How do you handle late work?

I think one of the most frustrating things about teaching is when students don't complete homework on time.

Unfortunately, it happens quite a bit. Students either say they completed it but it's at home, they did it but their home printer broke, they forgot they had it, etc. The excuses are always plentiful.

I have thought long and hard about how to combat the late work. What's super frustrating is that 90% of the time, I give them at least 5 min. at the end of the hour to start on that night's work and many will just close up early, or they will start working on it but totally forget to finish it by the next class period.

So far, here's how I handle late work:
For every class BUT my college class, they can turn in late homework one day late for half credit.
*It started 5 years ago as a dept. policy that NO late homework was accepted. The problem was, SO many kids got zeroes and were not doing the work, which meant they weren't passing the tests, etc. It is definitely their responsibility to do the work and do it on time but I also just wanted them to DO it, which is why I transitioned last year to my new policy now that everyone kind of does their own thing in my dept.

For my College class, no late homework is accepted, but I will accept major essays one day late for half credit. This policy will not change; it's a college course and should be more stringent.

So mainly I'm bouncing around ideas for how to handle late work in underclassmen. I know some of my fellow teachers give homework detentions. If a kid does not have it done the day it's due, they can turn it in the next day for 75% OR they have a homework detention, where they have to sit after school with the teacher and complete the assignment for 50%. If they don't serve that detention after a couple days, it becomes a referral.

The teachers who use this, like it. It is more bookkeeping on the teacher's end to keep track of who didn't have which assignment and how many percentage points they earn and who has how many days to serve, etc. I would need an organizational system for this.

I also saw the Pink Slip idea over on Hangin' with Hekken today that I really like. This puts the onus on the kids to keep track of how many points they can get for late work and you have something tangible with their signature that proves they did not give you any work. (I have taught for almost 6 years now and have NEVER lost a student paper, but one of their favorite excuses for missing work is that I must have lost it!).

So I am considering typing up my own pink slips and using that, possibly also using the three-day late policy she has on hers too.

So what do you do? Do you allow late work at all? If so, how many days late will you accept it and what percentage can they earn? Anyone ever tried homework detentions before?

Teaching Irony (you CAN use Alanis Morissette)

I opened a store on Teachers Pay Teachers! For more project ideas like this, visit my store here.

One of the literary devices (now known as Tier 3 words in Common Core) we teach is irony. I usually teach dramatic, verbal, and situational irony in relation to whatever literature we are reading.

Sometimes, it's hard for kids to grasp irony. Verbal irony is pretty easy, because it's basically sarcasm, but the other kinds, not so much.

It doesn't help that many of them hear irony and automatically think of this song:

Unfortunately, as you have probably heard, many of the "ironic" statements in this song are not actually ironic at all.

BUT that doesn't mean you can't use the song to teach it; you just make the kids get involved.

I'll usually play the song and video, which many have heard before, and ask them to explain the ironic examples. It's kind of a trick question because many aren't. I usually have one or two students who will point that out, but if not, I will just take the incorrect examples they give and ask them to explain how that is ironic. Many times, they will then catch the mistake.

So after we discuss the fact this song is really a misnomer, I pass out the lyrics and in groups, have them fix all of the incorrect examples of irony and make them ironic.

To get them started, I show them an example. I will pick one or two from this College Humor list.

For instance: An old man turned ninety-eight. He won the lottery and died the next day… of chronic emphysema from inhalation of the latex particles scratched off decades' worth of lottery tickets. (The part before the ellipses is what's originally in the song; the students would need to add something to it like they did in the example to make it ironic).

I also just came across this video this weekend that I am going to show after my students come up with their "fixed" version. I think these girls' take on it is pretty funny.

I would hold off on showing this video or the entire College Humor list until AFTER the students have at least attempted revising the lyrics themselves; otherwise, you may get a lot of copycats!

Just a fun, comical way to teach irony, bring in some videos, and maybe school some kids on 90s music who have never heard of Alanis Morissette ;)

Liebster Award!!

Ms. W. from over at Tales of Teaching in Heels ever so kindly nominated me for a Liebster Award! (Update: And I was also nominated by Erin at Miss Lifesaver, so a big thank you to her also!)

This is an award to recognize new bloggers with less than 200 followers. I just started this blog in Feb. (and admittedly have not been blogging as much as I should) and am now up to 20 readers. Hopefully soon I will hit 50 :) So thanks, Ms. W. for the nod!

Below you'll find my answers to the 11 questions she asked of me, 11 random facts about myself, and my nominations for 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers. To accept my nomination, you should answer the questions I've typed below, post 11 random things about yourself, nominate 5 other bloggers with <200 followers and notify them of their nod.

Here are the 11 questions she asked of me with my answers:

1. How long have you been teaching? This year will be my 6th year of teaching (wow!)

2. What's your favorite teaching/coaching moment? Rapping Shakespeare with my students was definitely fun ;)

3. What's your favorite blogging site? (it doesn't have to be related to teaching)

As a new homeowner, I like a lot of DIY/home decor blogs. One I read frequently is Young House Love.

4. Which store is your favorite place to buy things for your classroom? I like a local teacher supply store, as well as Hobby Lobby.

5. What advice do you wish you got as a new teacher? The first year will be tough and will probably make you cry at times, but just keep swimming. It DOES get better!

6. What three things are always in your teaching bag? green & purple pens, highlighters, calculator

7. What teacher inspired you as a student? My high school band conductor (I was a huge band nerd!) Her love of her students and her passion for teaching was so inspiring. She treated us like we were her own kids and truly was invested in our success and our lives. I still keep in touch with her today and will never forget her.

8. What do you love most/worst about teaching? Most: Interacting with kids and when they "get it"

Least: Grading papers on weekends!

9. What's your favorite piece of technology to use in the classroom? How do you use it? The Smart Board I just got installed in May! I haven't had a ton of time to use it with students yet, but so far I have annotated articles with them on it, which was cool.

10. How do you plan to incorporate the new Common Core Standards this next year? I'm on the CC committee for our district, along with my dept. chair. The first thing we are going to focus on is changing the way we do vocab. No more vocab. workbooks with random word lists. We are now focusing on tier 2 words from the lit. we read, as well as tier 3 words that come from our reading selections.

11. What do you love to do when you aren't teaching? Read for fun, travel, play with my dog

Aaaaand my questions from Miss Lifesaver:

1. How do you seat students in your classroom? I let them pick their own seats the first few days of school, see who their friends are that they choose to sit by, and then make sure to NOT sit them by those kids.

2. How do you solve the dreaded "I can't find my pencil" issue? Each student gets 3 freebie passes for the semester to use when they forget supplies or homework in their locker. Once they have used those passes, they owe me a 10 min. detention to go get forgotten supplies.

3. What's a typical lunch for you at school? Leftovers from dinner the night before or a big salad

4. What one technology do you want most for your classroom? It had been a Smart Board but I finally got that :) It would be nice to have an ELMO.

5. What hours do you typically work in your building? 7:30 to 3:30 or 4

6. Do you see yourself teaching the same subject/grade in 5 years? Maybe, maybe not. I have always been interested in teaching at a community college.

7. If you weren't teaching, what would you do? I would LOVE to be a full-time author!

8. What is the best TPT resource you've ever purchased? n/a

9. Whose blog are you always excited to read and why? I love to read all the other secondary blogs, just because I feel like they are so much more rare and it's something I can really relate to.

10. How much do you collaborate with colleagues? Quite a bit, esp. teachers teaching the same courses as me.

11. What is one thing you hope to improve on as a teacher this year? Improving my questioning techniques and incorporating even more technology

11 Random Facts about myself:

1. I grew up dancing competitively.

2. Because of dancing for so many years, I have really strong toes and can pick up stuff with them.

3. My favorite U.S. state is Hawaii.

4. I've never left the country yet :(

5. I actually like vacuuming.

6. I'm an only child.

7. My favorite holiday is the 4th of July.

8. I've been married for two years next week!

9. I think my dog is my child.

10. I have a Master's in Writing.

11. I like school so much that I cried on the last day of Graduate school.

My 11 questions for my nominees:

1. How long have you been teaching?

2. Did you ever consider other careers besides teaching?

3. What do you like most about your school?

4. What's your favorite lesson/unit you have taught?

5. Name 5 things always on your desk at school.

6. What's the hardest thing about being a teacher?

7. What's the best vacation you've ever taken?

8. How many schools have you taught in total?

9. What is the most essential item/thing you do to make it through the school day?

10. Describe your favorite outfit you wear to teach.

11. What are your favorite hobbies?

And my 5 nominees are:

-Caffeine and Lesson Plans

-Maneuvering the Middle....School

-Teach It Write

-What I Have Learned

-Composition Classroom

Go check out their awesome blogs!

July Currently (aka holy cow it's almost July!)

I canNOT believe July is in two days. Where has my summer vacation gone?? I always feel like after the 4th, the summer is on its way out, even though technically summer the season just started last week. We go back Aug. 15, so after the 4th, I only have a month and some change left. Boo :(

I will try to do a content post this week. I had some work meetings last week for Common Core and have some stuff to share about that. I also really need to start planning for English III, which I haven't taught in awhile and am basically starting from scratch on :/

But first, I am linking up with Farley for my July currently.

1. Listening to: I am at Barnes & Noble on this rainy afternoon. Mmmm coffee!

2. This summer I have tried bringing my lunch up to a pretty walking trail that looks over the river as much as possible. It is so beautiful up there!

3. I can't believe it is almost July! So sad.

4. My parents are coming to visit and we're doing a cookout on the 4th and playing with some sparklers in the yard. Hoping for no rain and no 100º weather!

5. The house is kind of a disaster but I can't find the motivation to clean it. Blargh.

6. We have so many mosquitos in our backyard and can't use anything toxic to stave them off because of the dog. The citronella candles and torches only do so much. I also swell up really badly when I get bit. I have found aloe vera lotion offers more itch relief than Calamine lotion. I've also heard good things about vinegar, though I'm a little hesitant to walk around smelling like vinegar!

Tried it Tuesday (...er, Wednesday): Trip Itinerary

Well, even though I'm a day late and a dollar short, I thought I'd still link up with Holly for Tried It Tuesday, because, why not?

By the way, I have recently gotten a bunch of new followers. So welcome! So glad you came by to check out the blog :)

I will admit that the project for this week's Tried It was a little indulgent on my part, but it still fit in with the curriculum of my English IV course. I looooove planning trips. I sometimes even plan trips I know I won't be taking for a very long while (like a trip back to Hawaii or to Italy). Even weekend getaways give me something to be giddy about and I love having something to look forward to.

Well my English IV class is a practical writing and communications class, but we also talk about other aspects of life after high school so they can go on to be responsible and knowledgeable citizens. At the beginning of the semester, I pass out a student interest survey. While there are some things I will cover regardless (resumes, cover letters, memos, etc.), I usually have a few weeks at the end of the semester where I can do a choice of a few projects I have up my sleeve that all tie in to the content. Three out of four semester I have taught this course, I did a sample trip itinerary project with them.

The majority of my students said they wanted to learn more about budgeting. I do talk some about budgeting in regards to the home, like utilities, groceries, etc. Our capstone project (which I should do a separate post on) actually has budgeting as a possible topic, and it usually always get chosen.

But another way to work in writing (which is key in this course), as well as problem-solving, decision-making, and budgeting skills is to have the students plan (either individually or in groups) a sample trip within a budget and stipulations I give them.

I require four written components of the project turned in:
1. A trip proposal: Where they are going, why they chose it, any foreseen problems this trip might produce, questions they have, etc.

2. An overall budget: how much will be allotted to transportation, lodging, food, activities, etc? I also prefer for them to look at flights/train schedules, etc. and put down some possible transportation and lodging specifics.

3.  A detailed, day by day trip itinerary with prices listed (yes, I do actually make them look up restaurants and excursions online to give accurate or, at least educated guesses on prices)

4. A project reflection: what costs surprised them most, what would they change if they actually took this trip, etc.

We spend at least 2 weeks working on this daily. Many students don't even know about sites like Travelocity, Trip Advisor, etc. I do give them stipulations. I give them the dates of travel (to correspond with a school break), the nights they have to be there and a budget (I do $1500). I do allow them to split hotel rooms with friends and travel with friends, but in their write-up, they must share a room with ONLY same-sex people :)

What I like about this project:

• It's real-world application for my students, and most have never planned a trip before
• They do a LOT of writing for it, so I'm not skimping on content at all. I still grade for organization, thoroughness, grammar, etc. Also, some may perhaps have to plan travel for their work in the future.
• It gives them experience with budgeting. Like I tell them, most will not have an unlimited budget with which to travel. I sure don't! Some found their original destinations were just not realistic for the time constraint or budget.

Problems I ran into:

• Kids started to get sick of it after about a week of working on it. So in the future, I think I may have them do one or two parts, then take a break for a couple days with maybe a pertinent grammar mini-lesson, then go back to the project.
• Many tried to cut corners the first time I did this, and didn't really get the experience I wanted them to. For instance, many said they would borrow their parents' car and their parents pay for their gas always and they wanted to drive somewhere where they have family and they could stay for free. Well, even though we do take trips like that sometimes, we don't always, and I wanted them to actually have to budget lodging and transportation. So every time since the first, I have not allowed them to stay for free with anyone or get free transportation.
• Many students didn't understand how packages on Travelocity, etc. work. They decided to travel with a friend, and therefore said they were going to split the cost of the package. That's not how packages work though. A package with airfare + hotel is just for one person and cannot be split (it's impossible to share an airplane seat, for instance). So I took time one day to explain how packages work.
• Every time I do this, I have students who either do it bare bones and have hardly anything on paper and/or lie about excursion prices because they don't want to put in the research to look things up. If a price seems off, I ALWAYS Google and find out if it is right or not. I also have started requiring they do at least one excursion per day of their itinerary. Some students wrote "play video games in hotel" for every single day, but again, that is not realistic for every vacation you take, and they weren't getting the budgeting experience.

Overall, I liked this project and would do it again if I had time. The kids did like it even though they got burnt out towards the end, which is why I'd split it up. I also have always just done this as an individual project, but would consider making it a group project and have each group present their trip to their classmates at the end of the whole thing using a visual aid.

So there you have it! Speaking of trip planning, I am beyond thrilled that we will get to take a little mini-getaway this August. I just booked us a waterfront suite at an adults-only B&B in South Haven, Michigan.

South Haven, courtesy of Trip Advisor

 

A picture of the fire pit area at our B&B, courtesy of bbonline.com

We've never been up to Michigan before, and I am SO excited for a good dose of R&R. I'm not bringing my computer and only using my cell phone to check in with my parents (who are dog-sitting) occasionally and for emergencies. Totally going to unplug (OK, I might use it to Instagram some pics but that's it). We plan to spend a lot of time at the wonderful beaches up there, enjoy our private balcony overlooking the harbor, visit some wineries, go up to Saugatuck and visit the sand dunes, and just unwind before school starts the following week. I am GIDDY with excitement.

Any Michigan folks with recs for activities or restaurants we just have to try?

Course Evaluations

Is everyone enjoying their summer break? I am! I know some of you don't get out of school yet for another week or so, which is so weird to me. All the districts around here are out by the beginning of June. If you do have to go late into the summer, when do you return in the fall? We were out May 30 but go back Aug. 15. Not sure if I'd rather get out of school earlier or get to go back later in Sept.

So far my summer break has consisted of being outdoors as much as possible. The rain finally ceased and we had sunny days this week. So far, I've done a lot of reading outside (I took my Nook up to a pretty road that runs by the river and has some awesome views and read up there), went for a long walk on a bike trail we have that runs through some pretty countryside and spent some time writing. Yep, this summer I am working on my lifelong goal of writing a book, a novel to be exact. It's something I've wanted to accomplish since I was a kid and an avid reader, and since I have no major obligations this summer (last summer we bought our first house and two summers ago I got married), I decided this time is as good as any. So far I have about 15 pages, and I am trying to carve out a couple hours each day to write, usually on my patio while this girl runs around.

Anyways, I wanted to write today about something I have my College English kids do each semester that I am thinking of expanding to all classes: a course evaluation.

This is very similar to the course/instructor evals I'm sure we all filled out while in college at the completion of every course. I started it with College English, since it technically is a college course, and I wanted to format it like a college course as much as I could. Their evaluations were only for my purposes, though, and didn't actually get sent to the college we pair up with. Especially since it was my first year teaching these classes, I did want some constructive feedback and knew my kids would be honest but, well, not jerks about it. It was a short one but covered what I needed it to cover. The questions were:

1) What skills covered in ENG 101/102 do you feel most prepared you for future College English courses?
2) Which skills do you feel deserve the most time and attention in ENG 101/102?
3) Did you keep up with the textbook readings? How helpful did you find the textbook?
4) What are some ways you feel the instructor could improve student participation and interest?
5) Did you feel comfortable approaching the instructor for help? Why/why not?
6) What suggestions do you have for the instructor to improve this course in the future?

The key to doing this is that is has to be truly anonymous or you will never actually get good feedback; just what they think you want to hear. I always have them do this after final grades are entered just in case they have their doubts about this affecting their grade if I found out who said what (which I assure them would never happen).

In college courses, usually the instructor leaves the room when the students fill these out, but in high school, I can't really leave them unsupervised (well, they would be fine but I'm sure my principal wouldn't want me just strolling down the hall and leaving them unattended!). So I have them fill them out, fold them in half, keep them at their desk and then assign one student to collect all of them. Then I have him/her shuffle so they are in no particular order before handing them to me. If you REALLY wanted anonymity, you could have them type, so you can't tell handwriting apart.

I do get good feedback from them. They have given me some insightful suggestions for future classes, and I know that if I do get positive feedback, it's because that's how they truly feel and not because they are just writing what I want to hear, since it's anonymous and is not tied to grades. Pretty much everyone said they hated the texts and never did the readings lol. Unfortunately, text selection for these courses is out of my hands and I have to go with what the college sets up. But I will try to find ways to supplement the text next year that make it more interesting.

So anyways, I'm thinking of rolling this out with other classes. To do this, you need a thick skin and need to be able to let the non-constructive criticisms roll off your back (things like "You're stupid/This is stupid/You don't know what you're doing", etc.). I don't get that stuff from my college students, but probably would with underclassmen. They try and write that stuff on peer responses, so I have no doubt they'd also try it with me :) But it still might be worth it for the few actual constructive responses you might get. I always want to try to improve, and since my students are my audience, why not go to them for some suggestions as well?

Have you used course evaluations in your classes? If so, how do you do them to get the best results and constructive responses?
 

June currently

I'm linking up with Farley for her June currently (yay summer vacation!)


 
 1. We have started watching the first few seasons of "The Office" since the series ended recently :( The first few seasons were the best.
2. Yay for summer vacation! I am already kind of bored (lol), but I do have lots of projects I could start in on like...
3. I've got lots of stuff to do around the house this summer like landscaping, painting all interior doors, changing out hardware on doors, finishing some picture walls, and the list goes on and on.
4. The past 7 days straight we've had rain or storms. I am so ready for sunny, warm weather to make its way to our city.
5. Of course on Memorial Day I came down with a nasty cold for the last week of school. I still have head congestion but at least the sore throat and runny nose has subsided.
6. For this summer, I need lots and lots of good books (already read two this week), my camera so I can Instagram all the fun stuff and pretty sunsets and what not going on, and an awesome playlist to listen to in my car, on my patio, sitting inside watching the rain apparently lol.