I have almost completed my third week as a student teacher, and I have already learned so much. My biggest concern during the first few weeks was learning an abundant amount of new names, and I thought learning 20 names was difficult! Luckily, I have conquered the name game. Starting early ended up being a great decision. Of course it would have been nice to have that extra week of having no cares in the world, but in the end, starting early worked to my benefit. The first week or so can be difficult and overwhelming. There are so many new students, colleagues, procedures and so forth that you have to become accustomed to. The extra time definitely helped me make a smoother transition.
For the last couple of weeks I have mainly been observing and helping with small group lessons. I am feeling more comfortable working with the students as each day passes. My CT and I have organized a schedule of the upcoming lessons I will be teaching. My first unit will be teaching how to write a compare and contrast essay for my college prep students. This will be a two week unit which I will start next week. My materials are prepared, and I am ready to get started; yet, I am a little bit nervous!
English Honors 3 is the other class I will be working with. However, they will be starting Academy soon which helps prepare them for the State Assessment. This means I will not start teaching until after spring break. Hopefully, my college prep classes will help get me ready for the second half of the semester. With my juniors, we will be reading Raisin in the Sun and then we will move onto a poetry unit. I am really excited about reading Raisin in the Sun, but I am extremely nervous about teaching poetry. Poetry is definitely not my strength so if anyone has any advice I would love to hear from you. I would really like to do so poetry from the Harlem Renaissance era.
The next few months will go by in a blur, and I am excited to see what they bring.
