Mrs. Stubbs's English Blog: Continuing Forward

Now that we've found our rhythm I've had a chance to sit back and evaluate what is working and what needs to change. I also spent last Friday at a conference for English teachers at MSU and was able to converse with others in my field, particularly teachers in the middle schools, high schools and university levels. A big chunk of my day was about how we make their transitions work between all three levels. As such, I made some executive decisions about some changes (though I did email my co-teacher during the day to share and make sure he was on board), so here are a couple of things that I want to do differently:

Instead of weekly vocab. quizzes for academic words - which are taking up a ton of time from the class and also dominating HAC - I plan to focus on 8 of them that are integral to being a critical thinker and student. They are also ideas that are integral to life habits, so they are called Habits of Mind: curiosity, openness, engagement, creativity, persistence, responsibility, flexibility, and metacognitive thinking. I'm going to present the ideas on Monday to my classes, and each day there will be an exit ticket asking them to focus on which habits they worked on that day. I will still focus on other academic words, but we'll spread them out with vocab. cards, so maybe a few times a term instead of every week.
Each day instead of the weekly agenda (which changes constantly) I'm going to post three statements for each class: I Can..., Utilizing the Skills..., Important for Careers In... . I'm hoping that this will help them see in their day to day work that there's relevance in what we do. I'm frustrated because I feel like they're just doing what we do for a grade; there's no intrinsic motivation. I'm hoping this will give them more ownership over their learning.
Because we'll have less focus on the academic vocabulary quizzes, we'll have more time to write, and a chance to write more than just essays. I'm tired of the read-a-book=write-an-essay rut I get into. This should help them with both writing skills and critical thinking.

Those are my thoughts for the moment. I'm hoping the changes will make my class more interesting and engaging for them. So here are my plans for the week:

English 9

Monday, 10/21 - bell work; Act III, Scene i Flipgrids; exit ticket
Tuesday, 10/22 - Academic Advisory - bell work; finish Flipgrids; continue Act III; exit ticket
Wednesday, 10/23 - bell work; quickwrite; continue Act III; exit ticket
Thursday, 10/24 - PSAT Advisory - bell work; turn in Reading Logs; continue Act III; 1st Hour - quiz for Act III; exit ticket
Friday, 10/25 - bell work; get new Reading Log; silent reading, exit ticket

English 10

Monday, 10/21 - bell work; 3rd Hour - 10% Summary; 4th Hour - quickwrite, start Ch. 10; exit ticket
Tuesday, 10/22 - Academic Advisory - bell work; 3rd Hour - quickwrite, read Ch. 10; 4th Hour - finish the book, final discussion; exit ticket
Wednesday, 10/23 - bell work; 3rd Hour - EDP with Mrs. Edwards; 4th Hour - quiz for ch. 9/10; pre-write for essay; exit ticket
Thursday, 10/24 - PSAT Advisory - bell work; 3rd Hour - finish the book, quiz for ch. 9/10; 4th Hour - finish pre-writing; set up document; start drafting; exit ticket
Friday, 10/25 - bell work; 3rd Hour - pre-writing, set up document; 4th Hour - 1/2 Hour for drafting, 1/2 Hour for movie; exit ticket

So that's the plan. Thanks for all the patience and support I receive - I appreciate all of it! Ciao!