Something Old, Something New

My biggest hope for next year is that teaching will be significantly easier.

To be more specific, I hope for less emotional downs, firmness in enforcing classroom rules and consequences, more patience, engaging lessons, and the energy to be a better teacher.

I am moving down to the eighth grade next year. I am not changing subjects, but it will be a bit like starting over – new students, new teachers, new administrators, new materials and curriculum maps to make. I am going to miss my juniors next year, but I had to make the change. Halfway through the school year, I had to accept the fact that I was struggling. I needed so much instructional support, which I wasn't getting. I was exhausted. I was overwhelmed. I was frustrated. I was incredibly unhappy. I knew I couldn’t keep teaching three classes, year after year with nonexistent instructional support, especially when the quality of my lessons directly correlates to how well of a job I feel I am doing as a teacher. If I stay in the high school, I will burn out within a matter of two or three years. I want to give teaching as a career a fair shot.

I am still not teaching the subject I want to teach, which also impacts how I feel about my job. I love reading and writing but I cannot figure out how to instill that same appreciation in my students, I don’t know how to be the ELA teacher my high school and middle school teachers were for me, and I hate grading essays (my students have only written two essays this year, for goodness sake! How awful is that???). I also don't feel like teaching English is a good personality fit for me. There isn't enough sequential structure in the Common Core standards for me to confidently put together a curriculum map. It is unstructured and based in abstract concepts rather than skill building. I need something more concrete. Unfortunately, being an English major and having a passion for reading and writing does not translate into being an effective ELA teacher.

I am looking forward to teaching younger students, though. I enjoyed teaching seventh graders during summer school, as much as it was possible to enjoy anything during summer school. I prefer younger students. I was intimidated to teach older high school students and my fear of patronizing them definitely hurt my authority in the classroom.

Next year is my chance to start over, to bring back the many useful techniques we learned in summer school: I do/we do/you do, differentiation, positive tracking (you know when you praise a student who is on task and making progress), opening sets, actually writing lesson plans, consistent parent contact, positivity, hope, etc.

Trying to write this blog is overwhelming. (This is mostly because I just looked at one of the second year’s portfolios and I am astounded by the information, the creativity, and thoughtfulness of it. Mine will not be that good.) I am already mentally planning for next year, which constantly distracts me from focusing on the end of the school year. There are so many changes I want to make and new things I want to try, so I made some lists!

5 Things I Am Changing Next Year:

1.     My rules, rewards, and consequences – My goal is to simplify the rules, streamline the consequence ladder, and brainstorm rewards for students that don’t use my disposable income more than necessary.

2.     Parent contact – Calling parents causes me intense anxiety, so I am going to develop a system that relies mostly on notes, emails, and phone calls when appropriate. I want to do something similar to how my first grade teacher handled consequences: she sent home a weekly slip of paper specifying consequences received by day. If we didn’t get in trouble that day, the space had a stamp or sticker. It had to be signed by the parent and returned. I also plan to have a parent contact form attached to the syllabus that asks for a cell phone number, email address, preferred manner and time to be contacted, and for what situations they would like to be contacted. I would also like to do a monthly newsletter; if that’s too difficult to keep up with, quarterly newsletters.

3.     The amount my students will be writing – Seriously, I need to incorporate more writing, formal and informal. It won’t have to be nearly as intense for eighth graders, but I would like them to enter high school knowing how to structure a paragraph, write a five-paragraph essay, and create outlines. I think that is reasonable for eighth graders. That’s what I remember doing writing-wise in eighth grade. Because reading and writing are separated into two classes, I also plan to hit grammar every week for the entire school year. I want to help them become better writers.

4.     Student assessment – I want to put more effort into discussing tests after they have been taken. When students understand why they missed a question, they are less likely to argue with you about the grade.

5.     Passing back graded work – I will have file folders in the back of the room that students can collect graded work from, this way I don’t waste class time passing back daily assignments.

Goodbye old posters! You will be better next year.

5 New Things I Would Like to Add –

1.     Free reading time – My reading classes will potentially be two periods long, so we definitely have time to do free reading every day. My plan is to take my students to the library, help them check out books that interest them and are on their reading level. I may not be able to get them to read while they are at home, but I can ensure they are reading plenty within my classroom. I will make it clear from the beginning of the year that the best way to become a better reader is to practice.

2.     A classroom library – So many of my English teachers’ rooms were filled with books and I want that for my students. I personally own about 400+ books that I have bought or received throughout my lifetime. I want to bring some of those books down for my students to read; however, I am really nitpicky about book care, so I’m not sure how well that plan would work out. I do plan to slowly build up a book collection, though. I might do some more fundraising over the summer to buy shelves, pay for magazine subscriptions, and buy some books to start off the library.

3.     Vocabulary journals – The students would fill out the vocabulary journals for their free reading books. They would need to define and complete some small word-association activity for 3-5 words per a chapter. These would be checked regularly for a daily grade.

4.     Classroom decorations – My classroom was woefully under-decorated this year. I am going to decorate my walls and doors next year, maybe even have some kind of sport theme. The look of a classroom can create subtle buy-in for the students.

5.     More essay writing – I hate, hate, hate grading essays. I have never particularly enjoyed reading critical English essays, even for my English classes. I personally find editing to be exhausting. If I am going to grade my students on grammar, punctuation, and spelling, I feel I have to mark every error I see. I struggle to grade critical thought and teach them how to think critically about texts. Teaching students how to write, and to do it well, is challenging. I don’t know how to streamline the process, while also giving them helpful feedback. I seriously struggle in this area, but I will get my students to write more essays, somehow.

The start of my classroom library! It's very heavily fantasy fiction right now, but we will have more variety soon enough.

5 Things I Am Keeping Next Year –

1.     Current Events Fridays – It’s honestly a fun, discussion-based, relaxed way to end the week. This will probably be used in my reading class.

2.     Interactive notebooks – With younger students, I will have slower writers and I plan to use guided notes for any day we have extensive note taking. With the table of contents, these will help students stay organized.

3.     Supplies bags – I have loved this idea from summer school. Each of my bags has a large eraser, a highlighter, 4 Crayola markers, scissors, and glue. I save so much class time when I don’t have to pass these items out to every student and worry about recollecting them at the end of the period.

4.     Student of the Month – My students love earning this reward, even when I just hand them a certificate without elaborating further. I understand why though. It feels good to be appreciated.

5.     Pun of the day – Who doesn’t like to start the period with a joke? (Did you hear about the kidnapping at the high school? It’s okay. He woke up.)

Supplies bags, you have been useful companions this year.

5 Things I Am Getting Rid Of –

1.     The marble jar – It is a lot of work to keep up with and my students frequently comment on how the jars haven’t been used in forever. Whoops.

2.     The second warning – I thought I was being proactive adding this in since all the second years’ presentations I watched added it to their revised classroom management plans. My students have used it as an extra arguing opportunity. I need a faster escalation of consequences so the students know I am serious.

3.     Class-wide writing assignments – When students don’t feel like they have done something wrong, which is often the case with a class-wide writing assignment, it ends up being counter-productive. I will need to come up with another way to get the class settled, like SLANT or a countdown. (Honestly, suggestions are welcome.) As unfair as class-wide punishments may seem, sometimes there are just too many misbehaving students to punish each of them individually and in a timely manner. Next year I expect more management issues as the classes will be larger.

4.     Inconsistency/being indecisive – I need to say no and say it consistently for all students. This will take practice. Sometimes, I am great at saying no, especially on a day when students have pushed one too many of my buttons. Sometimes, I am so exhausted by the constant questions to do this or that that I just give in and say yes. Sometimes, I am afraid of seeming rude. What if the student interrupting my class to talk to another student has a legitimate emergency? What if that student is seriously about to pee their pants? What if the student actually isn’t feeling well enough to work? There has to be a balance between firmness and empathy/sensitivity to my students' needs and I need to find it.

5.     High school students – I’m kidding, of course. As I already said, I’m going to miss my students. I couldn’t come up with a fifth thing.

Goodbye classroom. Your relative cleanliness and newness will be missed.