Teacher Talk Tuesday

Hello and happy Tuesday!

One day down and four to go until break! But who’s counting?!

People often ask me what I teach/what we read in English 1.

Since I’ve “survived” the first semester, this post is a good reflection of the first half of the school year.

Since this is my first year back teaching in over four years, the start of the school year was quite an adjustment.

I have three classes (one Advanced English 1 and two co-teach English 1), a planning period, and two hours for academic help. It’s a nice balance from what I’ve done the past few years as well as teaching full time the years before that.

I’ve really enjoyed my co-teach classes. In almost 23 years as a teacher, I’d never had a co-teach class before. Co-teach classes have about twenty students in the class and about half of them have IEP (individualized education plans) and there’s a special ed teacher in my class during those times.

My Advanced class is a bigger class of 28, and they are a good group of kids. It took me a few weeks to get over the fact that quite a few of them are my kids’ good friends. Joking with them that I can “call their mom” brought on a whole new meaning for them. haha

First things first, I had to familiarize myself with Canvas which is the online platform we use for posting assignments and grading. I’ve had a Canvas page in the past, but it wasn’t as extensive as what I need to keep up with currently.

Once I figured it out, I really enjoy it. I don’t love students being on the computer, but this is just a spot for them to always know what’s going on in class.

I started the year with my students mostly doing paper assignments as I tried to figure out the online platform. Now, my students do about 75% of assignments on the computer and then submit on Canvas. The other 25% of their work is paper assignments, but I still enter the grade on Canvas. I really keep up with grading better with the online platform.

So, again, students aren’t on their computers 75% of the time, it just means that’s where they submit their work. We read in the textbook or use other materials and then they submit the work on Canvas.

This year, our district purchased a new English curriculum. I was very familiar with the previous one, so this was yet another thing to figure out. Students do have a consumable textbook –which I actually think is a waste. It’s so much paper! I can have students write in their textbooks, highlight and annotate, so I do like that. I usually just type the questions on a Google doc and that’s what they submit online for their assignment.

Y’all – AI is a problem. To curtail that, I just had my Advanced class write a three paragraph response last week and had them write on paper. You should have seen the looks on their faces! With my co-teach classes, I had them type their response but gave them a framework that I wanted them to follow. I can typically spot AI responses in a heartbeat — usually because they use vocabulary words that I know they don’t know…or they aren’t answering a specific part of the prompt that I give them.

The textbook has five units, but the district re-structured the pacing plan to four units which we all appreciate.

Each unit has “whole class learning,” “small group learning” and “individual learning.”

I’m still figuring out the textbook’s online platform. I do like that we can listen to texts, but I haven’t assigned much from that platform to Canvas.

Unit 1 was “Journeys of Transformation,” and I really enjoyed teaching it. The main text we read was The Odyssey which students always enjoy…especially when the Cyclops gets his eye poked out! haha

At the end of that unit, the students wrote an explanatory essay on how Odysseus was an epic hero.

To plan for that paper, I did a gallery walk with paper for each characteristics. Students jotted down ideas, drew pictures, and found quotes for each characteristic at their time at each station. Then, those hung around the room and were ideas for them to use in their paper.

Unit 2 is “Promise and Progress.” The main two texts are Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” and “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” For “Letter from Birmingham Jail” we read the “bridge” text from the online textbook in my co-teach class. For my Advanced class, I purchased a “jigsaw” activity from Teacher Pay Teachers. It’s such a long text that I assigned each student one of four sections. They read their section, took notes, and completed the worksheet for the assigned section. Then, they got into groups with three others students who had the other sections to discuss and finish the activity.

“Promise and Progress” unit is the perfect time to read To Kill a Mockingbird. My school has both the original and graphic novel versions. My Advanced class is reading the original while the graphic novel is perfect for my co-teach class.

Since we’re about two-thirds of the way through the book, we ran out of time for students to write a paper before the end of the semester. Last week, I had my Advanced class write a few paragraphs analyzing the unit’s essential question “How do words inspire change?” as it applies to “I Have a Dream” and one of the characters in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” For my co-teach, they just chose one of the texts to write about, and I gave them a frame work to structure their paragraph.

Even though I was overwhelmed about having classes again, I’ve really enjoyed having students again. It’s been nice building relationships and getting to know them.

I can’t believe this is final’s week! First semester always flies by!