It’s August. You know what that means. August 27, 2009

Alright.

So…school is back.  I’d like to start a little conversation about that, maybe just with my fellow papacy gals, as I think maybe they are the extent of our readership.

Last week I was really determined to be a better teacher this year.  This week I’m feeling deflated and apathetic.  I reckon this is quite normal, but I’d like to reverse the trend.

To be honest–and I haven’t aired these particular thoughts to the world at large yet, or, more particularly, to my colleagues–I seem to be having less and less love for teaching the 9th graders.  I mean, I think maybe I have a rough bunch this year, which isn’t helping, but I don’t feel any sort of passion for teaching 9th English.  I find this worrisome, but I don’t know what to do about it.  I am trying to focus more of my energies on making their classes better–as in, more conscientious planning, attempting to give better feedback–but it’s almost as though those energies are frustrating me more because they’re not working yet.  I mean, I see the difference from last year, but they sure don’t.

Basically, I don’t know what to do with that.  I do not, however, like the way I’ve been feeling during their classes lately.  And I don’t like how how I’ve been feeling has been affecting the way I teach the class (think giant snowball of negativity).

I needed to get all that out.  I’m hoping to go somewhere positive now, or at least think about going somewhere positive.

But how have y’alls’ years been so far?

Thinking about the fall already?! June 3, 2009

So I’ve been reading and researching a lot over the past few days–juggling books and websites and articles and generally changing my focus about every four seconds.  Surprising (to me, anyway) is the plain fact that the only thing that holds my interest is material that I can connect to the ideas I have for the classes I’m teaching in the fall.  Last summer I couldn’t stand to think about teaching until, oh, August 5th or something, so this is pretty bizarre.

Anyway, I tried researching a little for the 9th grade class, but, unsuprisingly (to me, anyway), I don’t really have any ideas about how to direct that research because I REALLY don’t know what to do with that class!  When will I get better at teaching 9th English?!  I guess maybe I just need to throw down some ideas or principles that I want to try out or keep in mind and then start shaping them, but right now I’m lost–and reading teacher websites that focus on grammar and other same-old, same-old stuff is really not helping me.

Meanwhile, I’m coming up with more and more cool stuff to do with the College Comp class.  I want to try using field research rather than primarily library research to help kids understand basic research concepts like validity, reliability, bias, etc.  There are all kinds of materials on college anthropology websites that are helping me figure out how to support and structure the mini-ethnography assignment that I’m planning to replace the dialogue paper/research synthesis assignment I’ve used in the past.  I think kids will be really excited about being treated as real researchers, and I think the new approach will probably help them understand the difference between sound and shoddy research in a much more direct and purposeful way.

So I guess there’s an idea that I can apply when I’m re-envisioning the 9th grade class: How can I make it more authentic?  More hands-on?  How can I structure things to help them become and feel more competent, more in control, more like they’re doing their work–work they care about and direct–rather than simply jumping through my hoops?