A much better day, September 19, 2007

Today was such a better day. I had full attention of the students and rarely had to deal with discipline problems. I think part of that came from the fact that we were all reading the story today. In order to keep the students engaged I had them read and I would ask questions based on the sentences used the day before for the prediction activity. I was sure to read with different voices and emotion so that the story remained fresh in thier minds and so that they would not fall asleep. The story took most of the class time to read but if we ran into time left over I handed out a graphic organizer that was to be completed for homework and discussed the next day. We also discussed the journal for the day which was How would you feel if you were sent to Vietnam? This journal especially created a conversation and debate in 9th period. To my surprise I had an observer come in and I was so proud of my students because they kept the discussion going and had some great things to talk about. It was this period that really made my day and the class fly. I was sure to commend them for thier participation and behavior. I am hoping that the activtiy showed our visitor that I know how to control a class as well as the class discussion. I went home with a smile on my face and was able to relay my day back to my seminar class for student teaching. It was such a good day that it helped me control the negative feelings I had from the day before. That's all.