Hello All,

As I am preparing for the coming year, I find myself with an emotional blockage preventing me from planning for one of my classes.

This particular class, Applied English 12, consists of the same students I taught last year in Applied English 11 (we had some new hires and courses got shuffled). Last year was a tough year, as it was my first year teaching and I came in on the first day of the second quarter. Of all the classes, this is the one that was the most difficult. In a lot of ways, I feel like I did this group a great disservice last year. And now I have them again. Mentally, I know that this is a great opportunity to "correct the wrong", but emotionally, I feel like I'll fail them again.

Do any of you have any books to suggest that may help me process this, or any personal experience or tips? I really need to get going on this class, but I need to get beyond this blockage first.

Thanks!

I find that having bellwork for the kids to do as they come in really helps in a lot of ways. It gives me a chance to mentally prepare for the new class entering, it helps them get settled and into the routine, it gives me a chance to take attendance (and stragglers don't miss "class"), it gives individual students a chance to voice questions/concerns about homework/lessons/whatever before "class" starts, and it can get the kids already thinking about the day's lesson, depending on how you use the bellwork. I favor sentence editing (practical grammar), but I'm working on a plan for switching that up with vocabulary and plain ol' journaling.

Routine seemed to be the best medicine for my difficult classes in the past. Good luck.

That's a good idea. Thanks!

Backing up what Kat says about bellwork providing routine and variety, I've also found that I have an easier time tracking their progress if I provide the forms for them to work on. I do their "Write Aways" (b/c they do them right away) every Monday Wednesday and Friday. I have a form that gives them 4-5 1.5 spaced lines to fill in with their thoughts on a prompt I have on the board at the beginning of class. The back is a full page of lines. Once during each 2-week period, they have to choose a write away they started in class to revise into a formal paragraph to turn in on the back. I find I can grade a class in 15-20 minutes, and since I only have to do it every couple of weeks, it's manageable. Then Tuesdays and Thursdays can be used for Kat's type of grammar or Vocabulary stuff.

Thanks for these great ideas! I'm totally using them! I really like the idea of "Write Aways" as I do journaling in all of my classes to help them generate a body of work to pull from when writing personal and formal papers. Using the "Write Away" system is good because it also teaches them the skill of revision.

We're on a roll! Any other ideas?

I use an idea for juniors I got from the English Journal. It's called an "Occasional Paper," though I renamed it an "Opinion Paper." Students can write one any time during semester (I assign dates as everyone tends to writes theirs toward end of semester). Papers can be on any subject and are read by me (anonymously) at beginning of class to prompt short discussion. They can claim paper at end of discussion. Papers end up becoming very short persuasive essays on school related issues (dress code, etc), age related issues (dating, driving, parents), news (politics) - you name it. I censor what I want, not all get read - and it's an all or nothing 25 points or 0 (do it and get 25 - don't and get 0). We brainstorm topics and read examples from previous years before getting started.

As you all may know, most students love to talk about what they think they know and I am the moderator helping to guide them through productive discussion. It may last for 10-15 minutes, but one day we went 40 minutes. It's wildly popular, but I make it known that we may only do it 2 or 3 times per week. It becomes a dessert for students and very rarely do I have students not write a paper.

Just a thought.

For younger students, freshmen, I use sentence completions as a way to get to know each other and as a good way to begin a Monday morning or block periods. I start with it at the beginning of the year, though we end up staying with it for the year. Before school starts, brainstorm as many sentence starters as you can, type them up and pass them out. Choose a number for any given day. Go around the room and each student completes sentence - no repeats, and as students become more familiar with one another I ask for no repeats (and questions become more personal). Sounds very basic, but they love it and it gets the quiet ones talking a bit.

Examples:

1. My favorite late night snack is
2. Right now I'd like to be
3. If I were stuck on a desert island and could choose only one movie to have, I'd choose...
4. I'd like to read more if
5. My family thinks I'm

Hope these help!

Lisa
Oregon