District Inservice Day

A day at school with no students? How weird!

I woke up a little more casually, welcoming the chance to dress a little sloppier.  I made it to school around the same time I usually do and took my time wondering the deserted hallways, getting an insider's look at a quiet, clean hallway. A few teachers straggled past, mugs of coffee in hand. When I finally made it to class I sat my stuff down at my desk at the back of the classroom and asked about today's agenda.

I learned that we would sit through two group sessions and get together with the English department to grade the state assessments. Sparing you the nitty gritty of the day I can confidently say that it was an interesting experience and one that I can't say will be all that bad when I become a full time teacher.

Among other things, I learned that teachers are definitely still kids at heart and even though they may complain about how hair brained their students are, they can still be the same. I was glad for the opportunity to get to see all of the teachers that taught me while I attended school there and it was an even greater experience to see how those teachers really act when students are missing from the hallways.

Getting ready...

So after the short week next week I will get to start my KPTP lesson. At the last minute I decided that I would like to align my KPTP content with the history classes and do a unit over the Vietnam War/Literature. I have about half of the unit planned out and I am really excited about getting to start the unit. First we will be starting with centers that will introduce the students to different medias, such as YouTube news casts, newspaper clippings, some poems, etc. Then we will move onto one of my favorite writers, Tim O'Brien!! We are doing a whole day of O'Brien vignettes where the students will do a one pager over whatever vignette they choose to read.

Finally, I get to visit with a Vietnam vet and he is going to contribute to a stellar unit. Can't wait to see how this all turns out!!

KPTP

I started work on my KPTP this past week.

When I first started I was a little overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that I had to complete. The demographics, 2 lesson plans, 2 assessments, etc. But when I finally got started on it I realized that just being at school helps me with a great deal of the planning and preparation.

I am doing a lit circle for my KPTP. My lessons will be the intro activity and another smaller lesson within a lesson that I haven't picked yet. I started getting planned for first part of it. I am collaborating with a group of teachers and as a group we have decided that choice is what we wanted to focus on with these teen books, they all also seem to stay within that vein. So now for the during class activities, which is the part that I will have the most control over, we are giving the students a choice of activities with a 'menu' that lists them. Every time that they read they must complete each of the activities. This gives the students who like to draw a choice to concentrate on that or if they like to write then there are a few choices where they don't have to draw.

I think that this will be a good activity that will make the reading of these books a little more interactive for the students. I'll post my plan and the final draft of my menu on here when they are complete.