What are 2-3
specific changes you made this year? Why are you making them?
Increased
parent contact: In my last blog, I said I wanted to do a better job of
contacting parents. Originally, I thought about sending home weekly progress
reports that would have updates on grades, missing assignments and general
classroom behavior. I even went so far to make the weekly progress report form.
However, that turned out not to be practical for multiple reasons: 1) I’m not a
fast grader so the grades wouldn’t always be up-to-date, 2) the process of
filling out 40 weekly progress reports regularly would be time consuming, and
3) my “block classes” are actually two back-to-back ELA courses – courses for
which I have to record separate grades. So I nixed that idea for now and I am
sticking to traditional forms of parent contact.
Three weeks into my second year
of teaching and I am already doing a better job contacting parents. I’m still scared
to call parents, sure, but the ones I have communicated with so far are willing
to work with me to positively impact student behavior in the classroom. In the
next week or so, I hope to finally catch
up on my grading. We are close to halfway through the first term and I would
like to contact parents of failing or struggling students while there is plenty
of time to intervene and help that student improve his or her grade. If I keep
up with the parent contact, I think classroom management will be running more
smoothly by the end of the year and I will have more documentation in case of a
failing student.
Classroom
library: This year I added my classroom library like I had been hoping to do at
the close of last school year. Having books in an ELA classroom always added to
the credibility of that class, in my mind. Is it really big right now? No, but
I plan to add to it as the year progresses. (I also want to get beanbag chairs
and more bookshelves.) By the first or second week, I already had students
asking to look through the books and even borrow some. I also had multiple
students ask when we were going to the school library! I love being in a
situation where students appreciate reading more.
 |
| A promising beginning to my classroom library. I pulled most of these books from my personal library. |
More writing!
We are three weeks in – about to start the fourth week – and I have already had
two writing-based assessments. My writing elective is also in the middle of
creating a five-paragraph essay. This is compared to the two whole essays my
seniors wrote last year. I wanted to establish early that we are writing in 8th
grade, we are writing the whole year, and we can significantly improve our
writing if we really push ourselves. I want my students takeaway for this year
to be evidence-based paragraphs and that formal essays consist of introduction,
body, and conclusion paragraphs. I will feel pretty accomplished as a teacher
if my students can consistently produce well-structured writing.
How do you
feel now as compared to last year this time?
You can bet
that this school year already has its own set of frustrations, but I’m in a
much better situation school-wise and living-situation-wise. There are more
procedures in the middle school for students, such as how they are supposed to
walk in the hallways (On the green line!), behavior expectations and a
regulated referral consequence ladder, and a positiv
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