Well, it was by far a better week than last week- not that that’s saying much. We are inching ever closer to the end of ‘The Great Gatsby’ and I must say, even though I love that book I am ready for it to be over. The kids have been hilarious, every day I hear how much they hate Tom and how they hope Gatsby kills them. I don’t have the heart to tell them that Gatsby ends up dead and Daisy chooses Tom. We ended up diagramming what they now affectionately call ‘the soap opera’ on the board yesterday- I needed more board space to explain that one. I almost started crying though when one of them started drawing parallels to today’s society- I wanted to throw my arms up the air and shout hallelujah!
We also started timed writing this week. The kids hate it. 30 mins to write a 2 page essay. I hate it because I have to read them all (and if one more person summarizes the plot of the novel for me I might have to throw something at them). I think they were all shocked with the grades the first time. The first batch were low, but when we did it the second time they were getting better. That could be because I enforced a seating chart so there was more writing than talking, or that they finally realize I am not a push over and they will be graded on more than participation. In my first batch of essays though I did get a marriage proposal and someone explained to me what Shakespeare would have thought of Fitzgerald- gotta love those teenagers.
I have found I am a lot more flexible with my student teaching and becoming more confident. I really do love it. This week I also learned that I can blame anything I want on my cooperating teacher. She is really good about that. Of course she is made of awesome- that is why I fought to work with her. She makes me feel so good about myself. This week she kept telling other teachers how wonderful I am and how I really don’t need to do student teaching. “Give her a degree,” has been Ruthie’s call. She is also going to help me with my project I have to get done while student teaching. It is massive and quite scary- but she and three other teachers in the building did the same thing last year when applying for National Certification, so she said they can get me through.
I also survived my first few days of parent/teacher conferences. They were actually rather easy- I didn’t know all the kids by name alone so sometimes I was worried I was talking about the wrong child, but it seemed to turn out all right in the end.
So basically good week. There were times I questioned my sanity of wanting to teach English (those essays *shudders*) but I do love it. Next week I get two days of movie, *sigh* Robert Redford *sigh* Can’t complain too much about that.
1 comment:
I didn't like Gatsby at all in high school, (even though I was a book snob), but I do like it now. It's just hard to self-examine in high school, when you're already so physically self-conscious. I think we should save some of these books until we're 30 or 40. And Romeo and Juliet should NEVER be read by teenagers. What is Jordan School District thinking??
Good luck with your student teaching. It was at the point of student teaching that I fled my English teaching degree and decided I had not enough of the milk of human kindness in me to survive. I'm glad there are people that do, because the most important secular teachers in my life have been English teachers.
Go Natalie! Mold young minds!
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