ELLEN
BERG
Diary #5
I Win the T-Notes War,
But Discover I Can Still Mess Up!
All the sweat and tears I shed and all the gray hair I gained in the last
few weeks with the great T-note Campaign of 2002 was worth it. While I
may have lost a battle or two, in the end I won the war.
This week there were no puzzled looks, no, "Huh?" when I asked students to take out their T-notes. Better yet, as we moved on to applying what we had learned about writing good characters from the reading and our notes, I asked students to do a web or a chart of the sensory details of a character we'd encountered, Aunt Tiny. And the kids asked, "Do we have to use a web, or can we set this up in T-note form?"
Furthermore, the science teacher reported that many of the students had asked if they could or should set up their notes for their biome project in T-note form – most notably, the class that gave me the most blank looks throughout this concept!
Lesson learned: Don't be afraid to take the time with a concept to be sure students really learn it. If it is worth teaching, it is worth teaching it well. One of the greatest things about this job is my own growth. Each year there are new lessons to learn about teaching and learning, each year I add something new to my repertoire. Getting better at what I do is one of the major reasons I still enjoy teaching so much. I never, ever get bored.I still mess up
While I'm getting better at what I do, I still occasionally need a refresher course. This past week we have been working on describing our characters' physical characteristics in ways that show the reader what the character is like without actually writing a straightforward description.
We looked at examples from real literature, we created webs (or T-charts) of sensory details, and we began writing our character sketches, focusing only on the physical description for the moment. For the most part my students have been enthusiastic and following along well.
And then I had to go and mess up. Last Thursday and Friday I decided to have students switch papers for peer review and answer three questions: 1. What questions do you have about the character? What information is confusing or missing? 2. How can the author make this piece better? (Word choice, details missing or contradictory, etc.) 3. What kind of person does this character seem to be? What makes you think that? Easy, right? I explained each question and asked if they had any questions. No hands raised, no quizzical looks, so I sent them off to work with a partner. I was sure this would be productive; after all, all they had to do was read and answer the questions, right? The noise in my room was deafening. Behaviors I had never seen from this group of students during a task erupted. Pencil breaking, name calling, loud talking about boys and parties, and sharing of Yug-i-oh cards took place. I was dumbfounded. Thursday night I spent rationalizing. Thursday's classes were more challenging. They were lower level. They were too advanced. They just didn't care about learning. After Friday's morning class went no better, I knew I had to get off the excuse train. While updating my Americorps worker about what had transpired in his absence, the truth came to me. I realized that all of the behaviors I had seen were symptoms of a problem I could have prevented: My kids didn't understand what the heck I wanted them to do. While I assumed they understood, I failed to make concrete a pretty abstract and unfamiliar concept. I forgot to model.Modeling is one of the most basic, important tools of teaching practice, yet I had completely skipped it. What was I, stupid? Not really. I only forgot that what seems easy for me may in fact not be so easy for my much younger, less experienced students
I apologized
On Monday I apologized to my students for messing up. I told them that back in the days when I first started teaching, I would have gone home and complained to my husband about them and their behavior during the peer revision activity. I explained that I was more mature and intelligent now and that I realized I had made the mistake because I had failed to show them what I meant.
With that I pulled out my draft of my character, and we answered the three questions about it together. When I released them to working with a partner, there was none of the roar or confusion of the week before. Hands raised when there were questions, and students attacked the task with a new understanding and dedication.
I hope that by setting all of this down in a public record that I will finally own this learning. I can't afford to keep making the same mistakes over and over again, especially since there are many new mistakes to make and learn from.
