I TAUGHT TODAY!!!

I taught two sets of eighth grade classes today.  Of course, I was nervous but I brought plenty of business to keep the students moving on their identity units.

Today, the students had a warm-up involving connotation and selecting thoughtful adjectives to use in their individual bio-poems.  I was trying to steer them away from using generic, non descript adjectives ("cool", "smart", "nice") and cause them to think deeper about how they view themselves. 

Both classes went smoothly.  The students created their poems, and collages to go with the poems, and proceeded to upload them on Schoology before starting on their narrative writing.  One struggle I ran into--particularly in the first class-- was pacing the class to allow for less "social" time.  The students kept distracting each other with conversations while working through their poems.  I modified this going into the second lesson, shortening the time the students had to work on brainstorming.  This allowed for more progress and less conversational time.

I feel relatively confident in how smoothly the classes went today.  I feel like I could improve on pacing work (in order to keep the students more on task) and bringing the lesson full circle by readdressing issues I discussed at the beginning of class (mainly connation and thoughtful word choice).

The second class was probably the hardest to keep on task in terms of behavior.  I've spent less time in this class getting to know the students.  It was harder for me to come up with examples for them to individually use in their poems.  Ms. Baldwin and I kept having to address a group of six boys who were distracting each other with irrelevant matters.  I found that it was even hard to go through the instructions in this class without being interrupted with irrelevant questions or comments.

It was NOT A DISASTER by any means.  It was an opportunity, however, to see group dynamics in play and find ways to modify the plan based on the different scenarios.

I'll upload my video soon!