A few weeks back, one of my struggling readers stayed after school for a behavior conference. Julia* and I had a relaxed conversation while she helped me clean graffiti off the desks.
"Tell me how it is for you in my class," I said. "I know you don't like it. What's going on?"
"Well..." she said, hesitating as she scrubbed off a SnapChat user name.
"Go ahead," I urged. "Be honest."
"Well, usually I'm just bored. I don't get what we're doing. Sometimes I want to try, but it's too hard. And then my friends tell me to do things to make them laugh, so..."
"So you do things to keep them entertained?"
"Yeah."
Sunday, October 28, 2018
Friday, October 26, 2018
I Love You Even Then
Please forgive my long silence now that school has started. What a year it has been so far! There have been so many blog-worthy moments, but no time to write about them. I've lost track of the days I've gone home wanting to quit, but there have been many other days that made my heart sing. Yesterday was one of the latter, and I've decided that grading papers can wait.
I thought this year would be easier than my first year because I'd be teaching the same subject and could use some of the same lesson plans. Plus, I learned a lot from my mistakes last year, and I planned to start the year off on the right foot this time.
There was only one problem. Our students came to seventh grade reading at much lower levels than last year; our average student reads at the fourth-grade level, and some of them read at the second-grade level. It only took a few weeks to realize that last year's model was not serving our students. There is no point asking students who cannot read a passage questions about point of view, setting, and author's purpose.
What these students really need is time to actually read. As I've told them all year long, the only way to get better at reading is reading. But there are two problems with that: 1) The ones who need it most despise reading, and we can't force them to do it. They will use any diversionary tactic to avoid reading and to prevent their classmates from reading, too. 2) We are a middle school. We don't have books on the second- and third-grade level. [Our principal just now obtained funding to provide us with leveled libraries for our classrooms, as well as a consultant to help us implement a reading workshop approach. Hallelujah!]
For the last two weeks, I've devoted over half of my class time to silent reading--in theory. But a handful of students have made that time both unfruitful and highly stressful, at least for me. Wednesday was the low point. On the advice of an administrator who has been helping with my most challenging class, I sent every disruptive student to the office and set up parent conferences. Guess how many I sent out in one period? Six. Six! With all of that drama, only the most determined readers could have read anything.
I thought this year would be easier than my first year because I'd be teaching the same subject and could use some of the same lesson plans. Plus, I learned a lot from my mistakes last year, and I planned to start the year off on the right foot this time.
There was only one problem. Our students came to seventh grade reading at much lower levels than last year; our average student reads at the fourth-grade level, and some of them read at the second-grade level. It only took a few weeks to realize that last year's model was not serving our students. There is no point asking students who cannot read a passage questions about point of view, setting, and author's purpose.
What these students really need is time to actually read. As I've told them all year long, the only way to get better at reading is reading. But there are two problems with that: 1) The ones who need it most despise reading, and we can't force them to do it. They will use any diversionary tactic to avoid reading and to prevent their classmates from reading, too. 2) We are a middle school. We don't have books on the second- and third-grade level. [Our principal just now obtained funding to provide us with leveled libraries for our classrooms, as well as a consultant to help us implement a reading workshop approach. Hallelujah!]
For the last two weeks, I've devoted over half of my class time to silent reading--in theory. But a handful of students have made that time both unfruitful and highly stressful, at least for me. Wednesday was the low point. On the advice of an administrator who has been helping with my most challenging class, I sent every disruptive student to the office and set up parent conferences. Guess how many I sent out in one period? Six. Six! With all of that drama, only the most determined readers could have read anything.
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