That Time of Year When Back-To-School Nightmares Begin

"That time of year thou mayst in me behold..."
When Back-To-School nightmares haunt my dreaming
And from few or none do anything I expect

William Shakespeare didn't know how I could make his lovely sonnet into something entirely different than he intended. Sorry, Will! Took a few liberties.

Officially, I had my first back-to-school nightmare. I have one every year. Here is a post of nightmares of the past. They are usually a bit frantic and always pretty darn funny.

This year, my principal (not to be confused with my daughter who is my assistant principal) had 30+ students enrolled in my 6th hour drama class. (There are really 23 or so.) As the hour progressed, more and more kids kept showing up. I finally had someone count, and we were over 50. To top it off, the librarian was also teaching a class that hour, and the principal had decided that we needed to share my room. She could take half, and I could take the other half-- or use the auditorium.

I woke up laughing. It was a bit like herding cats. Every plan made for the first day went straight out the window. This was the authentic me-- flying by the seat of my pants.

And once again, I sure am glad it was just a nightmare.

Of course, if I don't get busy planning for the 23 drama students, I might feel like I am herding cats...! This is just the kick in the pants I needed to start planning 2016-2017.

Yep. That time of year again.

Well, July 4th is Over

Every year I get a shock on the day or two after July 4th when all the back to school lists and supplies are displayed in the stores. What???!!!! You'd think I would be used to it by now. Nope.

Don't get me wrong. I love new school supplies. And I mean LOVE. I search out pencil erasers, cool storage containers, my favorite pens and markers, colorful paper clips, and composition notebooks. (Ah...the smell of brand new notebooks and newly sharpened pencils!) After almost 55 years of buying back-to-school supplies, it never gets old.

That being said, I hate thinking that my summer is almost over every July 4th. It has come to signal the end of summer fun, when it is actually just a halfway point. Summer fun does continue, but it seems the 2nd half of summer goes too fast. I blame the darn school supplies already being in the stores. They distract my attention from fun to planning for the coming year. (Or at least they are responsible for the panic that I'm not planning. Panic really detracts from my fun.)

Does that mean I'll ignore those aisles for awhile? Heck no! I want to shop before all the good stuff is gone.

And this is the split personality that I deal with daily!

Last Day of School Activity

Beginnings and Endings are important to me. (Who am I kidding? So is every day in between.)

This year, I wanted a closing goodbye that reminded my students of our year and all that we had studied and learned.

First, they wrote a reflection writing that would not be returned to them. They were to reflect on their favorite unit or activity and why they liked it.  They did the same for their least favorite. Finally, they were to give next year's sophomores some advice on surviving the class with Mrs. E. They were honest and gave me some activities to think about changing for next year. They also made me laugh with their advice.  ("Don't tick her off, and you will be fine." "Do your work. It will bite you in the butt if you don't.") I totally forgot two other questions I included: What is the first thing you think of when you think of English class, and what is the first thing you think when you walk in this classroom? I loved reading those answers. Consider adding those to a test or a quick write.

For the rest of the hour, we played a game.

I created colored card stock "game" pieces. Each table would have a different color of the exact same game pieces. Each playing piece listed a piece of literature (novels, plays, poems, lyrics, essays, letters, articles, and short stories) that we had studied this year.

When the students walked in, they saw the desks in this order. (And yes, this is another desk arrangement.) There were four groups with five students in a group, and they had to work together.

So the game (and I use that term loosely) involved me reading a line from a piece of literature. Then students in each group would shuffle through their titles, and once they thought they had the correct piece, one person from the group would bring (run, leap, elbow others, you name it!) the piece/title to me.

The first group to bring me the correct title would earn two points. If another group was correct but not first, they would earn one point. Incorrect meant no points. I kept score on the whiteboard. It was easy to keep track of who was first because each group had a different color of game pieces.

Since this was a comprehensive assignment, quotes had to be pretty obvious if the stories were from the first of the year. It challenged them to remember and work together.

And oh, the racing! ( I feared for my safety a couple of times. yikes!) There was quite a bit of scrambling.  If everyone had the wrong answer, they were all given a 2nd chance.

The students were amazed at just how much we had covered in 180 days.

The prize was cans of pop or individual bags of chips for the winners, and Airhead candy for all. Sophomores are so competitive that even if prizes are pathetic, they still will kill themselves trying to win.

Finally, we ended the hour with a group photo.

I reminded them that I would always be watching for signs of them in the world.

Them: "So basically you mean you will be stalking us?"

Me:  "Well, I guess you would call it that. I call it caring about who you are and what you do with your life. Feel free to stay in touch, so I don't have to 'stalk' you!"

And with that, the class of 2018 exited Room 502. What a fun, reflective way to end a great year.

Summer Conferences

I am just returning from two days of conferences, with four sessions, and one earned college credit. (Everything but the college credit was free.) Professional development always refreshes me and makes me excited for another year.

The four sessions I attended were on Social Media in the Classroom, Intentions and Success Criteria, Best Practices in the Writing Process, and Feedback: Failure for Future Success. Only the Writing session was geared to Language Arts teachers. All the rest of the sessions hit all disciplines. Quite a few administrators who are instructional coaches for their schools attended the sessions, too. We were a diverse group of people in any session, and that was valuable, too.

I am always interested in Social Media and how it can be used to make me a better educator. The session reinforced some ways I use it, but also gave me quite a few new things to consider.

Intentions, Success Criteria, and Feedback were all relevant to some of the ideas I have been considering with Standards Based Grading. It was great to find out that what I have been thinking is part of several new movements. Much more on this for another day.

The Best Practices in Writing was a breath of fresh air in terms of grading feedback and writing audiences. I will save this for another day, too.

It is June 8th and a summer conference already has me excited for a new school year and many changes in my teaching style--not just for English, but for my speech and drama classes, too.

I am attending another conference next week. (When conferences are free, it is hard not to attend.) This time a colleague and I are attending together. It will be great to share ideas and figure out how to implement them on the way home.

Summer--recharge and revitalize time. So far, so good!

Turn Off The Teacher Brain, Please!

We have been out of school five days, including the weekend. On day four I pulled out next year's lesson plan book and began marking work days, professional development days, and breaks. Day four! I am pathetic.

I've written about our in-school printing business that creates invitations, cards, posters, and planners. This is year three of them creating my lesson plan book. They do great work.

Also on day four, I created a template to track student progress on grammar and writing skills next year. Still mulling over the details, but I will share it when I finish it.

Today, on day five, I began hunting short stories for a short story unit next year.  I needed something to read, and all I could find was my textbook.  (That is what I am telling myself.) I really need to hit the library for some light summer reading.

I need to turn this teacher brain off! 

I love knowing that I don't have papers to grade or lessons to plan. I love not having to be at school early. I loved driving home tonight at 8:00 and realizing that I didn't have to teach tomorrow. 

And yet... I spend "free" time working on curriculum and the logistics of teaching. 

I have to get a life. Or at least a summer life! 

(I wonder what percentage of teachers find themselves in this same summer state of teacher brain gone cRaZy???)

Harper Lee 1926-2016

I love To Kill A Mockingbird. I have been teaching it to sophomores for 34 years. And we were about 10 chapters into the book this year, when the news of Harper Lee's death reached me. I almost started crying. I'm sure my students thought I had lost it.

My initial reaction to the novel wasn't great. My dad put it on an assigned reading list when I was in 9th grade. (He was tired of me reading junk.) I checked the book out but was skeptical. I hate guns. I wasn't crazy about birds.

Three chapters into the book I was so confused. Scout sounds like a boy's name. Jem sounds like a girl's name. The kids called their dad Atticus, and calling a dad anything but dad was a foreign concept to me. I turned the book back into the library after those three chapters and didn't pick it up again for about 10 years.

This time, it was instant love. I love the fact that the story is told by a child, and those sordid events are seen through the innocent eyes of children.

I love the fact that the kids recapture childhood memories of making up games and having adventures. (It took me about 5 years of reading/teaching this book 6 hours a day to figure out that the kids even watched a neighbor pee off the porch. Duh!)

I love the parallel plot lines and the incredible way Lee pulled both of them together in the end.

Most of all I love that To Kill A Mockingbird was part of a great shift of thinking in the USA. We will never know how much of a role the book played in the Civil Rights movement and the changing views of our country, but never underestimate the influence a novel has had in the hands of students all across this country for the last 50 years.

Scout said, "There's just one kind of folks--folks."

And her brother Jem replied, "If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other?"  

 A good question...and one we are still trying to answer today.

A Couple of New Seating Arrangements

I still love experimenting with seating arrangements. My students always find it a challenge to find their seats. Those gender colored sticky note seating charts are a lifesaver! The seating charts are in page protectors and can usually be found on my podium. (A seating chart for three different classes can be changed in under five minutes.)

I've blogged about seating arrangements here, and you can see my seating charts here.

Here are a couple of new seating arrangements. I used this one for Speed Dating--actually Speed Meeting. (Valuable when students have to share information with a classmate. They can move quickly to change chairs and partners.)

The students loved this arrangement for a fun, quick-moving activity. (Most days they would be far too chatty for this to work.)

Now, I am experimenting with this V shaped arrangement.

You can see my podium on wheels where the seating charts are located. I'm using this during a novel study. I can use my rolling chair to roll up and down the rows of desks to check dialectical journals. And I love that I can still see every face.

I like changing the desk arrangements. Different activities call for different arrangements. Upon seeing a new arrangement, students expect to be doing something different. Switching it up is good for them and for me.