AuburnChick's Adventures

Good gravy, but every time I type my recaps, I am amazed at the number of weeks that have gone by!  Before too long, I’ll be discussing the last week.  I am looking forward to that…mainly because it will be a reminder that I am near the end of my certification classes.

So, let’s get down to business.

Monday

My Juniors and Seniors had to turn in time lines that highlighted the main ideals of heroism during  each era in English history.  Take a look at what MartytheSmarty‘s looked like…

By the way, thanks to the first week of my own classes, I now know that the time line is a product (Bloom’s Taxonomy), thank you very much.

My Freshmen and Sophomores had to turn in Capulet and Montague shields.  This was an exercise I think I mentioned last week.

I have to say that they did a wonderful job on them!

One of my students is incredibly artistic.  She free-handed the picture of herself…

The students have been divided into the two families from Romeo and Juliet.  They will be in competition with each other during our study, and they will be awarded points for good behavior, good test grades, or whatever I decide.  I will take points away for, obviously, the opposite.  If a family gets to -5 points, they will banish a family member.  By the end, the losing family will be the one with the most team members banished.  The losing family will have to bring food for a party that we’re going to have at the end.

My sixth graders are studying poetry.  I began by introducing “My Parents,” which talks about bullying.  This led to an interesting discussion.

Tuesday

Of course I had to share my excitement over THE most important game all year.  I especially wanted to let my sixth graders know WHO is the boss.  They had all been rooting for the quack quacks, so the kids got what they deserved.  heehee

My Juniors and Seniors got what was the beginning introduction for the English Renaissance.  The Seniors were not exactly interested.  They have Senioritis.  My Juniors, on the other hand, seemed to soak it up.

Wednesday

Three of my classes played Vocabulary Bingo to review for their tests the next day.  My sixth graders kept working on poetry, and my ninth graders learned about oxymorons and other fun stuff.

Thursday

Oh yeah, Baby!  I love the sound of testing…pencils rapidly scratching answers, the sizzle of brains as they try to reconstruct that missing bit of information that lies just on the outer edges of their thoughts.

heehee

Friday

I realized I had jumped ahead in my lesson plans with the older students, so we backtracked to read an excerpt from The Book of Margery Kempe.  Did you know that she authored the first autobiography?  Very interesting!

My sixth graders were treated to a fun exercise…

They had to copy the paragraph on the board, complete with the underlined verbs, and, working with partners, change the verbs to more vivid ones.  The bell rang as they finished, but I enjoyed listening to them try out new words and discuss what those verbs actually meant, and if they would sound good in the sentences.

My ninth and tenth graders had a fun exercise as well.  We’re still reading Act 1 Scene 1, and it’s where Romeo is uber-depressed about some girl (Rosaline, although we don’t know her name yet).  His cousin, Benvolio , is trying to help him.

Students had to pen a letter from a modern-day Romeo to an advice columnist, asking for advice on what to do.  Then, students exchanged notebooks and had to write letters from the advice columnist.  The letters had to offer the best advice they could think of.

A couple of the ninth grade boys went into the exercise grumbling and even wrote, “P.S. This is the dumbest exercise ever.”  Gee.  What great attitudes.  However, I was pleasantly surprised when, upon listening to them read the letters out loud, they actually did a great job.  I praised them for being creative.

My Sophomores love to write, so they needed very little encouragement.

One of the neat things about studying this play is listening as my students share their opinions of Romeo.  Most of them think his is quite the fickle dude and, in the words of the boys, “a girly man.”  Very astute, eh?

So, another week ends.  I am extremely grateful for a long weekend.

Filed under: Teaching | Tagged: Margery Kempe, Romeo and Juliet, teaching |