This day wasn’t too bad. I made some copies in the morning before class started. I just sat back and didn’t do too much first period (as usual). In second through fifth periods, we did our vocab word of the day, we went over the new week’s homework, we went through our grammar workbooks and discussed subordinate clauses/conjunctions, and we also went over MLA format for periodicals. Sixth period I introduced ballads for poetry, so we listened to some ballad-form songs (including Devil Went Down To Georgia, Hotel California, and Piano Man). Then I discussed parody for ballads, in which I played Weird Al’s “Spider-Man,” which is a parody of “Piano Man.” Seventh period I helped a student who came in during conference period, and then I ended up leaving pretty early (not too long after school ended) because there wasn’t anything for me to do.
But the interesting things happened fourth period. First, they had a mini-party because they had the highest percentage turn in homework for the last nine weeks, so my mentor teacher bought them a whole load of Mexican food… and it smelled so good, but it was all for them (and they’re all pigs). Dang it! But then… the biggest thing of the day involved this girl in my fourth period class who talks to me about personal matters quite a bit. Well, she comes up to me today and is like “I’m scared.” “What?” “I’m scared.” “Why?” “Oh, I haven’t told you yet, right?” “Nope… why are you scared?” And so she starts doing a bunch of random hand signals, and I’m like “I can’t read sign language.” So she takes both of my hands and slowly puts them on top of my stomach. Then it hit me, and all I could say was “OH…. Oh…” And just repeat that over and over again. She said she wasn’t positive yet, but she was really worried about it. Yeah… that was an interesting experience (for those whom that wasn’t clear enough for… she’s afraid she’s pregnant). But yeah, otherwise, that was my Monday.
There’s not too much to say for Tuesday (except that practically everybody, students included, were all riled up due to it being election day). But other than that, first period did timed essay writing, so I just sat and read a short story I’ll be teaching in a week or two. Second through fifth periods did work on more MLA documentation forms and then discussed research report topics and the grading rubric for the report and presentation. Fifth period, I also had my supervisor come and observe. She left all positive comments, even though I was in there without my mentor teacher and they were being insane (more after my supervisor left, but some while she was there—is it illegal to kill and/or brutally maim students? Just wondering). Sixth period started on some new vocabulary and continued working on their poems, all of which are due Friday. Then I got to leave early during seventh period conference because I still needed to go vote, so my mentor teacher let me leave early.
This day was slightly boring. First period analyzed John McCain’s concession speech (and Thursday they’ll analyze Obama’s acceptance speech) looking for rhetorical devices, etc. Second through fifth periods were in the library getting the common spiel from the librarian on how to conduct research by using different methods available in the library and all that good stuff (so I just sat back and did… not too much, basically). And then sixth period, we all did an ABC Poem (which is basically a couple sentences wherein every word must begin with the next letter of the alphabet)… so everything was all random and bizarre. It was a lot of fun, and they all had a blast with it. Then seventh period conference we had a grade-level meeting. After school, my mentor teacher and I discussed some of the things I could do for my two weeks solo (I think it should be some pretty cool stuff). I left around 5 PM, but it flew by really fast. And that was my Wednesday.
First period went over and analyzed the Obama acceptance speech. Second through fifth periods were in the library beginning research. It was chaotic as heck in there, as nobody listened to any instructions (as usual), and nobody had listened on previous days on how to do things… so of course nobody knew what the heck they were supposed to be doing and/or how to do it. I got the same dumb questions over and over again and had to re-explain almost everything over and over again. I was running around the entire library all day long going from person to person. It was most difficult when five+ people are trying to ask me questions all simultaneously (and then getting upset when I attempt to answer somebody else’s question first). My legs were killing me by the end of the day. Sixth period worked on a ‘Found Poem’, which is just blacking out words/sentences in a newspaper article until you only have specific words left that flow together to make a story/poem. Seventh period conference was used to make a bunch of copies, and after school was used to go over everything for the next two weeks (for my solo teaching) with my mentor teacher. I got out around 5 PM, though, again, it went by pretty fast. Though I was told by a student that another student in my sixth period class (and the last student I would ever to have thought to do this) had been skipping the last two days (I think most likely due to a new boyfriend and she tried skipping once and felt the rush, so she attempted a second try). We had to deal with that, too. And that was about it.
There was no student teaching on this day due to (the final) student teacher seminar.
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