I am so grateful that it's the weekend. It's nice to have a minute to breathe and reflect on the first week of school. When I wasn't teaching, I was planning lessons, making copies, manning my post at carpool, reading books for my new media class, meeting with my team and plt (the other 6th grade language arts teachers), tutoring a high-schooler on Sophocles, sleeping and eating. Starting the school year is a juggling act. There was so much that I wanted to write throughout the week, but blogging was just one of the things I had to drop in order to keep the important things in the air.
I'm sure my students feel the same sense of relief after meeting six teachers, getting used to several sets of class procedures, skimming syllabi, figuring out (or not quite figuring out) their lockers, navigating new hallways, and making friends. "It will get easier," was my go-to phrase when teary-eyed ten-year-olds approached me with locker woes, requests for directions, and confusion over school supplies. It's what I'm telling myself too as I work on balancing my time as a teacher and my time as a student. Things I learned this week: 1. Don't hand out any paperwork on the first day. Just don't. I'm very impressed that most of my students did hand in their syllabi and electronic permission slips, but it just wasn't necessary to have those things the first week of school. It would probably be better to wait until the students are organized and in the routine of completing and turning in their homework to hand these out. 2. I loved meeting my new students and really look forward to learning more about them. 3. My students are excited to read! A raucous (okay, well, not raucous, but audible) cheer erupted when I announced that we would be visiting the media center and students would be able to check out books on Thursday. It seems like many of my students already know a love for reading, and those who don't will soon be infected by the literature lovers on the team. I heard students giving book recommendations to one another, some chose the same book to read so they could discuss it at lunch, and others explored new genres, choosing books they had never heard of before. 4. Building community in the classroom should be a teacher's top goal the first week of school. In the foundations of middle school class that I attend on Tuesday nights at NC State, my professor spent a good hour having her 13 students introduce ourselves to the class. We were told ahead of time to bring an object to class that we could use to introduce ourselves. Professor Beal used this activity to help us make connections to one another and cultivated a learning community rooted in empathy and support. It might seem hard to justify spending so much time on introductions in my own classroom, especially since my average class size is thirty students, but it's not. Creating a learning environment where the students feel known, cared-about, and supported by their teacher and their peers is crucial. It means that school is a place they want to go, where they feel accepted, where they can take risks and won't be afraid to fail. To start building community, we wrote bio poems and shared them during a gallery walk. Students wrote down comments for their classmates on sticky-notes and worked to find common threads that weave through our community of learners. We answered icebreaker questions and I showed students this soul pancake video about getting to know new people. Next Friday, the students will go through team building activities led by Mrs. McKee. Looking forward starting week two tomorrow!
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"Not all who wander are lost." - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring My photo of Devil's Lake State Park in Baraboo, WI converted to a watercolor with Waterlogue. Finding Pi When I was twelve, My mother taught me about Pi. Never satisfied with the “just because,” She explained the why. “Draw a circle and a line Through its center point. This is the diameter.” She magicked diameter into A string and pulled It to her. Holding the abstract term in Her right hand, I began to understand. Diameter became real. She picked herself up and Inched around the misshapen wheel. Once Twice Thrice And just a little bit more. “Three times and a little bit more. Equals Pi, 3.14 Circumference = 2πr And 2 times r = d d times pi = circumference, AKA Diameter’s journey.” “But why go around in circles at all? Diameter cuts from A to B, So what’s with the circular sprawl?” “That’s not her story.” “But why?” The earth is not flat. Diameter needs Pi. Pi gives us circumference, The Earth’s equator. All lines of latitude and longitude Population and flavor. Diameter can cut through the planet, From one pole to the other. But you can’t dig a hole to China, You’ll miss all that’s out there. You need to understand Pi So you can move on From volume and area and Go back to the why. Why is there hunger, poverty and pain? Why am I here? What can I give and gain? Then, If you don’t like it, Take it apart and build it again.”1 “Not all who wander are lost,” Said she. “It’s not the destination. It’s the journey. So keep asking questions, and Don’t be afraid to wander. If you’re going around in circles, You’re not lost. You’re just looking for Pi.” -Jill Zappia Created by Jill Zappia Reflection on Navigating EarlyThis week I read Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool. Set in the post-WWII era and told in first-person narration, it tells the story of Jack Baker, a teen-age boy who was uprooted from his Kansas farm after his mother died and sent to a boarding school in Maine, to be near to his father's Navy base.
Jack (Jackie), is completely lost. He's been torn away from the only home he's ever known and struggles to make sense of his young mother's death. Jack makes an unlikely friend in Early. Early Auden is an enigma. Every inch of his four-foot, seven inch frame is full of strange habits, stories and numbers. Early lives in the janitor's workroom because it's big and warm and away from the other students. He sorts jelly beans (into rows of ten when he's concentrating on a problem and by color when he's upset), is a master craftsman, and listens to "Mozart on Sundays, Louis Armstrong on Mondays, Frank Sinatra on Wednesdays, and Glen Miller on Fridays. Unless it's raining. If it's raining, it's always Billie Holiday,"(30). It's fairly obvious to the modern reader that Early has autism. Because this story is set in a time before autism was recognized, he was just considered strange. Vanderpool paints him as a lovable, intelligent, and misunderstood character. As the story progresses, Jack (and the reader!) begins to understand him and what seemed strange starts to make perfect sense. Perhaps what is most strange about Early is his fascination with Pi. Pi is the number of times a diameter will go around its circle. It's first three numbers are 3.14, but it doesn't end there. The number pi is impossible to write in its entirety, because it goes on forever. Early has a special connection to numbers. "I've always just seen numbers differently than most people. Fisher says it's a gift. He says when he sees the numbers that start with 3.14, it's just a bunch of figures that don't mean anything more than numbers. That made me sad for him. For me, they are blue and purple and sand and ocean and rough and smooth and loud and whispering, all at the same time," (125). When a math teacher claims that Pi will end, Early storms out of the classroom. He later tells Jack that Pi can't end because that's not in his story. Jack listens to Early as the story of Pi unveils. Pi is not a what to Early. He's a who. "Early circled the number one. 'This is Pi. And the rest of the numbers are his story. The story of Pi begins with a family. Three is the mother. She is beautiful and kind and she carried him in her heart always. Four is his father. He is strong and good. And here' -- Early pointed to the number one, in the middle-- 'this is Pi. His mother named him Polaris, but she said he would have to earn his name,"(31). Early tells Jack (Jackie as he calls him) the story of Pi in segments. Pi travels to far-away lands, gets lost, is captured by pirates, escapes a volcano, saves a fair maiden (well, the Haggard and Homely Wench, but she turns into a fair maiden!) meets a white-haired ancient, get's trapped in catacombs of sorrow, and becomes hopelessly lost. Having used the constellations to find his way all of these years, Pi can no longer see the stars. He can't see Ursa Major, the great mother bear, who will guide him home. When Jack's dad doesn't show up for fall break like he planned, Jack follows Early into the Appalachian mountains in a row boat. Early fully believes in Pi's existence and seems to think that if he can find the huge black bear that's been terrorizing the Appalachian trail, that he will also find Pi and prove that he is not dead and that Pi does not end. What happens in the woods is truly amazing. Early's story starts to come true. And Jack realizes that Pi is real too. Could he still be alive? This story is about living with loss, the journey of letting go, the power of friendship (Semper Fi!) and hope. I kept thinking about my mom while I was reading this book. She's a 7th grade math teacher and is a big reason behind why I became a teacher. I remember learning about the concept of Pi when I was eleven and wondering where the number 3.1415926... came from. So she showed me. She took out a tupperware from our cabinet and grabbed some yarn, a pencil and a pair of scissors from a drawer. "Draw a circle using this tupperware," she said. Then, "Now cut the string so it goes straight across the center of the circle." She proceeded to teach me the concept of Pi and explained its purpose and everything you can do with it. I wrote the poem "Finding Pi" after reading Navigating Early. The poem starts off with my mother's explanation of Pi and my reaction to her lesson. The mother in my poem is my mother, but she's also partly Jack's mother, and probably your mother too. “It is necessary ... for a man to go away by himself ... to sit on a rock ... and ask, 'Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going?” ― Carl Sandburg The standard outcomes for ECI 521, Teaching Literature for Young Adults are impressive, both in quality and sheer amount. The outcomes are spread out in a table, organized into the areas of professional, personal, and virtual goals and can be found here if you want to take a gander. I spent a good amount of time reading over these standards to both reflect on my current teaching practices and to anticipate how ECI 521 will encourage and equip me to master these standards.
While skimming the spreadsheet, I made some connections to what I’m doing in my classroom. As a professional, I feel that I am a strong leader in the classroom and my school community. I serve as the LA department chair, contribute to my PLT, and lead my 6th grade team. After reading the professional outcomes of this class, I’m eager to learn more about how I can contribute to professional development at my school. I want to improve in “modeling collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments.” As for my literate self, I love to read and I often read what my students are reading. (Yay YA Lit!) The National Council of Teachers of English goal number three is that I experience a wide range of literature consistent with my own and my students’ motivations, interests and intellects. I help coach Battle of the Books at my school and I try to read as many books off the list as I can. I read with my 6th graders during SSR and I’m attempting the 40 Book Challenge at my school. Reading is a catharsis for me, so it’s not something that I ever really had to force myself into. I love it. As far as the “wide range of literature” goes, I definitely can improve there. I don’t read many graphic novels and I usually avoid nonfiction. It’s definitely important that I branch out with what I read so I can reach all of my students. My virtual self is probably what has grown the most in the few years since I became a teacher. I love technology and love finding ways to use it to increase student engagement, provide authentic writing opportunities, and make the learning and assessment process more efficient. I use Twitter to stay connected with other educators and to network. I use Edmodo to collaborate with colleagues and as a collaborative workspace for my students. This year my students used Animoto to create book trailers, used Google docs for writing groups, and had my students blog through the eyes of a character using Weebly. I know there’s so much more out there for me to discover! Rather than getting bogged down by the desire to learn about each and every new technology, I want to figure out ways to use these technologies efficiently to encourage collaboration and to improve my students’ skills, not just to use technology for technology’s sake. Thinking about my current practices and comparing them to the course outcomes helped me pinpoint some things that I’d like to focus on during ECI 521. I’d really love to discuss the role of technology in teaching literature. As I mentioned before, my students blogged this year through the perspective of a character; I would love to expand on that practice. How can I use student blogging in my classroom? How can I work in the community and my school to usher in change so that students have access to computers that we would need to make this possible? Is a BYOD policy practical or possible? I also know that I want to use more diverse literature in my classroom, both in terms of cultural diversity and by introducing the students to multiple genres. I especially hope to find a graphic novel (or three!) to use in a lit circle unit next year. Additionally, I would love to discuss the role of social media in story telling (i.e. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries) and see how this practice could be pulled into a 6th grade classroom. Overall, I’m excited for changes that this class will bring to my own classroom next year and am ready to start the journey! |
Jill Zappiateacher, grad student, bibliophile Archives
October 2015
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