Jacqueline Marien's Blog (23)

After a very long Wednesday, I did not want to get up this morning. However, I knew today was very important because I had a new lesson and my observer was coming in today. I was feeling good when I left the house and I got to school at a very good time. I was ready to start my day. Unfortunately, karma was not good to me today and I locked myself out of my car. It was a little damper in my day until I paid a lot of…

November 2 was spent observing some more classes with different teachers as well as some more 36 day writing workshop with my cooperating teacher. One of the teachers that I observed had a 10 honors class and she sat down with me and explained her logisitics of teaching. One of the things I really liked was this concept of a dilectal journal in which the students had to pick quotes that referred to a theme and then explain it. She also explained to me that she was going to…

Today I have so much work to get done so I will just give a list of things that I did today:

• Shadowed a female student and was very impressed with the classes she was taking. It ranged from jewerely design to treble choir to precalculus to advanced painting and drawing. I have seen two different math teachers and two different economic teachers. It is interesting to see the variety of teaching skills among the teachers
• I sat in and observed the second day of the…

The past two days have been spent on these specific benchmark assessments the 8th graders must complete by the end of the year. Yesterday I showed them the assignment and we created an outline for it as well as an introduction. I ended up writing the introduction and the students just copied it. I was not teaching them how to write effectively, only how to copy well =/ In any case I explained to the students what their task was and that they could use thier notes for the essay. It was hard…

So, it has been while since I have written only because I have been so busy with completing things for my last week at my first placement. In any case last Friday went extremely well. I gave the students their vocabulary quiz and started them on finishing their mobiles. There was a twist in the day when I came back role palying one of the characters in the story we had been reading. One of the assignments that the students had to do was come up…

Today started as if there was really school on Monday. We dove right into the unit for the day. There were new vocabulary words on the board, (due to the copier being broken I had to improvise and go "old school"). Once we reviewed the vocabulary, I handed out the story for the day "Charles" by Shirley Jackson. As we read through there were a couple of questions to ask and things to correct such as the word "rubbers" which students mistook for protection when in reality the author was…

Friday, good old Fridays. I was more than happy to see the weekend come. It was defintily a stressful week as per the class had been reviewing how to write an effective introductary paragraph, reviewing grammar, and going over the assessment test that the students must complete in their 8th grade year. Friday consisted of taking two exams, one vocabulary test and the assessment itself. This assessment task asked for students to read "Paul…

So I sit here at my computer in my pjs still on thinking about yesterday at school. I have handed the students a book project and they have to read a mystery. Many of them are not excited because most don't like mystery and I thought to myself, I didn't either. So I took some advice and I am going to read with the students and complete the assignment for myself so that they don't feel I am trying to torture them. Yesterday the we brought the classes to the library so that they could find a…

Today I meet with my supervisor and after our discussion I am looking forward in having her view one of my classes. We discussed a few things such as joining the students with the Do Now. There might be more efficiency and participation from the students if I model with them. We also discussed graduate school and I recieved some feedback. Still unsure as what I am going to do. After our meeting I jumped right into third period and taught the inclusion class the lesson. I tried working on the…

The good old Monday mornings. Running late today because I had to put the top on my Jeep and thankfully, I was safe from the rain. I did manage to get to school on time however. Today, I handed out the book projects for the 8th graders to do. Most of them did not seem excited as they find these projects monotonous. The book project consists of students taking on the voice of a journalist and writing a newspaper article on the mystery that they just read. There are five questions that the…