KATE Conference

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• I enjoyed Bill Konigsberg’s session the most. I have always enjoyed hearing authors talk about their work and their inner driving force. And in this instance, you have a man that represents the LBGTQ community writing books that young adults can relate to. Because, to be honest, I can sit and say that I am an ally and that I support them, does not mean that I can understand the current of emotions that they are going through. Bill was very personal with what he talked about, and open about his triumphs and tribulations. I honestly cannot wait to be able to start reading these books. (I now have all three.)
• I would have to say that there were two sessions that I found most useful. I enjoyed the “Miracles in the Classroom” session and “Student-teacher to Teacher”. Miracles was particularly helpful in giving me ideas on different material I can use to teach literacy to my ESL students. I have even started to hunt for possible alternate reading formats for my unit I want to teach.  Then there was the “Student-teacher to Teacher” session that I found very helpful. We talked about what will happen once we get jobs, the things we weren’t taught, and the things that people assume we already know. We were told to keep a journal to be able to reflect on our days. Mrs. Tolbert told us to learn the building’s acronyms, and to make friends with security and the custodians. She advised us to stay away from the negative people in our building, and to “Document! Document! Document!” and finally, to never forget to make time for ourselves and to not feel guilty in doing so.
• Outside of talking to the vendors and gaining some information that I would like to use in my future classes, I was too shy to get to talk to anyone. There were some nice ladies from a different district that I ate lunch with, and enjoyed myself with their company. However, all we had was small talk. I found that they didn’t care to talk about their schools, or districts. But that is okay, I will have other opportunities to network in the future.
• I was expecting more. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I honestly thought this was small. Considering this was a state-wide conference, I thought there would have been more vendors, more sessions, and more opportunities to engage. I loved the breakout sessions, those were fantastic. I honestly thought that this would have been a great opportunity for companies to come and push their products on literacy advancement. Maybe next year.

A Day in 7th Grade

A Day in 7th Grade

Today is the day!
I walk the hallway
Following the tide
What do I do; what do I say?

Keeping to the right
Pressed against the wall
Their voices of thunder
A sea of faces is a sight

Walking around the bend
I see where to go
The door up a head
The next forty minutes I will spend

Please stay in your seat
No, not that one
The one you are assigned to
The desk is not for your feet

Who threw that over there?
Voices need to be at a zero
Turn to page 129
Why oh why are you out of your chair

Glancing at the time
Deep breath in
Say a quick prayer
Are we all on page 129?

Who will read line one
I need your voices at a zero
Please stop playing the drums
I thought English was supposed to be fun

The kids are wound
They don’t want to read
The bell rings
Today that is the best sound.

Until tomorrow
I can run away
Enjoy the quiet
Until tomorrow..

Keeping the motivation going

As I write this, I am thinking about the events of the last few weeks. Since my last post, I find myself still struggling with the same issues. That being said, I will not discuss that here. On, a bright note, a few of the students have figured out that I am still in college, and the dynamics have changed a small amount. One of my low readers was walking with me at the end of the class and I asked him why he didn’t like to work in class; he simply told me it was because he found reading so hard and that he didn’t like it. So I told him that I understood that class could be tough, and sometimes we had to do school work that we may not like very much. He asked me how would I know, and I told him that I knew because I had a lot of homework that I was going home to, and that if I didn’t get it done I would fall behind in my class.

                I still have problems with him being motivated to actually read during class; I think part of that is a “cool” persona he is trying to uphold. We were going over our workbooks today, and they were asked to correct the things they missed, and this poor kid had a big ugly F in his and he was pretty upset about it. I sat next to him and talked with him for a minute and looked over his book and discovered that some of the answers that were marked wrong were actually right. I brought this up to my MT, where, after looking through her book discovered that she used the wrong key to grade with. I went back to him with his corrected book, and he was so startled to see that he had a B. He was really happy for a few minutes, then he decided to just close his book and not work for the rest of class.

                I’m still trying to find my own path in this class, but there are days where I really do feel like I’m drowning. The reading skills are so challenging for me when I want to be creative and make my students really think about their reading. I have looked at sever websites that are designed for ESL classrooms, but even with those I feel like the plans are beyond my students. My teaching is coming up early next month with no real clear direction from my MT. I feel that the lessons that I make for this class are going to be challenging for me, yet with this struggle I will find a better part of myself in my ability to create a lesson that (hopefully) engage my students.

                I am always on the lookout for new material and ideas on how to manage a class that has not management. I have actually bought a CHAMPS book that will hopefully give me some good management insight. I’m actually learning that when these kids have something really positive happen it takes them by surprise, and changes them for a moment, and then its chaos again. I will keep my head up and keep marching on.