So I just realized that I have been neglecting my blog for a bit...so time to get back at it! I have started to get some actual hands-on experience in the classroom, and I have begun to step out of my comfort zone as an observer, to try my hand at some teaching! Last week we had to post video of an "intial teaching experience"...and I'm not sure whether mine was as "high leverage" as expected...but either way...it was fun! I was able to lead a discussion with my Theater 1 students, who had been reading/acting the play, 12 Angry Men. The kids seemed to really get into this play, that on initial observation, may not really apply to their lives (as the play is centered on a jury of 12 older white men). They seemed most excited when I asked them to weigh in on the verdict itself, as they loved being able to argue about whether the teen on trial was innocent or guilty. I am now trying to figure out my own "teaching style" and I think I am going to take away a number of features and tips from my mentor. She really connects with the kids...and I am trying my best to emulate this in my own teaching. Now, I'm off to figure out how to make my next lesson on adjectives/adverbs interesting...any tips out there?
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Hi Alison.
ReplyDeleteThis is Lauren, a former MACer currently teaching in the Bronx (I believe you read one of my blog posts this summer...). Just wanted to respond to your blog on initial teaching experiences. It can be really intimidating to all of a sudden have all eyes on you... or even worse, be shushing folks for a few minutes to get everyone's attention! It's great that you're already thinking about developing your style, my suggestion to you is to experiment with as many different types of lessons as you can -- from discussions to role plays to direct instruction to your great idea about creating newscasts around a topic! Maybe take their love of arguing and have them write an editorial and use gabcast to have them "call in" their homework, that could be cool.
Not sure if you already did your adjectives/adverbs lesson, but one of my favorite ways to teach it is by doing a mini lesson on what the part of speech means, then have them brainstorm a whole bunch of them and play mad libs. Have them fill in the blanks of a partial story -- or use http://www.madlibs.org/, which has them fill in a part of speech and creates mad libs from Hamlet and other literature! You can project it on the board and do this as a class. Good luck!
Cheers,
Lauren in the Bx
Hey Alison! I did an activity with my kids that was originally scheduled to be a worksheet on taking a verb and a subject and writing a complete sentence, and I changed it to make it a little more fun. I made big dice out of posterboard and put the subjects on one and verbs on another and had the students roll them to determine what they would be using for their sentences. You might be able to try something like that for future grammar activities?
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