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.
Heidi-
ReplyDeleteI'm excited that we will be teaching A Raisin in The Sun at the same time, and right next door! :) Confession: I haven't even read it yet.
I just wanted to drop by and tell you that I'm so impressed and inspired when we're standing in the hall and you greet EACH student by name as they walk in the door. I'm way too insecure to do that but perhaps your bravery will rub off!
-Andréa
Heidi,
DeleteYou sound like you are off to a great start! "A Raisin in the Sun" is a wonderful play and I have no doubt that you will have fun teaching it and that your students will enjoy it.
As for the poetry unit, don't be nervous. Poetry is only as hard as we make it. Sometimes, as English majors, we over-think poetry and psych ourselves out. Whenever I teach poetry, I read each selection careful, come up with my own interpretation, and then hit the web to see what other [more experienced] scholars have to say about the same poem; this helps to insure that I do not go off on some wild tangent. I think that you will do great with teaching poetry.
As for Harlem Renaissance poetry, Langston Hughes is amazing. I recommend any of the following Hughes poems: "Mother to Son"**, "Dream Variations", "I, Too"**, "Mulatto", Dear Lovely Death", "Ballad of the Landlord"**, "Merry-Go-Round"**, "Harlem"**, and "Theme for English B". The ones with the ** by them would relate beautifully with the play "A Raisin in the Sun".
Another great Harlem Renaissance poet is Claude McKay. Some great poems by him include: "The Harlem Dancer", "If We Must Die", and "America". It would be interesting to compare Hughes and McKay. They both write about the same things in different styles.
I have an African American Lit book that features all of the poems that I have mentioned along with bio information about the poets. Let me know if you would like to borrow it.
I think that you are going to have a great semester. :)
Heidi,
ReplyDeleteI am so glad your student teaching experience is off to a good start. I understand the nervousness you felt, but it appears as though you have turned that energy into something productive!
The fact that you're going to teach a compare and contrast essay unit is fantastic! In my opinion, that type of essay is so integral to understanding the purpose essays serve. Furthermore, students should have some liberties of deciding WHAT to write about. And I believe that when students can have a say in what they need to do, they put more thought and more effort into a paper or project. No student should have trouble coming up with a topic for compare and contrast. To aid their essay journey, perhaps you could model a mini-compare and contrast for them...? This would give your students a clear idea of what you expect from them. How many times have we been told to model our own work for our students? Haha :)
Regarding the poetry unit you'll be teaching: poetry is so multi-faceted, so subjective, so...limitless, that I say TAKE LIBERTIES WITH TEACHING IT! Yay! Of course, it is important that students understand rhyme schemes, meter, free verse, yada, yada, yada, but I am sure you will have no difficulty teaching these things. After the basics have been covered, you have free license to let creativity run wild. Last semester, on a lesson plan for the Harlem Renaissance, I had outlined an "I AM" poem activity. Basically, the assignment was to create a poem entitled I AM. Every line had to begin with I AM, but after that--no strict rules. Students could experiment with sonnet structure, or just knock themselves out using free verse. It's a fun assignment that allows students to stay within the confines of a structured assignment, but also to let creativity and personality reign. If you'd like a copy of that lesson plan, I'd be happy to give it to you!
Oh. I was also going to tell you some great Harlem Renaissance poems to include in your unit, but Mercedes already listed all the ones I was thinking of! Great minds think alike!
Best of luck, Heidi! You'll do wonderfully!
Sincerely,
Amanda