Week Two

671 new teachers began the quest of ending the achievement gap in the Mississippi Delta on June 21, 2010. I started my week with 21 aspiring ninth graders (meaning they did not do well in the eighth grade so they must take summer school to be promoted to the next grade). Yes, I did say I started the week with 21, but as of today I have 19. I have 19 students ranging from 14 to 17 years old in an entering 9th grade English class.

Beep, beep, beep. On Monday June 21st at 4:30am, my clock went off. I put on my new blue teacher dress and headed to school.

"So Sarah, what was the hardest part of your first week, ?" My response: "classroom management." I didn' t realize that most of my job as a teacher would be to force students to listen to what I am saying.

With that said, Monday was a day of assessment testing in each class. I teach block A from 8-9am, the Science teacher, Mr. Johnson, Teaches Science in block B and the Math teacher Ms. Taylor teaches block C and D before and after lunch. The three of us are a team called a "collaborative" or "collab" for short. We share the same classroom, the same classroom theme, the same reward/ discipline system, and the same students. In between block B and C, we have "academic intervention hour" which is a time to break the class into three groups and help certain students who are struggling or excelling faster than their peers. In general, Monday went well in that my students practiced classroom procedures well and each took an assessment.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010- I taught my first lesson... "Point of View." My students did well on their assessment and followed my behavior rules. Tuesday was a good day. I learned Tuesday that cool-aid pickles are a snack. Also, I am not Ms. Kahn... I am Ms. Kaa.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010- Not a good day. This day I ATTEMPTED to teach my students what a plot diagram is. We went through each term, none of which they have seen before. It seemed today that not too many of my students slept before because I had to wake up almost every student. They were so disruptive that I didn't get a chance to hand out the assessment. Instead of teaching a plot diagram, I taught how to raise your hand.

Thursday, June 24, 2010- I re-taught the plot diagram with the theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bel Air because this song is about a story. We plotted this song on a plot diagram together. Then I gave a football example and we plotted that on a diagram. They took an assessment and FINALLY got it.... I guess a little creativity in the morning isn't a bad thing... I'm learning remember! We breezed through the actual objective for the day, which was compiling an accurate summary of a text.

Friday, June 25, 2010- TGIF. What a week! Today, my objective was to teach the students how to use context clues to signal antonyms or synonyms in a text to define a challenging word. As complicated as it sounded, they got it!

Saturday, June 26, 2010- Soccer game at a bar then a 12 hour nap!

Sunday, June 27, 2010- Lesson planning for week three in the MS Delta, week 2 of teaching!