The Day Came!

I knew the day would come and sure enough it did. I was good for so long. But last week I completely missed my blog. I should have seen it coming. But to be fair, last weekend I was tied up at the Regional Wrestling tournament Friday and Saturday, I coach at Hibriten, then drove to Pennsylvania and back Sunday and Monday. I spent this past weekend in Winston-Salem at the State Wrestling tournament, where I'm proud to say I coached four outstanding wrestlers. One of our wrestlers won the tournament earning himself a place in the trophy case as a State Champion and another finished third in the state, an impressive feat in itself.

But since I missed a week, I'll start there! The week of February 9th to 13th, I finished my switch with Mrs. Grogan and got all four classes back together at the beginning of the week. The end of the week, we played Baseball with Qwizdom. I created 50 questions from literary elements and grammar and loaded them into the program. It then splits the class into two teams and we play baseball. The team with the most correct answers win the situation (get the hit if they're batting or the out if they're fielding). All of the classes seemed to enjoy playing. I plan on adding more questions and playing again soon.

Thursday we had a slightly altered schedule due to the Locks Of Love program. It was very touching to see our kids give back and to hear the dedications that they made. That Friday, the 13th, we got ready for service with preservice rotations and watched Glory Road, continuing our exploration of Black History Month.

This past week was reduced to three days for me. I was out Monday with my daughter, coming back from Pennsylvania. Maggie had lost a filling and we drove to Pennsylvania to get it fixed. Yes I know there are quite capable dentists in North Carolina, but our dentist in Pennsylvania is also Maggie's uncle. I was out on Friday for the North Carolina State Wrestling Tournament. So the week seemed rushed to me.

The beginning of the week we journaled about the Uglies, reflecting on what we liked and didn't like about the book and how we worked with it. Then we read The Lady, or the Tiger by Frank R Stockton. The story is open ended and has always caused a lot of speculation as to what ultimately happens. I had the students finish the story from where the author leaves it open. They had an opportunity later in the week to share and the ones I heard were really good!

The second part of the week, we talked about Uglies, turned in books, and started our final project. While we read the novel, students were asked to keep track of quotes that were interesting, well written, or even confusing. Their task now is to take those quotes and make them into a "Found Poem". They need to either capture the events of the story or its essence. They then have to present the poem in some form. They are free to decide how to present the poem, but all poems must be at least 20 lines long. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished projects!

Friday they spent the day working service at a local school or agency. I hate that I missed the first day of service rotation! I'm looking forward to this week being a little less hectic than the last two!

I remembered!

At least I remembered to blog this week. On a random side note that has nothing to do with class, I found a fun website. It's Obamiconme.com. Regardless of political views, it's fun to play with the site and make your own pictures like mine. You can make them say HOPE or CHANGE or whatever you want. Just some random fun!

This was a good even if it was all mixed up. I started the week with the Juniors and was supposed to be with them both Monday and Tuesday, but Mrs. Grogan's daughter was sick and she had to be out on Tuesday, so we're going to complete our switch this Tuesday. I had fun with the Juniors. We worked on Graduation Project prep. It was fun just getting to interact with them some since I don't typically have those kinds of opportunities.

With groups B, C, and D, we wrote journals on Selling Out and being Sold Out. I wanted the focus to be on the motivation behind the behavior. We had just gotten to a point in the novel where Talley basically sells out her friend and the smoke. It was good to go beyond the book and the surface and explore why exactly we chose to sell people out. A group wrote about their day with Mrs. Grogan. They seemed to enjoy the lesson and had fun with her. It was an interesting experiment. While students might be used to having a substitute, this was different in that Mrs. Grogan is an English teacher and she planned her lesson on her own. So it was like having a different teacher for a day.

We spent time working on the quote project. For A group, it's due on Wednesday, and for B, C, and D it's due on Thursday. For the project, they were given a 12 X 18 piece of white construction paper. They had to pick a quote from Uglies and fully illustrate a poster of the quote. The had to use the entire paper and capture either the literal or figurative meaning of the quote. I've already seen a few, and I'm very impressed.

Wednesday we used the early release day as a work day at the students' request. They felt like they needed more time for both their high school and college work, so we obliged and had a pretty productive day. That turned Thursday into an A day and Friday into a B day. We used Friday afternoon to watch The Long Walk Home, a very emotionally charged film dealing with the lives of two families, one black and one white, during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It was a good follow up to the Mike Wiley performance we saw last week and fits right into Black history Month.

Friday worked out to be much like tomorrow will be for A group, since B, C, and D will be with Mrs. Grogan. I hooked up a set of Qwizdom remotes. They're classroom responders that allow students to respond to questions on the screen, and they get immediate feedback. It's a pretty cool system. I can then see all of the answers given and it logs things for me. I've just started to play with the software, but it looks like it'll come in very handy as we prep for the EOC. We spent the rest of class reading and talking about Uglies. We're about to finish the novel.

Saturday I competed on the teacher team during the Dodge Ball Tournament. It was a valiant effort and raised money for the Road Trip at the end of the year, not to mention a whole lot of fun.

....Whoa!

The past weekend was jam-packed with things going on, and I never got to post last week's blog. I meant to do it last night, but I got sick and spent the night curled up on the couch dying.

We started out last week looking at Number 12 Looks Just Like You. It's an old Twilight Zone episode that is very similar to Uglies. We wrote down some of the quotes or scenes that really put us in mind of Uglies. In both the novel and the television episode, we have characters who are struggling with an identity crisis. So we wrote bio-poems using two different fixed forms of poetry.

On Wednesday, we finally got a chance to see Mike Wiley's performance, "Tired Souls". I thought the performance was wonderful. I had the opportunity to see him perform one of his plays before and thoroughly enjoyed that play as well. He is very talented and entertaining. He makes history come alive and uses a lot of audience participation to increase engagement.

The second class of the week involved a Fish Bowl Discussion. I took volunteers to enter the center of the fish bowl and begin our discussion. I had statements written out in a cup that they could pull from when one idea was exhausted or to keep the conversation going. Those on the outside had to take notes and observe the discussion on the inside. If they wanted to join the conversation, they tapped someone out and took that person's spot.

I found it interesting how each class handled the discussion differently. I didn't actually have time to set it up with Group "A", but I hope to do it with them soon. Some groups the "fish" changed regularly and nearly everyone "swam" into the conversation. In another group the fish bowl occasionally stagnated. Regardless, it was a good controlled way to discuss some of the ideas that we've seen in the novel and even the Twilight Zone episode.

Friday was our health fair. We got lots of nutritional tips as well as some exercise. The day went very smoothly and the kids did an excellent job of participating!

This Monday and Tuesday, I was supposed to be with the juniors, while Mrs. Grogan taught the freshmen. We switched Monday as planned, but today will have to wait for next Tuesday.

But that is for another blog!