With week one behind me, all I can say is: Damn! There is just no way anyone could have prepared me for the amount of work that goes in to being a teacher. Like most of us, I only have two classes to prepare for, but it takes me forever to come up with new and exciting lesson plans. Well, that's a bit of a stretch... not regarding the amount of time it takes, but the whole "new and exciting" part. So far, my lessons have been pretty straight forward. No bells and whistles, yet. That said, my students seem engaged, and I have been pleased with their progress and their behavior. I feel like I have a good grasp of the literature (Macbeth for the seniors and To Kill A Mockingbird for the freshmen), but I’m realizing that in planning my lessons, I have over-emphasized comprehension and literary analysis. This is fine for my seniors, but I need to vary things more with my freshmen. The freshmen don’t seem to have the attention span or patience for more than about 20 minutes of close reading of a text, so I need to start breaking up the 55-minute period with basic stuff like grammar work.
hey dude, it's laurie. I know I'm not your critical friend, but I always enjoy what you have to say and so I am going to lurk around your journal if that's ok. I really relate to what you are talking about here. I've been doing the whole "teaching" thing for about four weeks now, and the bells and whistles you speak of are the things that keep me up at night. It does seem to be a pressing matter for the freshman, and yet they are also the ones I find myself falling into a bit of a boring routine with. I also feel like I do to much. You know what I mean? Like I feel there should be more group work for them to do, engaging them by having them do a lot of the detective work. But at the same time, when I'm not constantly onstage it begins to feel like I'm NOT doing enough. It's a weird place to be. I haven't found the happy median yet. Let me know if you do! See you in class tomorrow!
A guideline that I've heard and liked is that one can plan for about a minute of sustained attention for each year of a student's age. Thus, for 9th graders, you should plan to change activities at least every 15 minutes.
3 comments:
With week one behind me, all I can say is: Damn! There is just no way anyone could have prepared me for the amount of work that goes in to being a teacher. Like most of us, I only have two classes to prepare for, but it takes me forever to come up with new and exciting lesson plans. Well, that's a bit of a stretch... not regarding the amount of time it takes, but the whole "new and exciting" part. So far, my lessons have been pretty straight forward. No bells and whistles, yet. That said, my students seem engaged, and I have been pleased with their progress and their behavior. I feel like I have a good grasp of the literature (Macbeth for the seniors and To Kill A Mockingbird for the freshmen), but I’m realizing that in planning my lessons, I have over-emphasized comprehension and literary analysis. This is fine for my seniors, but I need to vary things more with my freshmen. The freshmen don’t seem to have the attention span or patience for more than about 20 minutes of close reading of a text, so I need to start breaking up the 55-minute period with basic stuff like grammar work.
hey dude, it's laurie. I know I'm not your critical friend, but I always enjoy what you have to say and so I am going to lurk around your journal if that's ok.
I really relate to what you are talking about here. I've been doing the whole "teaching" thing for about four weeks now, and the bells and whistles you speak of are the things that keep me up at night.
It does seem to be a pressing matter for the freshman, and yet they are also the ones I find myself falling into a bit of a boring routine with. I also feel like I do to much. You know what I mean? Like I feel there should be more group work for them to do, engaging them by having them do a lot of the detective work. But at the same time, when I'm not constantly onstage it begins to feel like I'm NOT doing enough. It's a weird place to be. I haven't found the happy median yet. Let me know if you do!
See you in class tomorrow!
A guideline that I've heard and liked is that one can plan for about a minute of sustained attention for each year of a student's age. Thus, for 9th graders, you should plan to change activities at least every 15 minutes.
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