Bring On Those May Flowers!

I love May flowers.  My allergies don't, but my emotional state does.  This past Saturday I had the chance to walk a pretty good chunk of MSU's campus, and the flowering trees are gorgeous!  Here's a picture of one:

How can a pink, flowering tree not bring you happiness?  The magnolia's were magnificent, as well, and the flowering crab trees are starting to bud.  What a glorious time of year!

This weekend was a much needed tension reliever.  While English 9 went well this week and stayed on track despite having substitutes and flipped hours, English 11 was pure chaos.  It was a difficult week at best, but for the most part, my students stepped up and worked with it as best they could. I asked them not to blow off the MStep tests and do the best they could, and for the most part, that's exactly what they did.  I was very proud of them!  So here's where we've been, and how we go forward:

• English 9 - they finished To Kill a Mockingbird and took the test.  Now we are working on an analytical essay.  We will finish the essay - in class - by Tuesday, and then they get to watch the movie.  I'm going to have them concentrate on comparing and contrasting the book and the movie so that they can look at the choices the two mediums force their creators to take.  By Friday we'll be ready to head to the next unit:  poetry!  There is no vocabulary quiz this week since most of it will be about finishing off what we've already done.
• English 11 - they took the ELA portion of the M-Step test last week.  This week they have Math, Science, and Social Studies.  While the actual tests are not done with me, students will be pulled from my class from Tuesday through Friday to take them, and I definitely want them to continue to put in their best effort, so we'll just roll with it.  This is the last week for in-class reading for the Human Rights books, so any down time we have with partial hours will be devoted to reading; they need to have the book read by one week from today.  They will also be focusing on the 8-Stages of Genocide packet we did in class about a week ago, and apply it to their books in a 5-paragraph essay since they should be almost finished reading.  Finally, whenever I can, I'll do mini-lessons on juxtaposition and irony, as well as throw in some thematic movie clips, so we'll make the best of it.

So that's what's up.  We keep soldiering on, and eventually normality will return...right?  Have a great week!  Ciao!


Bring On Those May Flowers! by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

More Testing (Sigh!)

Hello, and welcome to MStep testing.  For my freshmen, it just means that I'm pulled out of the class a couple of times (so they will have a sub) and their schedule twice this week is flipped on its ear, so we'll try to make sure everyone goes wherever they need to go, and everything gets done that needs to be done.  For my juniors...I don't know what it means.  This week the focus is on testing for language arts.  I know for sure that they will all be doing an activity to prepare for the test in my class on Monday, and then they will all spend two days testing online.  I have heard from teachers and administrators in other districts that the people requiring the tests have WAAAAY underestimated how much time it takes to do them; I have also heard that the technology issues in taking the online tests have been through the roof.  So I really don't know what will happen.

Here is my plan.  Please keep us in your thoughts and hope that I can stick to this plan and then our time will hopefully be used in valuable ways:

• In English 9 we're finishing the novel To Kill a Mockingbird.  We have two chapters to go and I cannot tell you how sad I am that it's coming to an end.  This is my favorite book to teach, and I'm pretty sure it's my favorite book of all time.  They've pulled it into the 8th grade, so unless they switch me to middle school, I'm done teaching it at this point.  We got to my favorite line, when Scout sees Boo Radley in the corner of the room and says, "Hey, Boo," and I just wanted to cry.  I call my own children "Boo," and it's because of this novel.  When they walk through the door of the house, I quite often say, "Hey, Boo," and it's all because of this moment of Scout's recognition of the person who not only saves her life that night, but who has been saving her throughout her life, and it's the most open, honest, and beautiful moment, so I say it to the people who came into my life and have made it everything meaningful.

          Anyway, so we'll be reviewing for the test in a couple of ways - worksheets and activities - and then the test will be Thursday morning.  Then we'll work on the analytical essay for a few days.  There won't be any vocab. this week because of focusing on assessment for the novel.  I will be doing a focus on verbs and grammar for the bell work; I can take attendance while they do it.

• In English 11 we'll be doing the following:
• Monday - required Activity for MStep; reading time with notes for the Human Rights project
• Tuesday - 2nd and 3rd Hour - online test; 3rd, 4th and 5th Hour - video clips - heroism, reading, discussion
• Wednesday - 4th and 5th Hour - online test; 2nd, 3rd and 4th Hour - mini-lesson - juxtaposition, reading, discussion
• Thursday - 2nd and 3rd Hour - online test; 3rd, 4th and 5th Hour - mini-lesson - juxtaposition, reading, discussion
• Friday - 4th and 5th Hour - online test; 2nd, 3rd and 4th Hour - mini-lesson - juxtaposition, reading, discussion

            This is the best way I can explain it.  If it takes longer than two hours to take the online tests, the whole schedule will be thrown into chaos and we'll have to play everything by ear.  I'm proctoring the test, so if it runs over, subs will have to fill in for my regular classes and we won't be able to do mini-lessons or discussion.

A week from now I can let everyone know how it all went.  Hopefully we'll have nothing but positives, right?  In the meantime, if you have questions or need me, you know how to find me!  Ciao!


More Testing (Sigh!) by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

April Showers, Will They Bring May Flowers?

As I sit here listening to the wind try to rip the roof off of my house, I remember that all this spring weather is necessary to bring in one of my favorite times of year:  May and its spring flowers!  I love the flowering trees, the daffodils, the tulips, the green grass after a long cold winter.  I'm so looking forward to it (though my tulips are already popped up; I hope a late cold snap doesn't damage them). 

I also love this time of year because we're into some of my favorite content of the year!  In English 9 we'll be finishing what is, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest novels of all time:  To Kill a Mockingbird.  Then we'll move on to poetry and The Odyssey.  In English 11 we're working on our Human Rights unit, a topic that I consider the core of everything I believe in.  This will take us to the end of the year because we follow up what we're doing now with Elie Wiesel's haunting autobiography Night, which is his personal journey surviving Auschwitz.  Most of my students enjoy these units and the interest level is high; that certainly makes my job easier!  So here's what's coming up in the next week:

• In English 9 we have completed our argumentative essay.  I still have a couple out (for a variety of reasons), but those that were turned in are graded and on HAC.  From here we will finish the book, hopefully this week!  Most of this week will be spent reading; what follows are assessments (traditional objective test and traditional analytical essay) and the movie.  They will have vocabulary this week, as well, so expect to see those vocab. worksheets on Monday!
• In English 11 we're continuing with the reading of their books.  This is such a challenging unit for me because each book is different in length and content, and they're all at different places in the books (despite using a calendar to set benchmarks), so I'm trying to keep some on track who do not like to read, and then I have those who love to read who want to finish the book...now!  We're doing mini-lessons on literary content, reading time, and I need to work in the discussions at the end of the hour.  I'm also going to add variety by replacing some of the mini-lessons with short video clips that connect to the themes in the books.  I do not have vocabulary for them right now for two reasons:  it's too hard to pull relevant vocab. from their books, and they have plenty on their plates right now.  To tackle the issue of my quick readers, I've created some extra credit with a second book for them to work on.  I'll have this available starting tomorrow.

I've enjoyed having time to work on things at my own pace, but I'm ready to get back in the swing of things; I hope everyone else is, as well.  Have a great week...ciao!


April Showers, Will They Bring May Flowers? by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License