It may have been a few months since my last blog post, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been thinking: school...school...school!! The summer months have been busy so far and a lot of what I have been up to has involved planning for my awesome upcoming teaching line for the '18-'19 school year. I am changing everything up (instruction/assessment-wise) in some really big ways and a couple big ideas have been inspired by the two texts mentioned in the title. In this entry, I will get you caught up on summer fun and discuss at length both of the texts and why I find them important.
SUMMER FUN!
Since school let out on Wednesday 6/13 and our seniors graduated on Friday 6/15 I have been going nonstop. The summer began with a bang down at Carowinds and Busch Gardens to ride some awesome rollercoasters with friends and proceeded directly into my CollegeBoard APLang training.
Yes, I am teaching APLang next year - two sections - and I cannot wait! The class was jam-packed with amazing ideas and resources. It was wonderful getting to work with passionate educators and collaborate regarding the best ways to engage students in the content and give them voice and choice in the process. My APLang ideas will be discussed at length in my September post (yes I have all my blogs planned through to the end of the year). But like I said, the training was fantastic!
Moving right along, I got to spend a weekend visiting with my Grandmother - we went to the mall, movies, dinner, church, and spent a lot of time catching up. And once I returned from that... the first of my two summer stock musicals began. We rehearsed Act 1 of The Wedding Singer with 39 amazing high school students who helped me and my vocal director start our very own production company. The kids couldn't have been more incredible as they completely embraced and exceeded expectations on our mission. Our goal was to bring quality full-length community theatre to high school students where ALL behind-the-scenes production work was run by the students. Aside from the finances and direction, the kids were in charge: costumes, props, sets, advertising, graphic design, hair, make-up, was all accomplished masterfully by these gifted students. We could not be more thrilled (nor can we be for next summer: license pending: Sweeney Todd)!
From there I was off to New Jersey and Charleston South Carolina (the longest drive of my life) to visit my brother and his fiance (the last time I will see them before I attend their Wedding in October). We took a ghost tour, enjoyed the beach, ate crabs, went to the movies, played nostalgic video games of our childhood, and did a lot of catching up. From there it was up to Virginia Beach for more paintball (but our D4 tournament team has not been doing too hot this season)...
Then it was back to Wedding Singer (Act 2 rehearsals) and a week of dress rehearsals and shows - all super well received by our incredible audiences. We really were blessed with such a successful first production. I couldn't be more thankful. And just as we closed one, we opened the next. 13: The Musical began last week with my middle schoolers and we have since completed Act 1. Can't wait to begin Act 2 with all of them tomorrow. They are so talented and always put their heart and soul into the performances. The adult direction and production teams are extremely proud of their progress!
And now we have arrived in the present. Intermixed with all of that daytime fun, the #bowtieboys have been busy. We have completed our manuscript to "The Bowtie Book" a textbook researched and written from the student perspective to discuss what kids are looking for in their middle and high school English (and beyond) instruction. We are looking forward to sharing it with some close teaching friends in the upcoming weeks. Stay tuned for future updates! And aside from all of that fun, I have been reading, reading, reading. In August I have back to back mid-month posts coming regarding the other texts, but for today let's focus on the first two I read back in June. These offered the perfect mindset for me to begin my summer of learning. Hope I can adequately capture the highlights for you!
EMPOWER by: John Spencer & A.J. Juliani (MPress)
Here are some nuggets that I loved:
1. Students need to be given room to engage in the learning process and experience authentic successes and failures.
2. How to offer choice and empower students:
- allow students to decide the destination
- allow students to ask the questions (whether individually or in groups)
- allow students to set the pace (they submit work when complete)
- allow students to select the materials: the books they read, the media they use, etc.
- allow students to select their learning targets (whether state standards or not).
(We need innovators and self-starters in this world)!
3. What the teacher must do and what the student must do...
TEACHER: inspire, give time, give tools, encourage risk-taking, model the thinking process, affirm students, help kids find a community of their "people."
STUDENT: set goals and chart progress, break down tasks and set guidelines, problem solve and think flexibly, choose strategies that work to accomplish goals.
4. Assessment must also empower students and it must mirror real life. (Kids are natural consumers and once they have consumed they should be inspired and empowered to create. Aka: assessment). Some examples are: self-reflections, student surveys, student generated rubrics, timeline checklists, and peer assessments.
5. Peer to peer feedback is also important. Some ideas are: 10 minute feedback (SharkTank), sentence starters, 3-2-1 structure, one on one conferencing with a specific look at: advice, reflection, and mastery.
My takeaways: I cannot wait to have "genius hours" and "wonder weeks" with my freshmen and sophomores this year. I am also excited for them to create their own "nerd-out blogs" reflecting their individual passions. Kids' reading and reading purpose will impact their writing and writing purpose which will in turn impact their presenting and presenting style (and purpose). ELA is all about skills!
DITCH THAT HOMEWORK by: Matt Miller and Alice Keeler (Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc.)
And more love to share:
1. Homework stresses kids out. We spend so much time policing it too (knowing full well that students copy off their friends in lunch and study hall - but we still spend half of our class periods determining who did and who did not do the work and then going over the correct answers). We can only control what happens in our classrooms.
2. Textbooks are just a tool (and there are many OTHER tools).
3. Lecture is passive learning. Students need to be actively engaged above and beyond taking notes to regurgitate on later assessments. Let's get on up Bloom's Taxonomy! Kids need to be up and doing!
4. Building rapport (with students and parents) is paramount - it will solve all your classroom management issues (THANK YOU! PREACH)!
5. When marking student work be sure to focus only on what you are specifically teaching (the skills you want students to master). A page full of red ink can be extremely overwhelming and make students feel like failures. Failing is fine - that builds resilience and stamina - it is temporary. Failure sounds like it is forever. Permanent. The End.
My takeaways: I have long ago ditched textbooks as the only tool, lecture, and red pens. I build strong rapport with kids and their parents. But I still assign a decent amount of homework (albeit long-term projects) - this year, those are gone. We're getting our learning accomplished in class!
That's all for now! Hope these pinpoints and takeaways are helpful to you and you think about your own classes for the upcoming year. And beyond that, I hope you have been having the awesome, action-packed, fun-filled summer I have had as well. So great to do what you love and recharge the batteries! See you all in August!
No comments:
Post a Comment