High School Placement

Apparently I haven’t posted since early October.  Yikes.

But today there is news!  I had a meeting after school (well, actually, I snuck out a little early) with a teacher at THS.  He is a fairly young, fairly intense dude, and I like him.  He gave me some syllabi to look over and we talked about what the classes will look like and his “coaching” style with student teachers.  It all sounded lovely to me.  He teaches advanced sophomore English, co-taught junior English (this means there is a high percentage of IEPs, so a learning specialist is present), and regular senior English.  I have a list of literature to review or become familiar with.  Winter break reading?  Here’s the (partial) list:

1. Lord of the Flies - I’m pretty excited about reading this again.  I have only read it once, and it was in 8th grade.  I can safely say I didn’t get much out of it.

2. The Canterbury Tales – Only the introduction and two stories, thankfully.  I actually have not studied this piece yet.

3. Hamlet – Ah, Hamlet.  Read this in AP English my junior year of high school.  It will be good to review it.

4. All Quiet on the Western Front – a novel about a German solider in World War I (written by a German WWI veteran).  I’m very excited about this one, although I have never read it and don’t know much about it.

5. The Stranger – French existentialism at its best. (Also never read.)

Tomorrow is day three of my Anne Frank work sample.  Grading has been tedious but I’ve stayed caught up.  The hardest part was giving specific written feedback to every single student on the first journal entry so they will have an idea of what to do better next time.  Tomorrow will be fun – we are “speed dating” with all the characters from the play, and then we’re reading Act One: Scenes 1 and 2.

The worst part of student teaching is the work sample reflections.  There are a lot of best parts!  I have grown to really like the middle schoolers I have, even though I am still pretty sure I’ll like teaching high school more.

A stunning visual…

As I prepare for my Anne Frank/Holocaust unit, I thought it would be an interesting idea to try to fit as many dots as I could on one page, print it, and then photocopy the result so my students can actually visualize the amount of people killed in the Holocaust.  I am disturbed and amazed by what I found.  The image below is a copy of the image I made – 64,000 dots on one page (click the image to open it in a new window and see it all on one screen):

How many copies would I need to make?

For the 6 million Jews killed alone, I would need to make 94 copies.  For the 11 million estimated total, including Jews, Gypsies, handicapped people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and others, I would need 172 copies of this page.

11 million is a big number.  It’s much bigger when you can see one of that 11 million and imagine it is you.

Work Sample in progress!

I have now been at my school for three Thursday/Fridays in a row.  The kids ask about me, and seem happy enough to see me when I am there.  The little boys even arm wrestle each other in front of me and ask me to make bets on who will win. (I don’t give in!)

I’m beginning to write my Work Sample for this authorization, and I am planning my unit around The Diary of Anne Frank (the play) and the Holocaust.  So far, section 2 of my work sample (my unit plan) looks like this:

There will be edits, of course, and no one else has looked at this, and I’m new at it!  Those are my disclaimers, for all you very experienced lesson plan writers.  Suggestions are welcome.  And for those of you who take issue with the word “tolerance” like I often do (*please don’t assume anything about me based on this – that is for another post…), know that the school district used that word, and so it must become part of my goal.

Now I’m feeling self-conscious about my disclaimer, so here is a short tangent:
I do not like the word “tolerance” because I don’t think it is far-reaching enough – I think I would be offended if someone different from me told me they were “tolerating” me.  I would much, much rather be loved.

I will be teaching this unit beginning in mid-late November, so I have a little while.  That’s good, since I haven’t actually written any lessons yet.

Other news:

1. Eric got a new job!  He is studying to become a certified financial adviser.

2. I am doing Fantasy Football this fall, and I am SO out of my element – but enjoying it.

3. My running is on hold.   I had a good excuse for the first week or two, but now I have a little bit of time I can use for exercise.  Actually, I plan to start swimming on Tuesday evenings after I get out of class, and I’m pretty excited about that.

The leaves are turning colors and falling, the air is getting cooler and crisper, and a myriad other Autumnal clichés.  I am enchanted by fall every single year, and I’m always so disappointed when it turns into winter.  I’m savoring it while it lasts.

Summer to Fall

I’m getting ready to start the fall semester on Thursday.  “Getting ready” means fighting the urge to stay up and sleep in really late, especially now that Eric’s home with me for the time being.  It also means I’ve been working out a lot more.  I had a little bit of a slowing-metabolism-wake-up-call, so I’ve been trying to eat food that is good for me.  I’ve been running a couple miles every other day and on the in-between days doing strength training.  Through all this I am reminded how totally not hardcore I am when it comes to fitness goals, athletic ability, etc.  But this is the best I’ve EVER done in the area of athletics, and I’m so pleased that I am actually capable of exercise since my surgery.  (Longer story than I want to explain, but I used to have absolutely no athletic endurance due to this condition — although not nearly as crazy as that picture!)

My class list for this fall is as follows:

Classroom Management

Action Research II

Special & Diverse Populations

Rethinking High School

Language Arts Pedagogy

Issues in Human Development

Teaching in the Middle

This is in addition to my Practicum – part-time student teaching at L.O.J.   I met my teacher, Ms. E, last Wednesday and I’m so excited to get started there.  The school seems so high-energy.  It also just so happens that the principal’s assistant is the mother of one of Eric’s childhood best friends – she has known their family since before Eric and David were born, and she recognized me from the wedding.  I got to meet the office staff, principal, vice principal, and a couple of the custodial staff.  Next week is the inservice week and I will be hanging out with my teacher and the other teachers in her team, attending meetings, and generally learning about the way the school runs.  The week after that, the kids arrive.   We have plans to try to get me up in front of the class teaching soon -  Ms. E suggested that if she teaches the first 2-hr class period (block schedule), I could teach the second or third after observing her.  I told her that sounds like a wonderful arrangement.  Also, I found out I will most likely be teaching my work sample during the Anne Frank unit, which sounds like an awesome unit to teach.  It’s especially cool that, since Ms. E is a language arts and social studies teacher, there’s a good chance the social studies curriculum will be integrated into the language arts unit.

Now to the shower and to bed (hopefully before midnight).