared to contribute)
11.  Who do you think is the Discussion Leader in your class? Explain why you think this.
12.  Rank in order from 1-Favorite to 5-Least Favorite your preferred method of learning:
____            Hands-on Activities (role-play, demonstrations, debates)
____            Lectures
____            Discussions (Large and small group)
____            Projects (presentations, writing projects)
____            Homework assignments
13.  Describe your strengths in reading.
14.  Describe what skills in reading you would like to work on improving.

LGBT Resources (Books, etc)

Resources for Students

Elementary School Students

Elwin, R. & Paulse, M. (1990). Asha’s mums. London: Women’s Press.

De Haan, L., & Njland, S. (2002). King and king. Berkeley, CA: Tricycle Press.

Parr, T. (2001). It’s okay to be different. Megan Tingley.

Raschka, C. (1999). Like likes like. New York: DK Publishing.

Richardson, J. & Parnell, P. (2005). And Tango makes three. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Simon, N. (1990). Families: A celebration of diversity, commitment, and love. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Willhoite, M. (1990). Daddy’s roommate. Los Angeles, CA: Alyson Wonderland.

Middle School Students

Bauer, M. D. (1994). Am I Blue? Coming Out From the Silence. New York: HarperCollins.

Cofer, J. O. (1995). “White balloons” in An Island like you: Stories of the barrio. New York: Penguin Group.

Dupre, J. (Director). (1998). Out of the past [Motion picture]. United States: Unipix.

Homes, A. M. (1989). Jack. New York: Vintage Books.

Kerr, M.E. (1998). Hello, I lied. New York: HarperTrophy. (original published in 1997).

Lantz, F. (2001). “Standing naked on the roof.” In D. R. Gallo (Ed.), On the fringe. New

York: Penguin Putnam Books.

Peters, J. A. (2004). Luna. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Rose, L. (Director). (2000). The Truth about Jane [Motion picture]. United States: Starlight Home Entertainment.

Ryan, S. (2001). Empress of the world.  New York: Penguin Group.

Watts, J. (2001). Finding H. F. Los Angeles: Alyson Books.

Wittlinger, E. (2001). Hard love. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks.

Woodson, J. (1995). From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun. New York: Scholastic.

Woodson, J. (1997). The House You Pass on the Way. New York: Random House.

High School Students

Baldwin, D., Carey,  A., Hope, T.,  & Katz R. (Producers). Kaufman, M. (Director). (2003). The Laramie project [Motion picture]. Unites States: HBO Home Video.

Brown, R. M. (1993). Rubyfruit jungle. New York: Quality Paperback. (Original published 1973).

Campo. R. (1996). What the body told. Durham: Duke University Press.

Daldry, S. (Director). (2000).  Billy Elliot [Motion picture]. England: Universal.

Dupre, J. (Director). (1998). Out of the past [Motion picture]. United States: Unipix.

Freymann-Weyr, G. (2002). My Heartbeat. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Garden, N. (1982). Annie on my mind. Farrar Straus & Giroux

Hughes, L.  (1951). Montage of a dream deferred (1^st ed.). New York: Holt.

Naylor, G. (1983). The women of brewster place. (reprint ed. June 30, 1983). New York:

Penguin (Non-classics).

Rose, L. (Director). (2004). Jack [Motion Picture].  United States: Showtime Entertainment. (DVD version: ASIN B0004z2zQ8)

Kerr, M. E. (1994). Deliver us from Evie. New York: HarperCollins.

Plum-Ucci, C. (2002). What happened to Lani Garver. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc.

Sanchez, Alex. 2001. Rainbow Boys. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Walker, A. (1992). The color purple. New York: Harcourt (reprint ed. May 22, 1992).

Walker, K. (1993). Peter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. (Original work published 1991)

Winterson, J. (1994). Written on the body. New York: Vintage. (Original published 1992).

Yamanaka, Lois-Ann. 1999. Name me nobody. New York: Hyperion.

Resources for Teachers

Blount, J. (2005). Fit to teach: Same-sex desire, gender, and school work in the twentieth century. State University of New York Press.

Campos, D.. (2003). Diverse sexuality and schools: A Reference Handbook. Abc-Clio Inc.

Day, F. A. (2000). Lesbian and gay voices: An annotated bibliography and guide to literature for children and young adults. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Fraticelli, R. (Producer) & Fernie, L. (Director). (1997). School’s out! Confronting homophobia in high schools [Motion picture]. (Available from the National Film Board of Canada).

Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network. (2005, July 27). GLSEN: Welcome to booklink! Retrieved October 1, 2005, from

http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/educator/library/record/1736.html

Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network. (2005, June 28). GLSEN: The GLSEN training of trainers program for educators and community-based organizers. Retrieved October 1, 2005, from

http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/educator/library/record/1817.html

Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network. (2005, February 7). The GLSEN lunchbox 2, revised edition: A comprehensive training program for ending anti-LGBT bias in schools. Retrieved October 1, 2005, from

http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/educator/library/record/1748.html

Gray, M. L. (1999). In your face: Stories from the lives of queer youth. New York: Harrington Park Press.

Harris Interactive and GLSEN (2005). From teasing to torment: School climate in America, A survey of students and teachers. New York: GLSEN.

Kissen, R. M. (2002). Getting ready for Benjamin: Preparing teachers for sexual diversity in the classroom. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Kumashiro, K. (Ed.). (2001). Troubling intersections of race and sexuality: Queer students of color and anti-oppressive education. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Lipkin, A. (2004). Beyond diversity day: A Q & A on gay and lesbian issues in schools. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Lobban, Marjorie, and Laurel A. Clyde. 1996. Out of the Closet and Into the Classroom: Homosexuality in Books for Young People. Port Melbourne: Thorpe.

Mitchell, L. (Ed.). (1999). Tackling gay issues in school: A resource module. GLSEN Connecticut and Planned Parenthood of Connecticut.

National Education Association. (2002-2005). Safety, bias, and GLBT issuestraining program. Retrieved October 1, 2005 from https://www.nea.org/takenote/glbtsafe0507.html

Owens, R. E., Jr. (1998). Queer kids: The challenges and promise for lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth. New York: Harrington Park Press.

Rofes, E. (2005). Status quo or status queer. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Sears, J. T. (2005). Gay, lesbian, and transgender issues in education. New York: Harrington Park Press.

Walton, P. (Producer/Director). (1998). Gay youth [Motion picture]. Boston: AMASS Stonewall Center.

Elementary School Teachers

Cohen, H. S. (Producer) & Chasnoff, D. (Producer & Director). (1997). It’s elementary: Talking about gay issues in school [Motion picture]. (Available from Women’s Educational Media, San Francisco, CA)

Epstein, D. (2000). Reading gender, reading sexualities: Children and the negotiation of meaning in ‘alternative’ texts. In W. J. Spurlin (Ed.), Lesbian and gay studies and the teaching of English: Positions, pedagogies, and cultural politics (pp. 213-233). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Letts, William J., and James T. Sears, eds. 1999. Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue about Sexualities and Schooling. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Schall, Janine, and Gloria Kauffmann. 2003. “Exploring Literature with Gay and Lesbian Characters in the Elementary School.” Journal of Children’s Literature 29, no. 1: 36-45.

Sumara, Dennis, and Brent Davis. 1998. “Telling Tales of Surprise.” Pp. 197-219 in Queer

Theory in Education. Edited by William F. Pinar. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Middle School Teachers

Cohen, H. S. (Producer) & Chasnoff, D. (Producer & Director). (1997). It’s elementary: Talking about gay issues in school [Motion picture]. (Available from Women’s Educational Media, San Francisco, CA)

Hamilton, G. (1998). Reading Jack. English education, 30 (1), 24-43.

Sumara, Dennis, and Brent Davis. 1998. “Telling Tales of Surprise.” Pp. 197-219 in Queer

Theory in Education. Edited by William F. Pinar. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

High School Teachers

Athanases, S. Z. (1996). A gay-themed lesson in an ethnic literature curriculum: Tenth graders’ responses to “Dear Anita.” Harvard Educational Review, 66 (2), 231-256.

Cart, Michael. 1997. “Honoring Their Stories, Too: Literature for Gay and Lesbian Teens.” The ALAN Review 25, no. 1: 40-45. Accessed June 12 , 2003. http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/fall97/cart.html.

Jenkins, Christine. 1998. “From Queer to Gay and Back Again: Young Adult Novels with Gay/Lesbian/Queer Content, 1969-1997.” Library Quarterly 68, no.3: 298-334.

Lipkin, Arthur.  1994. “The Case for a Gay and Lesbian Curriculum.” The High School Journal 77, nos. 1 and 2: 95-107.

St. Clair, Nancy. 1995. “Outside Looking In: Representations of Gay and Lesbian

Experiences in the Young Adult Novel.” The ALAN Review 23, no. 1: 38-43

Singer, B. L. (Ed.) (1994). Growing up gay/ Growing up lesbian: A literary anthology.

New York: New Press.

Unks, G. (Ed.). (1995). The Gay teen: Educational practice and theory for lesbian, gay, and bisexual adolescents New York: Routledge.

Walling, Donovan. R. 2004. “Gay- and Lesbian-Themed Novels for Classrooms Reading.”

Journal of Gay and Lesbian Issues in Education 1, no. 2, 97-108.

LGBT Themed Literature

Aarons, L. (1995). Prayers for Bobby: A mother’s coming to terms with the suicide of her gay son. New York: HarperCollins. The book tells the story of Mary Griffith grappling with her son’s coming out, his suicide, and the role of religious intolerance, including her own, in his life and death.

Bauer, M. D. (1994). Am I blue? Coming out from the silence. New York: Harper Collins. This anthology, among the first of its kind, includes fifteen lesbian and gay-themed short-stories written by some of the best authors of young-adult fiction in the field.

Babcock, J. (2002). The tragedy of Miss Geneva Flowers. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. Erick leaves his Catholic high school and family and experiments with drugs, alcohol, sex, and gender before maturing into a confident gay man.

Bechdel, A. (2006). Fun home. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. This graphic-memoir focuses on the author’s coming out as a lesbian and coming to terms with her father’s death in rural Pennsylvania.

Capote, T. (1975/1948). Other voices, other rooms. New York: Vintage International. When Joel Knox is twelve years old he moves from New Orleans to an isolated Louisiana community where he encounters a cast of characters fitting for a southern gothic novel, in this case, a semi-autobiographical one.

Chbosky, S. (1999). The perks of being a wallflower. New York: MTV Books/Pocket Books. Written as a series of letters from the main character, Charlie, this popular young adult novel chronicles Charlie’s life in high school, including his friendship with Patrick, who is gay, and his sister, Sam, with whom Charlie falls in love.

Chopin, K. (1976/1899). The Awakening. In B. H. Solomon (Ed.), The Awakening and selected short stories of Kate Chopin (pp. 1-137). New York: Signet Classics. Edna Pontellier embodies her womanhood in unconventional ways, relative to the social norms of the late 19^th century U.S. south, by rejecting her roles as wife and mother and embracing a younger lover.

Dole, M. L. (2008). Down to the bone. New York: HarperTeen. Laura creates her own family after she gets kicked out of her Catholic high school and her family’s home because she is deeply in love with another girl.

Flagg, F. (1987). Fried green tomatoes at the whistle stop café. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. This novel is both a love story between two women in the 1920s and the story of a burgeoning feminist in the 1980s, both in Alabama.

Goldman, S. (2008). Two parties, one tux, and a very short film about The Grapes of wrath. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. This young adult novel is told from the perspective of Mitchell Wells, a straight high school student, as he comes to terms with his best friend’s coming out as gay.

Hartinger, B. (2003). Geography club. New York: HarperTempest. A group of high school students who feel like outsiders because of their sexual orientations form an after school club where they can socialize without being vulnerable.

Levithan, D. (2003). Boy meets boy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. The book is about what the world might be like if homophobic values were greatly diminished and how the friendships and romantic relationships of Paul, a gay high school student, unfold in such an imaginary world.

Moore, P. (2007). Hero. New York: Hyperion. Thom Creed struggles with his special powers, his infamous father, and his sexuality in this fantasy novel.

Newman, L. (1988). A letter to Harvey Milk. A letter to Harvey Milk: Short Stories, (pp. 25-28). Ithaca: Firebrand Books. Harry, an elderly Jewish man, writes a letter to his friend the late Harvey Milk and a love story about two men in a concentration camp.

Peters, J. A. (2003). Keeping you a secret. New York: Little, Brown, and Young Readers. Holland loses her boyfriend, friends, and family when she falls in love with Cece, an out-and-proud lesbian.

Plum-Ucci, C. (2002). What happened to Lani Garver? Orlando: Harcourt, Inc. Lani Garver, a gender variant high school student, moves to the isolated Hackett Island and becomes friends with Claire McKenzie, a popular girl at the school. Lani is subject to devastating abuse.

Sanchez, A. (2007). The God box. New York: Simon &Schuster. This young adult novel is a rather didactic exploration about the relationship limitations and possibilities between Christianity and homosexuality as it is embodied by two teenage boys.

Sedaris, D. (1997). Holidays on ice. New York: Little, Brown, and Company. This is a collection of short stories related to Christmas. Many of the stories are autobiographical accounts by the out gay author.

Smith, B. (2007). Selfish & perverse. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. An aspiring writer in Los Angeles, Nelson Kumker, and a fisherman and student from Alaska, Roy Briggs, fall in love in this novel.

Tamaki, M. & Tamaki, J. (2008). Skim. Toronto: Groundwood Books. This graphic novel is set in a Catholic girls high school in Canada and focuses on “Skim,” an Asian, goth, Wiccan who develops a crush on one of her female teachers.

Walker, A. (1982). The color purple. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc. This highly acclaimed epistolary novel centers around Celie, an African American woman in rural Georgia in the 1930s, and includes her intimate relationship with another woman.

Wallace, K. (2004). Erik & Isabelle: Freshman year at Foresthill High. Sacramento: Foglight Press.

Wallace, K. (2005). Erik & Isabelle: Sophomore year at Foresthill High. Sacramento: Foglight Press. These are the first two in a series of four books about two best friends, both of whom are gay. Erik is academic, athletic, and being raised in a homophobic household. Isabelle’s family, in contrast, is open and accepting of her lesbian identity. Across these two books, Erik and Isabelle support each other as they endure homophobia and fall in and out of love.

Watts, J. (2001). Finding H.F. Los Angeles: Alyson Books. H.F. lives with her very loving, Christian grandmother; and Bo, her best friend, lives in an overtly homophobic household in rural Kentucky. Both teenagers come to understand themselves as gay in this novel.

Winterson, J. (1992). Written on the body. New York: Vintage International. This British novel tells the love story between the narrator, whose gender is never revealed, and a married woman.

Connecting to Students: Teacher Checklist

Original here

I SHOW RESPECT TO STUDENTS BY:

• Greeting them cordially each day
• Responding to them in a professional manner
• Treating them like young adults

I LEARN ABOUT THE HOMELIFE OF STUDENTS BY

• Creating lessons that would stimulate discussion about family life
• Talking to Students
• Taking time to meet with them individually if necessary
• Caring not only for the student at school, but being interested in their life as a whole

I RESPOND TO STUDENTS PROBLEMS BY

• Giving positive feedback
• Strategizing ways for the students to help themselves
• Offering my own advice and knowledge
• Open door policy(when available students are able to walk in before and after school to talk to teacher about grades, family issues, life in general)

I LEARN ABOUT THE CULTURE OR ETHNIC GROUPS OF STUDENTS BY

• Providing classroom activities that give opportunity for different or diverse perspectives
• Making an effort to plan trips that will broaden the students’ perspectives and expose them to different cultures and ethnic groups

I FURTHER UNDERSTAND THE LANGUAGE DIFFERENCES OF STUDENTS BY

• Creating lesson plans that include the native language of students in my classroom

I PREPARE STUDENTS FOR HIGH EXPECTATIONS BY

• Teaching them critical thinking skills
• Teaching life skills and preparing for the workplace (Building a resume, writing, interview prep, networking etc.)
• Setting a standard of failure not being an option in my classroom

I INCLUDE MULTICULTURAL MATERIAL IN MY DAILY CURRICULUM BY

• Including a number of class projects dealing with global issues

Critical language awareness help

Original Article here

What and why?

In language teaching, we now recognise that language is not simply grammar, but also a system of ‘communication’. For this reason, we often involve students in sharing information, using language for special purposes, expressing opinions and so on. One result of a view of language as ‘communicating’, however, is that it ignores the fact that people do not use language neutrally. Language is used not only as a means of sharing ideas, but also as a way of controlling people and influencing what they think and do. Language use involves making choices about lexis, grammar, register, discourse structure, etc., and these choices are often made for particular reasons. For example, a choice of words may be important Ð an armed group, for instance, might be called ‘terrorists’ or ‘freedom fighters’ depending on whose side you are on. Similarly, the passive voice, for example, might be used to hide facts or give authority to a statement as in, for instance, ‘Ten million pounds were lost last year.’ (We could ask: ‘Who lost them? Why? How? “Lost” means what?’ and so on.) Register might be used to encourage people to act in certain ways. Advertisements, for example, often use a friendly, familiar tone of voice (‘We care for you’) to make people feel that a product is important to them personally. Discourse structure can also determine what your ‘rights’ are in a conversation – as, for example, in a job interview where only one person might have the ‘right’ to ask questions.

In recent years, this way of looking at language has developed into what is now called ‘critical language analysis’ and, in schools, many teachers now try to raise the students’ awareness of how language is used, so they are not so easily influenced by others. The word ‘critical’, here, does not mean ‘negative’ but ‘careful, thoughtful’. (See also CRITICAL PEDAGOGY.)

Practical ideas

• If you start from the assumption that language use involves making choices, you can ask students ‘Why did they say that?’, ‘Why did they use that word rather than another word?’, ‘Why did they use that tense?’, ‘What are they not saying?’ and so on.
• There are many words in English that are typically only used when talking about women, or about men or about children, and this may affect the way we think about people. For example, ‘gossip’ is typically associated with women, while men might ‘talk’. You can give the students a list of words and ask them to categorise them and then discuss why they have categorised them that way. For example, they could try to categorise the following words into ‘About women’, ‘About men’, ‘About boys’, ‘About girls’: beautiful, strong, trustworthy, silly, pretty, mature, gossip, weak, handsome, rough, ambitious. If they put some words in two or more categories, you can discuss how the word changes its meaning.
• You can encourage students to think about statements about things and ask if they are ‘negative’, ‘positive’ or ‘neutral’.
• If the students read a news story, you can ask how the story would change if someone else was reporting it. For example, if the story is about a strike in a factory, how would the story change if the strikers reported it, or the employers, or the government, or customers?
• You can encourage students to think about what the writer thinks about the reader. For example, if you look at an advertisement, what type of people is it appealing to? Does the advertisement suggest (even implicitly) that certain things are desirable? How does the advertisement do this?
• If there are words in English in public places in your country or if English is creeping into the students’ mother tongue, you could ask students to consider why, in each case, English is used. Some writers talk about ‘linguistic imperialism’ to describe how English is entering into other languages.
• You can ask students to think about mother tongue language use too: which words are used mainly by young people? Which words are more ‘official’? Can they think of any English equivalents?
• You can ask the students to look at the conversations in theOut and about sections and to choose one of the characters. If that character changed to, for example, ‘head teacher’ how would the language change?

Twilight Remix Video

The Twilight Remix video I showed my class.  It’s hilarious.

MDT Day 2 Reflection

I wasn’t any less nervous for Day 2, despite the fact that I’d already completed Day 1, and it went awesome.  Day 2, I certainly didn’t feel went nearly so well.  The day didn’t start off well, and as cliché as it sounds, there were bad vibes in the room and the kids seemed to pick up on it and weren’t nearly as enthusiastic as the day before.  I started off the class by finishing up presenting their created poems from the day before.  I tried to get them to think about why they chose the words they did, and how the two poems differed in tone, but the kids didn’t seem interested in going back and looking at work they’d already done.  This problem of not wanting to go back and look at previously completed work is something that I’d love to work on with them if I had more time or opportunities.  I also had the challenge of trying to quickly explain to Issa and Trish (who were absent the day before) what we were discussing without taking too much time away from the class.

Moving into the lesson I’d planned for today, I began by trying to get them thinking about what they already knew about parody.  My hope was to tap some knowledge that they already had, and just make them realize that there was a name for it.  I felt like that whole approach fell flat and that made me flustered, which in turn set the tone for the rest of the lesson.  I felt rushed and worried they didn’t understand the concepts, and probably didn’t give them enough wait time to let them process what I was telling them.

After trying to verbally explain what parody was, and not getting very good feedback there, I decided to move the next portion, which was to show them the Buffy vs. Edward video.  I was sure this would go over well, and get the kids interested and excited, and for the most part they did seem engaged, but it came with some difficulties.  Technology decided to work against me, causing a waste of time as Deb helped me connect the sound system to the computer.  Already feeling flustered and rushed, this compounded it.  I introduced the video, to the class’s skepticism, and then took the six minutes of its duration to walk around the room, take deep breaths and try to refocus on what the next part of my lesson entailed.

After the video I tried to engage the students in thinking about perceived stereotypes by focusing on how Edward was portrayed in Twilight and in the Remix.  I also wanted them to think about how the tone of the Remix changed the perception of the movie and of its themes.  I segued this into thinking about what parody means, and how it mocks an original piece, resulting in something funny.  I’m not sure how many of the students caught this and how many were just entertained by the video and didn’t think much deeper than that.

Could this be a problem with connecting too much with the students?  Is there such a thing as being too close to a subject, or being able to relate too much that you can’t step back and analyze?  I think this is going to be one of my major questions in teaching.  I think I’ll be able to bring in a lot of materials the students can relate to, but should I if it impairs their ability or desire to step back and analyze the material?  Definitely something that needs to be examined further and experimented with before a decision either way is made.

The next portion of the lesson was what I knew was going to be the hardest to relate to the students: reading the Renaissance poems.  I asked for volunteers to read, and after a flat silence, Devon, who doesn’t normally speak up, offered to read.  That is what rapport does, when a teacher is flustered, and a student who you’ve built a rapport with sees that, she’ll step up to help you out.  She read the first two stanzas, stumbling over a few words.  I stopped her there, partly out of a desire to get other people to participate, and partly because I didn’t want her to feel too on the spot.  Upon reflection, I probably could have just let her keep going.

I read the reply poem aloud.  I tried to do the whole walking around the classroom and reading at the same time thing.  I can only assume that is a skill that will come with practice.  I had a hard time walking and reading and trying to be aware of the class around me all at the same time, just praying that I wouldn’t fall flat on my face if I were to trip over something.

After reading the poem I first rehashed the poems in plain English, in a way I thought the students would understand.  I thought this went well, and definitely helped to demystify the language the poems were written in.  I then asked students to take a couple of minutes to find tone words in the poems like we did yesterday.  When I then asked them to share some of the words they came up with, I had a difficult time underlining them on the Smart Board.  It had gotten unaligned, and when the students shouted out words, I couldn’t find what stanza they were in.  I probably should have prefaced this portion by asking them to give the word and the line number.  We then used this information to determine the overall tone of the poems, how they’re different, and how the second one mocks the first.  I don’t think I gave this enough time, but at the time was worried about getting through everything.

The next step of the lesson was reading the “How to be a Good Wife” article.  This went a lot better than I thought it would.  The class finally started to show some signs of life and emotion.  They had opinions about this piece of writing, and in my excitement that they were finally reacting to something, I neglected to reinforce the fact that the article was actually part of a textbook and taught to students in high school.  I instead jumped right into talking about their writing assignment and letting them know they would have a chance to rewrite the article or write a parody response to a poem or song.  I showed them the student model of the article rewrite and quickly introduced the rubric for the writing assignment, and went over guidelines.

I was running over my projected timing, so I don’t necessarily think that moving right into the writing assignment was a bad choice, just not following my plan as well as I’d have liked, especially since my personal focus for this lesson was to try a different strategy by sticking to my planning notes and trying not to deviate.  I did learn from this that being flexible with my planning works much better for me than meticulously following every single thing I write down.  It’s helpful to have to fall back on for those times when I do get flustered (I learned that as well), but I’m much more comfortable, and thus feel like I teach better, when I feel able to run with the input I’m getting from the students.

I instructed students to run their ideas by me first, in writing, before heading down to the lab with Deb to begin drafting their assignment.  I think this is a wonderful idea in theory, but if I were to do something like this again I’d need to figure out a better way to be sure each student had something written down before they left.  I know I didn’t check everyone before they headed down to the lab, but I had no way to verify that they actually did brainstorm before leaving.

When I got down to the lab it was like a whole new class was waiting for me.  They were excited ad writing their assignment.  This was class I remembered from the day before.  I didn’t even see anyone playing games on the Internet instead of writing or brainstorming (unusual!).  They actually seemed to be excited about writing their own article or their own parody response.  I’m not sure how well they understood the concept of parody as a mocking of an original text, but they definitely liked the idea of rewriting their own ideas into a pre-determined form.  I haven’t received their assignments yet, but I think they’ll be interesting to read.

MDT Day One Reflection

My first day of teaching is out of the way.  I thought it went extremely well, all things considered.  Gods, was I a mess this morning.  I was nervous about how the students would react to me, my observers, and the video camera.  I was afraid of forgetting handouts or not making enough copies or not being able to get the Smart Board to work for me.  I was worried about completely drawing a blank when I went to define terms or talk about passages or that I’d completely screw up when I was reading aloud and make a hugely obvious Freudian slip or something similar.  I was scared I stand up at the front of the room and just vomit and my dreams of teaching would be done for.  I ran out the door, and hopped into my freezing car, and ate my breakfast (of a sensible ham sandwich) on the way to school during my 25-minute drive.  About halfway there, it occurred to me to breathe.  I decided to mildly meditate (as much as one can while driving) in order to calm down a bit, and once I had regained a normal-ish heart rate, I prayed to both Dionysus and Apollo: for support and calm, and to help me to think quick on my feet while I was teaching.  When I got to school I offered up the last of my sandwich that I’d saved for them, took a deep breath, gathered my things, and went it.

I got all my copies made in the morning, and talked to Deb, telling her I was observing two of my peers first and second period, but then I’d be down 3^rd period to set up and ready to teach 4^th period.  I was pretty calm by this point, because now that I’d started doing things, I was beginning to lose my nerves simply because I was finally acting, and no longer just thinking of every single little thing that could possibly go wrong.  I watched Eileen first period (wow, was her class quiet and somewhat non-engaged).  She seemed super calm, though she confided to me before she began that she’d had uber-amounts of caffeine and she was all jittery, and told me afterwards that though she didn’t feel particularly nervous while she was teaching, she did notice that her legs were shaking throughout her lesson.  I went to go watch John next.  He had a really, really small class, only 15 kids or so.  I felt entirely lost during his lesson, but I got the sense that the disorganization that seemed to be there was the norm for the class.  It seemed to be a very casual environment, and I got the sense that it was more laid-back and easy going about assignments because a lot of the kids were on IEPs.  I’m not sure if that’s the case, but it seemed to be for me.  His kids seemed to be pretty quiet too though, even though he did steal from Frank’s favorite movie (Mona Lisa Smile), and ask them what is art and what makes it good.

After watching the two calm and quiet classes 1^st and 2^nd period I was starting to get nervous again.  My class was not quiet and calm for me, knowing this from the previous lesson I’d taught.  It’s good in a way: my kids seem to want to participate and want to contribute, but this lesson I’m teaching is for a grade for me.  I was afraid I’d be judged on how I handled them in a classroom management sense.  I got a couple minutes to talk with them before the bell rang, and told them that I was teaching today, and it was a grade for me, so could they please be the wonderful students I know are in there somewhere for me.  Most of them seemed to understand this sentiment and go with it for me.  Even Trey, who I was actually the most worried about, thanks to his outrageous response to the last prompt I’d given them during a previous lesson.

During 3^rd period I got the Smart Board all set up and set out my copies of handouts in order.  I was ready to go!  And the lesson went swimmingly from there…

My lesson is on Tone Words and parody.  Today we just covered tone words: what they are, how they’re used, and why they’re used.  I started out with an example about how when I was a teenager, and I got home past my curfew and when I tried to explain it to my mom, she just said “Now don’t take that tone of voice with me!”  I asked students if they’d had similar experiences and what they though tone meant.  I used this example to segue into asking them what they thought the definition of tone was.  They gave me examples (body language, voice, word choice, adjectives, etc) and I wrote them down on the Smart Board PowerPoint I’d made.  I then pulled down the cover shape and showed them the dictionary definition.  I’d already handed out their guided notes sheets, so I directed them to write it down on there.  We then went on to talk about how and why tone is used, and they once again gave me a few examples (to persuade, to make writing & reading more interesting, etc.), which I wrote down on the Smart Board.  Then I pulled down the cover shape again, to show them the summarized version that I’d come up with.  We talked about where they thought the lesson was going, and why they need to learn this.  I brought up the point that it makes writing more interesting, and they wouldn’t want to read something that is all bland and boring, and neither do Mrs. Cornelius or I.  So they need to learn to write descriptively in order to make their writing worth reading for us and others, and because it’ll help them meet that elusive word count.  I think the latter reason interested them more.

After talking about what tone is, why and how to use it, we moved onto identifying tone words.  I planned on modeling finding tone words first, but the kids jumped in by identifying them for me, and so I took it, and ran with it.  First we looked for tone words in an Endymion Spring passage, and then in a passage from Oliver Twist.  They did a pretty good job of finding tone words, though I had the same problem with them just kind of shouting out words as I’m trying to keep up with them.  I think it’s just the way the class seems to engage best, though it makes me feel like I flying by the seat of my pants trying to ride a wild horse.  I’m so glad I have improv theater training.  I’d say I have no idea what I’d do or what would happen if I didn’t, but after observing my mentor teacher and some of my peers, I’ve seen what it looks like when you feel tied down and unable to deviate from your plan.  Towards the end of the activity they started just yelling out random words, and I had to slow them down and prompt them to think about whether or not the word they said was really a descriptive tone word.  After finding the tone words, we determined what the overall tone of the piece was, or if it shifted.  I think Nikki got frustrated with the boys in the back shouting out random words because towards the end of that section she spoke up loud and clear with definitive tones using an extensive vocabulary.

After the more presentational section it was time to move into the activity section.  I told the kids this and then shifted into my dialect I use with my friends and said “Yay happy fun times!”  The kids seem to like that.  I think it let them relate to me a little bit more.  I had them count off into groups of six.  They wanted to choose their own groups, but I just countered that request with “Nope” and a smile, and they didn’t argue, or even seem to really mind.  I’ve seen how them choosing their own groups goes: they get off task and just chat with their friends.  I get the sense that they’re way to comfortable working in the same groups every time, and that one person seem to end up doing all the work.

The activity we did was “Poem Strips” where I wrote a bland 12- line poem and gave each group 4 lines to make super descriptive.  I had groups 1-3 make their poem happy, excited and bouncy, and groups 4-6 make their poem sad, dull and gloomy.  I gave them 10 minutes or so to work on creating their poems.  I told them to have one person write and at least two people looking for descriptive words in their tone word packet.  When they were done with their 4 lines I had them write their stanza up on the board so we could read them at the end of class.  Some groups finished a lot faster than others, and I had a hard time redirecting them to try improving their poem rather than just chatting and losing focus.  I realized when I got home I forgot to assign them the homework.  I’d wanted them to bring in a song or poem that they like that shows a specific tone for tomorrow so we could use it for their writing assignment.  Maybe I’ll just ask Deb if they can use the poem they brought in for Poetry Out Loud on Friday.  That may work.  Anyways, the poems they created turned out awesome!

Original:

I walked through the grass and saw a bird

He looked at me and flew away

I remembered my lover and sat down

And thought about her.

She had dark hair and eyes.

She was tall and wore a dress.

There was a dog she owned

Just like my heart.

I stood up and walked home

My lover wasn’t at the house anymore

The bird made noises at me as I left

To get a present for my lover.

Happy, Excited, Bouncy:

I galloped through the magnificent grass and saw an extravagant bird.

He glanced at me and exuberantly flew away.

I reminisced about my lover, and contentedly sat down

And thought smiling, about her enchantment.

She had graceful hair and twinkling eyes.

She was towering and gracefully wore a magnificent dress.

There a jubilant dog she pleasantly owned

Coinciding to the behemoth of my heart.

I bounced up and galloped home.

My devoted lover left our joyful place of slumber.

The bird enthusiastically sang a magnificent song as I glided away

To retrieve a lovely present for my affectionate lover

Sad, Dull, Gloomy:

I slumped through the nappy grass and saw a grotesque bird.

He glanced through me and flew lethargically away.

I reminisce nauseated darling and quietly slump down

And pondered gloomily about her.

She had dark hair and despairing eyes.

She was tall and wore a gloomy blue dress

There was an unloved, homeless dog she owned

Dreadful, just like my tired heart.

I stood up dejected and walked home by my lonesome.

My wicked lover wasn’t at the dreadful house anymore.

The miserable bird made scornful noises at me as I left hopeless

To get a nauseated present for my repulsive lover.

Romeo and Juliet (text messages)

Act 1

Login: Romeo : R u awake? Want 2 chat?
Juliet: O Rom. Where4 art thou?
Romeo: Outside yr window.
Juliet: Stalker!
Romeo: Had 2 come. feeling jiggy.
Juliet: B careful. My family h8 u.
Romeo: Tell me about it. What about u?
Juliet: ‘m up for marriage f u are. Is tht a bit fwd?
Romeo: No. Yes. No. Oh, dsnt mat-r, 2moro @ 9?
Juliet: Luv U xxxx
Romeo: CU then xxxx

Act 2

Friar: Do u?
Juliet: I do
Romeo: I do

Act 3

Juliet: Come bck 2 bed. It’s the nightingale not the lark.
Romeo: OK
Juliet: !!! I ws wrong !!!. It’s the lark. U gotta go. Or die.
Romeo: Damn. I shouldn’t hv wasted Tybalt & gt banished.
Juliet: When CU again?
Romeo: Soon. Promise. Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu.
Juliet: Miss u big time.

Act 4

Nurse: Yr mum says u have 2 marry Paris!!
Juliet: No way. Yuk yuk yuk. n-e-way, am mard 2 Rom.

Act 5

Friar: Really? O no. U wl have 2 take potion that makes u look ded.
Juliet: Gr8

Act 6

Romeo: J-why r u not returning my texts?
Romeo: RUOK? Am abroad but phone still works.
Romeo: TEXT ME!
Batty: Bad news. J dead. Sorry l8

Act 7

Romeo: J-wish u wr able 2 read this…am now poisoning & and climbing in yr grave. LUV U Ju xxxx

Act 8

Juliet: R-got yr text! Am alive! Ws faking it! Whr RU? Oh…
Friar: Vry bad situation.
Juliet: Nightmare. LUVU2. Always. Dagger. Ow!!!

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by cartoonist Roz Chast, first published in the New Yorker