A Peek at my Week {Sept 8-12}

I am linking up with Mrs. Laffin today for a Peek at my Week.

Why do the weekends have to go so much quicker than two days during the work week?

It was an absolutely gorgeous weekend weather-wise. It got cool enough I could wear my new boots and a scarf! My parents were in town to help out for our garage sale, and it was also my mom's birthday.

Today my husband and I went for a hike after they left, and it was gorgeous.

 

We are so lucky to have many awesome hiking trails right in our own town.

Then we took the pup for a walk with her new leash that matches her harness. She is one stylish dog.



But, it's time to think about the work week again. I have been really struggling to come up with content-based posts to write on here. I think part of it is I haven't been feeling the greatest with my horrible allergies as of late. I also am so busy and just trying to keep my head above water with planning, grading, and trying to get all my pre-test data recorded that I have no energy to sit down and blog at night about what's going on in my room. I will try to be better about writing content posts. Anything in particular you want to read about?

So this week my juniors are going to wrap up the Turn of the Century unit in American Lit. We read some Twain last week and this week we're reading some epitaphs from Spoon River Anthology, as well as the poem 'Richard Cory." We're going to work more on our annotating skills.

In College English, we are peer editing our first big essay, then during revision in the lab, they will get a chance to conference with me before turning in their essays. This means I have a bunch of essays coming in on Thurs that will need grading next weekend.

In non-school plans, the weather finally feels like fall, so we are cooking some crockpot meals and trying to get out hiking as much as possible. Pretty sure an apple orchard trip is in our future next weekend.

Hope you all have a great week!

A Peek At My Week {First Week Back}

Linking up with A Peek at my Week for my first week back to school.

Alas, the kiddos come back tomorrow, and another school year begins. I think I am all ready to go, at least for the first few days.

I spent part of my Saturday night making these little signs for my window ledge. This is about as crafty as I get.

 

Since students can still switch classes through Wednesday, no one really jumps into content until after that. So the first couple days I spend going over procedures/the syllabus, and I have students fill in a chart as I go over rules/procedures so they can use it to study for my rules quiz. We also came up with a department plagiarism policy this year, since it has become a large issue, so I am introducing that, having students sign, and then doing a mini unit on plagiarism with some games I found.

The second half of the week, I will get into more specific content with my different classes. This semester I teach English III (American Lit), Senior Lit, and College English 101. I have taught all classes before, but we did totally revamp our ENG III curriculum, so it's pretty much like teaching a new class.

English III starts out with defining the American Dream and discussing students' definitions of what it is. In Senior Lit, we are jumping right into our first novel, Nineteen Minutes. LOVE this one and the students end up loving it, too. I re-read it every year and have read the whole book at least 8 times, but I love it more each time I read it. In College English, they are writing literacy stories and blogging this week.

So we're back to 5:30 AM wake-up calls,, 50 minute commutes, grading, planning, and not having a lot of free time for the next 9 months. Not sure if I'm ready, but ready or not, it starts tomorrow.

A Peek at My Week {March 22-29}

I decided to link up with Mrs. Laffin's Peek at my Week this week because...HOLLA! I'm on Spring Break!

Well, first of all, today is my birthday! I am getting dangerously close to the big 3-0.

So today my husband took me out to lunch at the winery, which was delicious. And we went shopping so I bought an outfit for tonight and my first pair of TOMS shoes (they are so comfy! Why didn't I buy them earlier?) And I am also going to order this pair online because Jonathan Adler designed them and they are adorable.

 

Tonight we are going to my favorite seafood restaurant with friends-yum!

Later this week, we are headed back home to spend time with family and also celebrate my birthday with them. Rox is excited to spend a few days at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Then Wed-Fri we are headed to Chicago. It'll be nice to get away. We're staying at the Palomar and have a city view room. We got tickets for the Second City comedy show and plan to hit up Shedd Aquarium and the Museum of Modern Art. Hopefully the weather isn't too horrible while we're there.

I love that city so much!

So it looks to be a pretty fun week. I did not bring home any grading or planning--I plan to just relax and spend some time with family.

What do you all have going on this week?

A peek at my week {Jan 12-17}

I'm linking up with Mrs. Laffin for a Peek at my Week.

Well I survived the first days back to work. I was so tired last night, I fell asleep on the couch around 10. On break I was staying up until 1 on the regular. 5:30 AM sure comes fast :/

I want to get back into some content-based posts once the semester gets more in full swing, but until then, just a quick peek at what's going on in my personal and school life this week.

Tomorrow we are meeting some friends for lunch at the winery. They have the BEST food and wine. And isn't it pretty? (Admittedly, it does not look this way in January. Womp womp).

But they have the absolute BEST homemade chili in a bread bowl and a raging fire to sit next to while drinking some vino and chatting. I am very excited. I'm also picking up a pair of boots I ordered two weeks ago because they weren't in my size. I hope they fit so I can wear them to school on Monday.

School-wise, we are kicking off our banned book project in English III. They are choosing a book to read this quarter that has been banned or challenged in the past. Then fourth quarter, we are reading Fahrenheit 451 and discussing government censorship, censorship in schools, and all that fun stuff. 

To cap it off, they'll have to write an argumentative essay arguing for or against banning the book they read third quarter. They just chose books yesterday and blogged about why they chose them.

Which leads me to something else--I am trying out a Weebly blog for all my classes this semester. Some classes have weekly blogs to post; others may be a little less frequent. But I am posting prompts related to what we're doing in class and having them respond to the prompt and to each other to get some online and out-of-class convos going on between students. So far, so good, but it's only been two days, so we'll see!

In College English, we're seeing if we can define what "good" writing is and covering some of the important basics quickly. I made up a game in Power Point called "Plagiarism or Not?" so we'll play that and then get started learning about how to write summaries of critical articles! Fun stuff!

Well, we are off to see Her tonight--that movie with Joaquin Phoenix where he basically falls in love with a Siri-like person. It looks kind of weird, but I love weird/off-beat/Indie movies, so I'm excited! Have a great rest of your weekend :)

A Peek at my Week {Nov. 18-22}

I am linking up with Mrs. Laffin for a Peek at my Week.

I am typing this from the basement because there is a tornado on the ground in a nearby city. Scary stuff! Is this spring or late fall?

One more full week before a break for Thanksgiving. I cannot WAIT! And the kids can't either. So here's what's coming up this week.

1. My juniors are turning in their final research essays tomorrow (these are the ones that were on topics related to the 1920s). So this means I will spend my entire week grading....and grading....and grading. I want to get them all done and returned (all 70 of them) before we leave for Thanksgiving.

2. That means we are on to my favorite unit in English III-GATSBY! 

 

We will start with an introductory Power Point tomorrow and then jump right in to reading and discussing. I'll be sharing some of the cool things we're doing with Gatsby as we go.

3. My seniors are also finishing up their final presentations for The Lovely Bones. They are working in groups on Prezis, researching related topics to the novel (like crime scene investigation, cultural views of the afterlife, etc) and applying them to the book. They will present these Thursday and Friday.

So what's on tap for your week?

A Peek at my Week {Oct. 21-25}

Linking up with Mrs. Laffin for a Peek at my Week.

Before I look ahead at the upcoming week, I want to take a quick look back at my weekend. It was one of those weekends where we really didn't have definite plans but were able to be both productive, yet relax. We took Roxie out on the bike trail for a couple walks, and it was GORGEOUS out there. See below.

The weather was chilly, but sunny. We also hit up the apple orchard for more goodies (and I found a cute scarf there, go figure!) and went to a comedy club last night with a friend. All in all, a great, refreshing weekend, so I can gear up for this week.

So what's on tap for me?

1. Parent/teacher conferences W, Th, Fri. While this means I have to stay late both Wed. and Thurs and get home at like, 9:00, it also means I get to leave at 10 AM Friday and my husband happens to have Friday off too, yay! 

2. I have non-fiction analysis essays coming in Tuesday from my juniors. This will give me something to do while I wait in-between conferences. We just all are set up in the gym and conferences are walk-in, not scheduled, so you may be SUPER busy and have a line, or you may sit there for 2 hours with no one. It's a crapshoot.

3. We're going to be starting Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" this week, and after a little intro on the Great Awakening, we'll do a little activity with imagery and what they associate different images in his sermon with before reading it.

4. We'll end the week with a new activity I'm trying. I will probably write a post on it after the fact to let you know how it goes. We're going to make Top Ten lists a la Dave Letterman. The title of our list? "The Top Ten Reasons You Know You're From the Great Awakening." It'll be fun to see what they come up with.

What's on tap for your week?

A Peek at my Week {Oct. 7-13}

I'm linking up with Mrs. Laffin for the Peek at my Week Linky Party.

I decided to just focus on 5 things I'm excited for/not dreading about this upcoming week:

1) Fall weather, and therefore, wearing fall outfits to work. I have already picked out my outfit for school tomorrow (which is a huge improvement over scrambling around and randomly picking something out right before I have to leave for work).  I am wearing this blazer with some trouser jeans. I'll probably wear it buttoned with a lace cami underneath.


 


2) My senior lit. students are working on their capstone projects for the book Nineteen Minutes that we finished. I let them pick whether they want to write a traditional literary analysis paper, do a creative writing option and continue writing a sequel to the novel where it ends, or whether they want to plan out a movie adaptation of the novel. I conference with them tomorrow to see their progress on their projects. (Unfortunately, projects are due Friday, which means I'll be grading all the live long day on my long weekend).

3) Tomorrow after school, I'm attending a SmartBoard advanced workshop to learn some more advanced tips and tools for how to incorporate my SmartBoard into the classroom. I'm excited to learn some new ways to use it.

4) My juniors are going to start a non-fiction analysis essay later this week. I'm a little nervous about it because it will be challenging, but CC wants them reading and analyzing a lot of non-fiction. We've been reading tons of it, but now we're going to try to apply all of that in the form of an essay. I think we'll have a little celebration on the day their papers are due, and to celebrate all their hard work and writing, I'll bring in some treats and we'll have an Essay Party (I'm sure it won't sound super exciting to them lol).

5) Next weekend, my husband and I are volunteering for Bark in the Park. It's a day of dog festivities to raise money for the Humane Society of our city. Roxie is a rescue from a no-kill shelter here, and getting dogs into their loving forever homes is a cause near and dear to my heart. Roxie is a little too reactive to other dogs to participate in the festivities herself, at least for this year, so she is staying home, but we are going to go and help out for a few hours. They have a walk, a doggie beauty contest, a talent show, doggie paw printing, and lots more. I'm excited to help out a great cause and get to play with lots of puppies. 

And of course, we have a 3-day weekend for Columbus Day, which I am so thrilled about! 

A Peek at my Week

I am linking up with Mrs. Laffin for a peek at my upcoming week.

1. In my Senior Lit. class, I am post-testing on Monday and hopefully my students show growth from the pre-test they took at the beginning of the year. Then we are continuing with reading Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes (LOVE this book, but there are some sexual situations and strong language, plus it is about a school shooting, so I only recommend it for upper high school). 

Then on Friday I am discussing bias, and we are beginning to watch Michael Moore's documentary Bowling for Columbine, which we will examine for bias, as well as use it as a supplementary material for our novel to spur some discussions. It discusses some possible reasons our society as a whole has become more violent over the past few decades. I always teach the term bias with this documentary and have students fill out a handout writing down examples of bias in the film, because it is very one-sided (as all of Moore's stuff typically is). But it is a great discussion-starter and brings up a lot of relevant issues. After we finish it in a couple weeks (we don't watch it every day), students will type a response to it.

2. With English III, they are also post-testing Monday. I will have SO many short essay tests to grade this week and still have about 40 junior essays to grade from last week. Ah the life of an English teacher!

Then I am incorporating some more non-fiction by bringing in a supplemental article that discusses some myths about Christopher Columbus (this is an American lit. class and we are at this time period in our books). We'll do some pre-writing/brainstorming about what the students know about Columbus, then they will read this article and fill out an annotation chart. {I have tried getting them to annotate the actual reading pieces, and they are not. They will highlight random things willy-nilly to try and get points, but aren't taking it seriously, so I am now having them fill out an actual chart.} 

I have them number the paragraphs of the article and break it down into chunks of about 4 or 5 paragraphs at a time. For each chunk, they need to list and define unknown words, summarize in 2-3 sentences, and write a question or comment they have on those paragraphs.

Then, I will put them in groups with ten discussion questions regarding the article and each group will answer their questions in a PP, which they will show and discuss with the class the next day. I'm always looking for new ways to do discussion questions and class discussions, rather than just giving questions on a worksheet, so we'll see how this goes! Never tried it this way before.

3. On Wednesday of this week, students have an 11:30 dismissal and are testing in the morning. As a junior homeroom teacher, I am proctoring the practice ACT test. Then in the afternoon I have ELA CC committee stuff and some meetings at my school.

4. On a personal level, I am SO excited for tomorrow! I am shopping for fall clothes, and we also have a couple we're good friends with visiting our city with their two little girls and we are meeting up for dinner. Yay! Besides that, I will be busy grading, grading, grading.

So what's on tap for your week?