Skip to main content

Famous Speeches, Beowulf Boasts, and English Teacher Math


We read a plethora of text types in 7th grade English from news articles, Greek myths, and poems.  I met with students one-on-one to talk about where they think their strengths and weakness were in the narratives they wrote. It is incredibly tricky to get students to revise their writing once they've decided they are “done”. Conferences sometimes help with that. They created covers for their narratives; now if I could just find the time to publish all of their stories in a book!
Students used Google Draw to create a unique cover for their narratives.
In Speech, we took a break from delivering speeches to analyze some famous speeches. The students did a great job selecting some modern and historically significant speeches. They looked at speeches by Emma Watson, Sir Ken Robinson, John F. Kennedy, Kevin Durant, and several more. We most recently started brainstorming ideas for the next speech--an informative speech. I tried a different approach when introducing this speech this time around. Instead of asking students to speak on something they want to inform the class about, I tried activating their imaginations first by asking them what they have always wondered about. The result was a list of topic proposals that were much more intriguing.
Great student analysis on delivery.
I’ve spent the last couple weeks working the 12th grade English class like we’re running a marathon.  I get them first and third trimesters, so I know we better “carpe the diem” early in the game. We read Beowulf in reading groups using the reciprocal teaching strategy. Then they completed a timed, argumentative essay for a midterm performance assessment.  It was a teacher's dream come true seeing the determination on their faces as they tackled such a difficult task.  I just might ease up on them a little next week…maybe.
Reciprocal teaching; questioner role.

I think I might have a sticky note addiction.  Theme analysis for Beowulf.
We created Google Spreadsheets this week in the Google Apps class. Well, to be more accurate, we used Google Maps, math, and spreadsheets. Together, we created a list of places we would like to visit, used Maps to find the distance and time. Then, we figured out the formulas for sum and average, and calculated cost of fuel per mile. This was no easy task for an English teacher, but I managed thanks to our math teacher, Ms. Young. My two years as a middle school math tutor also came in handy. Now, we are taking a break from Google Apps to research new and innovative technology.

That’s it for this week. Midterm crept up on me quickly!  I always worry about whether I’m doing enough to help my students learn. Writing these blogs is definitely helping me reflect and improve.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Perception vs. Reality

Before I became a "real" teacher, my perception of teaching English was that I would be blowing kids' minds with classic literature and handing out grammar worksheets.  Needless to say, that hasn't happened...yet. Instead, I was surprised to find that I loved teaching about writing. In particular, I found a love of teaching argumentation and persuasion. The seventh graders are gearing up for argumentative writing. We begin by talking about the concepts of perception and reality and how those two things influence our views of the world and all its issues. I have them make a poster that's based off a popular meme to help ground those concepts. It hardly seems like work, and it's one of the few assignments we do where I get to hear things like, "Can I finish this at home?" or "Can I do another one?" The task is to make a perception and reality poster. I start by showing them an example for a teacher, like this one . This makes for a great
Post a Comment
Read more

First Week is in the Books!

In 7th grade English, we did some activities to help get students get acquainted with their new lives in junior high. On the first day, I challenged the students to work together.  We did this activity.  It was great to observe how each student approached the challenge and helped their team out.  My favorite part of class this week was talking about the Genius Hour project. I didn't have a much time to talk about it as I would have liked, but we were able to brainstorm a few ideas to think about over the weekend. Genius Hour brainstorming "Seventh Grade" activity Most of the students I have in Public Speaking had not previously had a class with me, so I think we got to know each other a little better this week.  We did a speaking and listening activity where one student had to describe a picture while the other student listened and tried to draw it. Students also worked in small groups to brainstorm all the different ways we communicate and wrote definitions of
1 comment
Read more

Killer Waves, Students Teach, and We Believe

This week was our first full, five day week...and oh boy, it was a  full week! :) Most of CHS at the Chris Herren assembly.  Really puts into perspective how small our school is! We were swept up in the short story "Rogue Wave" by Theodore Taylor in 7th grade this week.  It was a challenging story, but it had a great plot that kept us on the edges of our seats. We practiced writing summaries together and did some activities to help us identify multiple themes. Before we started reading the story, the 7th graders made their own vocabulary lists by scanning the story for unknown words. Then they put their lists on Quizlet so they could practice their words in a variety of ways. On Friday, students wrote their  Genuis Hour project proposals on our blog .  One of my fantastic students posting evidence from the text to support a theme. The summary my students helped write together. Deciding what evidence is relevant. Speech students led some interesting disc
Post a Comment
Read more