Week 23…
It seemed like a long week. Having a holiday the week before made the five-day week seem way too long!
I quickly showed signs of my fatigue when, on Monday, I administered a make-up vocabulary test to one of my tenth graders. The poor girl struggled with it for an hour and a half. I didn’t think it was a difficult test. She failed. She was, understandably, upset. It took us ten minutes to figure out that I had tested her on next week’s prefixes, suffixes, and root words.
What makes this worse is that I tried to give her the original test on Friday (as a make-up). She didn’t understand what to do. When she asked, “Mrs. AuburnChick, am I supposed to change the form of the word?” I realized that I had given her the KEY.
We decided that the test had been a complete wash. We agreed to count next week’s test as two grades.
Oh wait…I am getting ahead of myself. Here’s what my first two class periods saw when they came in on Monday…
They turned in the funniest autobiographical sketches ever! I had instructed them to write, in vivid detail, about a time when they had been sick.
Folks, I read about multi-colored vomit, nasty sunburns, and diarrhea.
I had been dreading having to grade these, but because they were narratives, my students were able to be more relaxed in their writing. Everyone made a good grade.
Meanwhile, my sixth graders worked on alliterative poems…
I modeled the assignment for them, and they had to write poems for homework. This was a fun exercise that gave me a chance to work on consonants and phonics.
My ninth and tenth graders began reading Scene 4 of Romeo and Juliet…
I am moving much slower on this play than I intended, so I am going to start picking up the pace so we can finish this nine weeks. There are just so many good lessons you can teach from Shakespeare!!
Tuesday arrived and, quite honestly, I can’t really remember much! I didn’t even take any pictures! I’m positive that we worked hard though.
By Wednesday, I was starting to drag. The regular work week made it difficult to balance my certification class assignments with my work responsibilities. I had begun staying up late at night to finish my work.
I gave my juniors and seniors an overview of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It seems as if we’re always building background and discussing themes. These are very important elements that simply cannot be ignored when reading literature…
My sixth graders and I had a really good day. We worked on more poetry and then a magical moment happened.
While we were discussing the theme of a poem, we began discussing something…I cannot for the life of me remember what it was.
All of a sudden, something that someone said sparked a thought in my mind…
A song…
On impulse, I started singing the first line…
“I’m a Barbie girl…”
My students, as if on cue and perfectly in sync with one another, immediately put their hands in the air and started singing the next line with me…
“In a Barbie world…”
They were dancing in their seats while they sang.
I TOTALLY cracked up.
It was completely unrehearsed and unplanned.
It was priceless and a moment I do not think I will ever forget.
If you haven’t heard the song, here it is…
I absolutely love my sixth graders. I love teaching them, and I love their enthusiasm. They are so malleable and have completely adapted to my procedures.
Meanwhile, my freshmen and sophomores read Scene 5…the famous scene where Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time.
It is a funny and sweet scene.
My hormonal ninth graders got all giggly as they took turns reading the parts out loud.
We were all relieved that Romeo had finally stopped thinking of Rosaline! What a fickle boy (or girly boy, as the guys in my class call him) he is!
My tenth grade female student loved the speech that Romeo made when he saw Juliet. Although we are using a book that has the original Shakespearean language side-by-side with modern language, we had to read the original words in the speech. They are beautiful, and it was nice to see a teenager appreciate them.
Thursday was vocab testing day…
I also had the blessing of an extra planning period when my friend “J” took the sixth graders on a field trip. When she had approached me a couple of weeks ago to ask me if she could have them during my class period, I had said, “Why no, “J,” you absolutely may not have them, thus giving me an extra hour to myself. Absolutely not!” heehee
And then Friday…finally…
I started off my day with a bowl of fruit…
I did Fantastic Friday with my first two classes. This is when we read newspaper articles and answer the journalist questions: who, what, where, when, why, and how. It is good to get students to read a variety of mediums, including newspapers.
My sixth graders worked on symbolism in poetry. I can tell that they don’t really understand what I am talking about, so I am going to continue these lessons next week.
Then, my last two classes took a quiz on Act 1, since we had finished it a couple of days before.
And that is Week 23 in a rather large nutshell.
It was a good week as far as teaching goes. It was bad as far as balancing teaching, learning (my own), and sleep.
Still, I am happy as a lark. I had an especially good week with my rough-and-tough ninth graders. They were the silver lining in my week.
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