Adventures of a Teacher in Transition

I wish I could say it was an awesome day, but it was so-so.

When I walked into the faculty office this morning, I had a student waiting for me. She wanted to show me texts that one of her group members had sent that were extremely rude and vulgar that blamed her for the group’s apparent inevitable failure. This girl was obviously upset enough to come to me about, so at 7am, I’m in the Dean’s office, talking to her dean and letting him know about the obvious bullying situation going on. So we’ll see what ends up happening there…

Today, was the day my freshmen acted out their scenes from Romeo and Juliet. I booked the theatre, so we were able to act it out on stage, which was awesome! It went about as well as I had imagined it would - most students kind of stood there awkwardly with their scripts, but a few groups had some good acting and blocking. One group even dressed in costume and had foam swords and was fabulous!

There are definitely things I would do differently about this project, but I think I would for sure do it again. I know acting isn’t every student’s cup of tea, but I think it’s a fun experience if they ignore the stupid group problems that pop up and focus on the work.

Today, I also subbed for one of my CTs, which was interesting. I didn’t have to do much - his class was auditioning students for their little minute-long plays that they’ll put on. It was fun to watch. Some of these students are so creative and talented!

It was just a crazy day today. I came home and definitely took a nap. :)

ALSO, HOW IS THERE EXACTLY ONE WEEK UNTIL I’M DONE STUDENT TEACHING?!?!?!

My CT suggested I might want to do it — especially since there’s a full time English position open for next year — and I finally got the balls to email her asking her about a meeting.

I’ve only met her once before and she was really nice to me. I think she went to my college, or at least lived down there for a while, because we bonded over this one Italian restaurant in town. 

I also invited her to come to my class next week and watch my freshman classes perform their Romeo and Juliet scenes. We’ll see how that goes….

Today I found out two pieces of information about my fourth hour class.

1. A kid’s mom was apparently in the guidance office recently complaining loudly about how much work I apparently give her child. Her reasoning was that two weekends ago, her son was apparently working day and night Saturday and Sunday trying to get the poetry anthology done.  What her son apparently neglected to mention was that: 1) I assigned it two weeks prior to the day it was due; 2) about half of it should have already been done if students were keeping up with daily work and; 3) I gave them ample class time to work. 

Luckily, my CT stood up for me and backed me up on this because I had even gone over the rubric and the assignment with him before I had even assigned it. So nothing is going to happen. I just think it’s kind of ridiculous.

2. Today, I apparently sent a girl to the social worker in tears because of an article I had the class reading. We’re starting up Romeo and Juliet and I had the students reading a news article about a couple of teenagers who committed suicide because their parents didn’t approve a la R&J. Now I already had one student come up to me when I handed out the article telling me he wasn’t going to read it because his brother had just attempted suicide. I understood, and the next day had a different article to read.

This girl didn’t talk to me at all and since I know her a bit (she’s very quiet, shy, withdrawn, etc) I don’t really expect her to share super personal details. According to my CT who talked to the social worker, reading this article not only brought some dark thoughts to the forefront of her mind, but made the thoughts and feelings even worse.

So basically, since suicide is a huge issue in Romeo and Juliet, I might have to come up with a brand new novel unit for her (and possibly the other boy). I just feel awful that this happened. I had no idea that she was dealing with any of these issues — not that I should have, I suppose.

And luckily, my CT completely backed me up and supported me on this with the social worker and he’s going to help me out a lot if I end up making a different novel unit for her. Oh man. Differentiating instruction at it’s finest.

On the plus side… My kids really seemed to enjoy my puns activity using Laffy Taffy.

There has been an influx of support on my failed MLA lesson and I really appreciate it! 

I’m completely finishing my poetry unit on Monday with a poetry slam. It’ll be a fun way to finish it out since they’ve taken their exam already.

Then Tuesday I’m starting Romeo and Juliet. But I can’t be there because I have to go to a job fair that’s mandated by my education program. So the students will be in the computer lab starting a Shakespeare Online Scavenger Hunt as a way to learn about him in a fun, non-lecture way. There will be 5-6 groups which each focus on different parts of his life and work and then they’ll teach it to the rest of the class. FUN!

I will admit. I’m excited for all the fun activities that I want to do with R&J. I’m just terrified of the language barrier. I taught The Raven during poetry, and they had issues with Poe, so I’m worried what they’re going to think of Shakespeare. I’m planning on using a variety of approaches including reading aloud, acting, and listening to different oral versions. But I know that I had/have issues with Shakespeare myself and I’m just not sure how to address that every day with the freshmen. 

Edit: My student population is fairly diverse. It’s a “regular” level class, but in it there are a couple of ELL students (both are from Germany originally), some future honors students, and some uninspired, uncaring students. 

Any suggestions?