Patience, Please...

Wow!  That's all I can say right now.  This is going to be an interesting year!  I loved meeting all 150 of my new students last week, and they are being so lovely and patient about my lack of skills in memorizing names.  As I correct work and hand it back, it will come to me faster, but right now they're really putting up with my rude pointing as a form of identification, with good humor.

They are also being patient with me as I work to take a 90-minute curriculum and work it down to 45-minutes.  They are starting to get a picture of how difficult this is going to be and have been so nice about allowing me to change things quickly.  Right now I feel like I'm swimming through murky water, having a difficult time finding my way through, but I also know that once I figure things out, we'll be golden!  I love that they've done this curriculum before because their conversations and input have been fabulous!  They're so intellectual!  I'm having a great time working with them.

I'm trying not to over-burden them with homework, so here is what I see going forward.  I'd like to keep English homework at about 30-minutes a day, so I'm thinking that 20-30 minutes should be for reading their Independent Book, but they may have 10 minutes or so of written work that will need to happen to finish what we were doing during class.  They will have three weeks to read their independent book, with a fourth week to pull together a project, plus some class time for reading, so I'm hoping that they will have no problem getting everything done.

Speaking of homework, I sent home a parent letter to be signed, so I need those back on Monday.

So here's what's coming up this week:

• Monday through Thursday we'll be working on our "St. Lucy's" short story that we started last week.  They'll be doing their vocabulary on Google Classroom, so we'll set up their accounts in class on Monday.  They'll be doing close-readings, discussions, and short activities in class all week to really dig into the material.
• I will hand out the project packets for Independent Reading on Monday, as well.  We went to the library last week, so all students should have something to read. They should always have their books on them so that they can read, read, read.
• Tuesdays with Teachers will happen after school starting this week, so if your student needs extra help, this is a great time for them to get help.
• Advisory Hours will begin on Wednesday and Thursday.  All students have been placed with an advisor, our regular hours will be shortened, and students will report to their assigned classroom during Advisory Hour.  Wednesdays are for academic help; Thursdays are for team and character building.
• Friday we will have time to do two things:  finish the vocabulary assignment for the week if they have not already done so, and SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) so that they can work on their independent reading.

As you can see, we're very, very busy, so please make sure your student is rested and in attendance as much as possible.  We're also now to week two, which means that the colds and illnesses will begin.  Hopefully everyone, including you, is now washing hands like a maniac.  It's the only way to try to stay healthy once we've re-entered the germ incubator that every school is.

I hope everyone has a great week, enjoys the beautiful September weather, and gets a little time to relax!  Ciao!

Patience, Please... by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at www.laurastubbs.blogspot.com.

Welcome to the 2015/2016 School Year!

Welcome back!  Can you believe that it's finally here?  I hope everyone had a relaxing, fun-filled summer season.  I definitely did! but let me introduce myself, since I have all new students for this school year:

My name is Laura Stubbs and this year I'm teaching all English 9 classes.  I know that I've had some of my students' older siblings in the past, so not all parents will be brand new to me, but I definitely have a large group of people who have never worked with me before.  Here's a little about me:

• I attended WMU for my undergrad degree and then MSU for my Master's degree.
• I grew up in the Lansing area and so my first teaching job was with the Lansing School District.
• After getting married and working in the LSD for five years, we made the decision to move closer to Detroit for my husband's job, and so I applied and received my forever-job at AHS (I hope).
• This is my 17th year teaching ELA at Airport:  I've taught 9th, 11th and 12th grade English here at the high school.
• I have two sons:  they are now 12 (7th grade) and 14 (9th grade) and go to school in Ann Arbor.  They play sports, sing in choirs, participate in school plays, play in their school bands, and participate with 4-H training llamas, so they're very busy people!  This means that I'm very busy, also, since most days it feels like I have 152 kids:  yours and mine!

That's a general overview of personal information about me, so let's get down to brass tacks, so to speak.  This year will be exciting yet challenging since we're bringing the Engage NY ELA curriculum up to the 9th grade.  Your students were introduced to it last year, but it's all new to me.  I have worked with the middle school teachers a bit, and our curriculum director Greg Roberts, to find out how best to meet the demands of the curriculum in a 55-minute time frame, as well as incorporate Collins Writing and my technology goals into the program.  I spent much of the summer working on this, so hopefully what I've planned for works, though I know from years of experience that the name of the game in education in flexibility.

Other things that have to be considered are the following:

• Advisory Periods:  on Wednesdays and Thursdays our regular hours will be cut short to accommodate these periods into our day.  All students and teachers will be put into groups for advisory times: Wednesdays are for academic help, Thursdays we have a curriculum to follow.
• PSAT - your student will be taking this test in April as mandated by the state.  All 9th and 10th graders will be taking a version of the test  in order to help prepare them for the SAT which is given in the 11th grade year.  We will be working on skills that will help when taking these tests.
• Technology - I have Chromebooks in my room (I received them in January, so they're new to me), and so part of our year will be working with technology and Google Classroom.
• Your Kids are Busy - your students are very busy people, with lots of extra-curricular activities.  I feel that these activities are vital to them and their learning, so I will try not to over-burden them with homework.  I hate busy work so most homework will be for them to either read independently for a project, and/or to finish writing assignments that could not be completed in class time.

I look at this as a partnership between you, your student, and myself.  We all have the same goal:  prepare them for life beyond high school as fully participating, healthy members of society, so please join me in this partnership.  I will update this blog with the week's information, and occasionally I include pictures or video, just to keep you in the loop.  Every week I'll email you the link so that you have easy access to this information.

Please feel free to contact me anytime.  I'm best at answering emails quickly, but also feel free to call the school and leave me a voice message.  I'm so excited to meet both you and your student, and I know this will be a great year!

Welcome to the 2015/2016 School Year! by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at laurastubbs.blogspot.com.

One Full Week Left to Go...

It's hard to believe, but there's only one more full week of school!  Where does the time go!??!  I've almost finished with the planning and grading for this year, and I've already begun planning for the 2015/2016 school year.  It's just a never-ending cycle.

We've accomplished some exciting things, this year.  Just last week, English 9 acted out scenes from The Odyssey!  I'm still working on putting the video together, but hope to get it posted here, soon.  When I do, I'll let everyone know.  Also last week, English 11 finished reading Night.  It's been difficult with all of the coming and going (because of field trips, special events, and general absences), but everyone seems very interested in the book and we've got it done.

So here's what's coming up this week:

• English 9 - no vocabulary (we're done for the year), but they'll be finishing the reading of Part I of The Odyssey.  We follow this with the movie so that they can see the story as a whole.  That will take us to the end of the week.  On Monday, June 8th, they'll have a cumulutive semester exam that will include The Odyssey.  I will be putting together a study guide and will spend part of Friday reviewing and organizing for it.
• English 11 - their open-note, open-study guide test over Night is on Monday.  After the test we'll be doing a project, and then follow that up with the movie The Book Theif.  Both the project and the movie are centered around core themes that we focus upon throughout the year.  On Monday, June 8th, they'll have a written, reflective exam.  They are over-tested, so rather than beat them over the heads with another test, we'll have them write and reflect on what they've learned this year.

This is probably my last post for the year.  The last week of school is just a day and a half.  Official release is Tuesday, June 9th at 10:30 A.M. (unless we're all notified differently).  I hope everyone has an enjoyable summer, and I'm sure I'll see some of you around and about next year.  Ciao!


One Full Week Left to Go... by Laura stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Happy Memorial Day!

I love this time of year, and I love this holiday.  Yes, it's a day of picnics, friends, and family, but in my family's tradition, it's also a day of remembrance.  This is the day we clean the gravesites of family gone but not forgotten, and we share stories so that the next generation will know those who came before.  It is also a day for me to remember the service of my grandfathers and uncles in WWII, and my dad in Vietnam.  Thankfully, all of my family members made it home, but I try to remember and honor all those who didn't.  I'm truly grateful for their sacrifice.  Please keep my nephew in your thoughts and prayers as he makes his journey as a serviceman.

My grandfather, John G. Fitch, ready to leave for the European front in January, 1942

 

As we move forward through the week, we'll be heading toward the end of each of our units.  Last week English 9 began reading The Odyssey.  We started with some preliminary games to get some of the language and story line into their comfort zones, then they started reading.  This week, they will continue to read Part I, before watching the movie to see the story as a whole.  English 11 is reading the book Night.  My goal this week is for them to finish the book.  So here is what is coming up:

English 9 - they will continue to read and do study guides for The Odyssey.  There will not be any vocabulary quiz due to the shortened week.  Unfortunately, I'll be out on Tuesday working on English 9 curriculum for next year, so they'll be reading with partners.  When I get back on Wednesday, we'll go back over what they read and do some activities.  My goal for this week is to finish reading Part I.

English 11 - they will watch a video of our author, Elie Wiesel, giving a tour of Auschwitz as it looks today, pointing out places that are mentioned in the book.  Then Wednesday through Friday, we'll finish the book.  They will not have a vocabulary quiz due to the shortened week.

By the end of the school year, both groups will have assessments for the semester, but I'll make sure they're prepared in class before they take them; I definitely won't throw them to the wolves since the goal is success for every student.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day and a great week!  Ciao!

 
Happy Memorial Day! by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.laurastubbs.blogspot.com/.

What a Fantastic Week!

What a wonderful week I've had!  It was immensely busy, but immensely rewarding, too.  It began on Monday when I chaperoned my son's 6th grade fieldtrip to the Holocaust Museum in Farmington Hills:

We were able to follow a docent who was a survivor of the Kindertransport.  Her parents put she and her sister on a train in Germany and sent them to live in England.  They died in the Holocaust, and so she moved to the United States to live with an aunt and uncle, eventually arriving here in Detroit, and now she guides people through this amazing museum, and her story is recorded here.  At the end of the tour, we were able to hear a survivor of ten (10!) concentration camps in Poland.  Remarkably, he and his parents all made it through, but his story was amazing, and our kids were so respectful, and so appreciative, that they all gave him hugs at the end of it.

I won't talk about how my youngest got a stomach bug on Thursday and how I had to stay home with him.  I'll let you use your own experiences to know what my day was like; however, he was able to recover in time for his extra special day at school on Friday.

His teacher is passionate about the Holocaust, and she created this amazing unit which revolved around reading texts about the Holocaust (including The Diary of Anne Frank), but she also introduced them to a survivor named Eva Kor.  Mrs. Kor is a twin, and she and her sister Miriam survived Auschwitz and Dr. Mengele and his twin experiments.  They were taken into Auschwitz in 1944 (it was liberated in January of 1945), separated from their family (who all perished), and then subjected to horrific experiments.  Despite this, her message is one of peace and forgiveness, and she gives a powerful presentation.  She has founded a museum in Terre Haute, called the CANDLES museum, and speaks internationally about her experiences and lessons.  My son's teacher has gotten to know this remarkable lady and brought her to school on Friday, and she spent the day with the 6th graders.  My son was so excited!  Then I had the chance to listen to her and meet her on Friday night when she spoke to the community.  I'm so glad I had this opportunity; I've tried to impress upon my students that they need to listen to these survivors and meet them, because they won't be around much longer.  Here is a picture of Eva Kor speaking to us on Friday night:

Then I got up super early on Saturday morning, and I took my older son and parents to Stratford Ontario for the Stratford Festival.  I spent the day at a Michigan Teacher's Workshop, learning an abundance of techniques for teaching Shakespeare (this is my second time attending, and I truly think it's the best workshop I've ever attended), and my parents and son wandered around town shopping, eating, and finding all the parks and hidden gardens.  Then we grabbed dinner together, and off we went to see Hamlet.  I think Stratford is the best live theater within a day's drive, and this production didn't let me down.  We all loved it!  Here's a collage from the trip:

We just got back, and it's been a rewarding and eventful weekend, and I'm exhausted!  As a result, I haven't graded any papers yet this weekend, but I will have everything handled by early this week.  While I was super busy personally last week, my students continued to work hard, so here's what they accomplished:

They all focused on vocabulary and took quizzes.  My freshmen read poems and wrote poems; my juniors did some pre-reading work for Night, and then we began reading the book.  As they read, they were taking notes and doing a study guide.

This week, here's what's coming up:

• English 9 will be transitioning to The Odyssey, an epic narrative poem.  We'll take what we talked about for the last two weeks and apply it in.  They'll focus on vocabulary, take a quiz, and begin learning how to read epic poetry.  I'm going to bring in some new ideas I got at my workshop this weekend, since the techniques used for teaching Shakespeare can be applied to any text.
• English 11 will continue to read Night.  By the end of the week, we should be close to having it finished.  They'll do some vocabulary and take a quiz, and they'll continue with notes and a study guide.

That's about it for me.  I need to start catching up on my school work, so I hope everyone has a wonderful week.  Ciao!


What a Fantastic Week! by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!  I hope your children show you all the love and support they can to thank you for all of the love and support you have given them over the years.  You deserve it!

Here's are pictures of the loves of my life, in a moment that remains precious to me because they were spending time with me:

I don't even remember what my life was like before they came into it, and I don't know what I would do without them.  I cherish these years!  I know you all feel the same way I do about your children, so enjoy your day!

In the meantime, life goes on, so here's what we accomplished last week:

In English 9, we finished To Kill a Mockingbird and started a poetry unit.  They had vocabulary terms and we applied them to a few poems I picked out; then they immersed themselves into poetry books and logged what they read, picking out a poem they particularly enjoyed.  In English 11, we outlined a project connecting their books to the larger theme of Human Rights, and then created a thesis statement about what can be done to be a positive force in this world.  After that, they created group presentations on Prezi to share their ideas.  Most of the groups are done presenting; I only have a couple more to go.

Coming up this week:

• English 9 will continue looking at poetry.  They have another set of vocabulary words and I will be assigning poems for them to read in order to identify poetic devices and understand how they work.  They will also begin writing a few poems of their own, choosing a topic but with guidelines for what poetic devices they need to use.
• English 11 will begin the book Night by Elie Wiesel, an autobiography about his survival of Auschwitz.  The beginning of the book centers around his life as a Hasidic Jew before the Nazis took over, so our vocabulary this week focuses on terms specific to that culture.  I find that they know quite a bit about the Holocaust, but very little about the Jewish culture.  We have a preview packet to do on Monday, and then we'll move into the book.  They will have a study guide to do along with the reading, which will take place completely in the classroom since we do not have enough books to check out.  We will also see a video of the author taking Oprah on a tour of Auschwitz, and connect the ideas with poems and/or poetry.

I am behind on grading again; the lives of my children have kicked into high gear and every night and every weekend has multiple events, but I will get caught up.  I hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday and a fabulous week...ciao!


Happy Mother's Day! by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://laurastubbs.blogspot.com.

Spring Is Definitely Here (Translation: My Students Have Become Wiggly)!

Yay!  That's all I have to say about being done with M-Step testing (except for make-ups).  Maybe, just maybe, we can now get back to normal class time.  Last week my 1st Hour English 9 was right on track, but the rest of the day was chaotic at best.  Because I was missing significant numbers in all of my English 11 hours from Tuesday through Friday, they had lots of reading time, and it began to feel like the perpetual study hall.  I did have them write a 5-paragraph essay on stages of genocide in their books, and incorporated a few video clips related to the books, squeezing in some Type 1 writings, but if your student was out for testing, I excused them from the Type 1's because it would be very difficult to make it up, and they're already maxed out from testing.  (I must be maxed too, since last night I had a dream that Mrs. VanWasshenova and I took our 4th Hour class to Okemos, my hometown, to take the M-Step at my friend Julie's house.  When we got there, I realized I brought the wrong "tickets" for them to sign in with, then I kept spinning in circles debating whether to take them on a tour of my old stomping grounds, or trying to get them into the test.  Weird!)

This week I'm hoping to get us back on track, so here's what's up:

• In English 9 we are finishing the movie To Kill a Mockingbird on Monday.  They have been doing a comparison/contrast chart while watching; now we'll create a Venn Diagram and reflect on why those differences occurred.  From there, it's on to poetry!  We'll start our unit with vocabulary, so they'll get the words on Monday, find definitions by Tuesday, look for examples throughout the week, then quiz on Friday.  I'm going to show them some Slam Poetry video clips and we're going to immerse ourselves in poetry books, looking for both poets and poems we love.  They'll be logging what they read and identifying favorite poems to share with the class at the end of the hours.  They'll also be looking at poems I love and answering questions on both poetry structure and meaning as we go through the week.
• In English 11 we are finishing the Human Rights unit.  All books should be read by the time they come to class on Monday.  We will be filling out an outline with examples and quotations from the book to analyze how human rights fit into their book, and then we'll take it to the core question:  how do we try to ensure that all people are given their basic human rights?  They will use the outlines to create group project presentations on Prezi to share ideas, collaborate to come to a consensus, create an online format for presentation, then share their ideas with the class.  This will be the culminating activity of the unit.  At that point we will be able to change our focus to a unit around the book Night.

It's such a busy time...for everyone.  I hope everyone feels free to contact me whenever they have a question, comment, or concern.  One way or another, we'll all get through this, and hopefully we'll be better people for having experienced it all!

I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend getting some much-needed Vitamin D!  Ciao!


Spring Is Definitely Here (Translation: My Students Have Become Wiggly)! by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at Mrs. Stubbs's English Blog.