Five for Fraturday!

This is the first time I am linking up with Five for Friday (or Fraturday for me).

 

And I have to confess a couple things. 1) I have no fun or cute pictures from this week, so my post might be boring. My high schoolers don't do cute crafty projects or find it particularly endearing for their teacher to snap their pictures working like younger students do. I also totally forget to even try. And 2) I am currently procrastinating grading 40 Senior lit. projects that came in yesterday.

#1 This week my junior post-tested, since this year we have to be able to show student growth somehow. So I did a pre- and post-test. We pre-tested week 1 of school and post-tested using the exact same test this week.

The GOOD NEWS is almost ALL my students showed growth, and for many, the growth was big! I still have to track down a couple absent students and make them take it in study hall. I had a few students not show much growth and a couple stayed the same, but I would say 95% of my students showed growth, and we only have to get 80%, so I'm good. Oh, and yeah, it's probably good that they are learning something ;)

#2 My juniors also started writing non-fiction analysis essays this week. It's the first year we're doing this because of Common Core. They are comparing/contrasting and analyzing two articles we read about the real first Thanksgiving, one that is from the History channel and has a serious tone, and one from Parade magazine that is humorous. They are struggling because it is totally new for them, but they are being champs and pushing through, for the most part. 

We started on Thurs. by finding textual evidence to use as support and organized those quotes on note cards. I played some "working music" while they worked. One day I played the Vitamin String Quarter channel on Pandora (love them!) and Friday, since they complained the other music had no words, I played the Mumford & Sons station. Just make sure if you play Pandora for your class, you go into your settings and click the box that says "Do not allow explicit content." 

Quick story: last year, I decided to play the Christmas station for a class in Dec. and figured, "There can't be any explicit content in Christmas songs!" Well, there's not, BUT it also played a commercial for the sex toy website Adam and Eve, so yeah. Make sure you click that button!

#3 My seniors finished up their projects on the book Nineteen Minutes (you know, the ones I'm putting off grading) and I had all but 3 students turn it in. That is a pretty good percentage, honestly. Those three who didn't get it turned in can get half credit Tuesday (no school Monday).

#4 My husband and I got addicted to the show Scandal this week.

We have been binge-watching it on Netflix. I love doing that.

#5 The mornings have finally been chilly and fall-like, so I picked up a new coffee for my Keurig: Green Mountain Pumpkin Spice. Paired with some vanilla creamer, it is delicious!