ELLEN
BERG
Diary #2
New Personalities; New Proficiencies
Try as we might, there really is no way to completely prepare for the beginning of school. Sure, we can plan a general outline for the year, design the first few days' and weeks' projects, but it is not until our children enter our classrooms that the real planning can begin.
There are a few general areas I cover the first few days of school, namely rules, procedures, expectations, and information about Turner Middle. I include activities that address the above as well as icebreakers and get-to-know-you exercises that give me the opportunity to learn names and begin to see personalities. However, though I plan the same activities and add more each year, what I actually use when they hit my room has never been the same any year. Matching start-up activities to each year's kids We are always self-contained with our advisories the first two days of school, which can be a blessing or a curse depending on how things go. I always plan more than I can ever possibly use because I have found out that just when you plan "enough," you run out of things to do. I make a general outline for the two days, and then, as I begin to learn about my students, I choose the activities that seem to fit the students and the moment the best. For example, this year I did not use the "Name Game," a game where each person introduces themselves by using their first name and an adjective that begins with the same letter as their first name, and the next person in line has to say each persons' descriptors before him plus their own. I discovered quickly that my homeroom is a chatty bunch that needs to work on listening skills, so I decided the "Name Game" would be fairly ineffective. However, after looking at the surveys they took I found that many of them enjoyed art and writing, so I used the "Coat of Arms" activity. Students had to make symbols on their coat of arms organizer for each area (My goals and dreams, What I'm most proud of, etc.), and then write a paragraph about themselves using the information from the organizer. We then shared what we had written with each other. Gathering important information about my students I spent the two days gathering as much information about my students as I could. First, they completed a survey with basic information as well as what their favorite and least favorite subjects were and why, what they enjoy doing in their spare time, and the name of the most important adult in their lives. I gave them a homework assignment to write me a letter about their first day and tell me how the day went, what the most important thing they learned was, and what questions or concerns they still had. On Friday I had them complete an exit slip to tell me what was going well, what was not going so well and needed improvement, and questions they still had. Finally, I have used the activities in class to make quick assessments of their writing levels as well as watching their interactions with one another. I have spent the weekend trying to fine-tune my plans based on the new information I have. I have never understood how some teachers can pull out their master plan complete with specific activities year after year, never making any adjustments to reflect the new kids, new personalities, new proficiencies, and new levels in their classrooms. What I learned When I began to outline my first quarter, I did so with last year's students in mind. Now I have new information, and I see that some things will need to be changed in light of the very different needs of my new sixth graders.Here's some of the information that is helping me as I plan:
1.
In general, my students have pretty good writing skills. They automatically
organize their information into paragraphs with clear topic sentences
and even closing sentences.
2. My students
have had practice writing to a prompt and using the prompt language in
their responses, so I will not need to focus as heavily on that section
of the MAP assessment area.
3. I have
one student, "Casper," for whom writing a letter is like drawing a picture.
Writing letters is not an automatic response, but a long, painful process.
He is also interested in computers; I think he may benefit from composing
on the computer.
4. I have
another student, "Violet," who does not know how to spell simple sight
words and who needs me to spell almost every word for her. She will not
write anything down unless it is spelled correctly. In the past (according
to the kids) she has simply not done her work. I think I may try to find
a kind student to be her study buddy to help her in class.
5. My students
value the time I spent explaining the rules and procedures. When asked
what the most important thing they had learned this week, the majority
cited the procedures:
"I learned about you and how you ran your class."
"The most
important thing I learned today is the procedures we will be doing every
day because I wouldn't know what to do if I wasn't listening."
6. I learned
my students are beginning to trust me. One young woman, "Sherry," who
is in foster care and who cried on the first day of school felt comfortable
enough to tell me she does not have the money for more than one uniform.
Another young woman, "Rosie," confessed that she does not read very well
so she needs my help. For Sherry, we will donate a few uniforms, and for
Rosie, I will be sure to work with her reading group for guided reading
more frequently.
