R.M. ArceJaeger's Blog, page 18

Day 1: Welcome to TFA

Read Part 1 — Day 1: Charleston to Florence

I was picked up by Josh Bell, the executive director for the South Carolina TFA region. During the short drive to Francis Marion University (the place where Induction would be held) he asked me a lot of questions about what I’d been doing in the intervening years between college and TFA, and what had interested me in the program. He also told me a little bit about the town (how far we were from the beach, etc.) and a bit about his wife’s experience t...

Day 1: Charleston to Florence

Sure enough, I did not sleep well last night. I ended up going to bed around 4:00 am, but didn’t fall asleep until about 4:30 am. Bright orange light seeped in through the windows where the curtains didn’t come all the way down, and the air conditioner from the rooms next door kept turning on and off, along with the refrigerator, etc. Still, I imagine I would have fallen asleep sooner if I hadn’t been so hyped up.

Part of what made my night so restless was agitation and worry. I had to be on t...

Day 0: California to Charleston (South Carolina)

I am on my way to Induction. It doesn’t seem real.

I spent Saturday and half of Sunday in a flurry, packing my previous life into boxes that are now sitting in a corner of my house, and packing some essentials into my luggage. I was going to be flying Southwest, so I was allowed to take two checked bags (for free — amazing, I know!) and two carry-ons. I made good use of that space.

My flight left California at 2:00 pm PST. I was the last passenger to board my plane, and it was a hassle finding...

Getting Fingerprinted

One of the things Teach for America requires of new corps members is that they join Americorps. To do that, corps members must first submit some paperwork which includes two sets of fingerprints. This must be done before arriving at Induction.

Getting my fingerprints done was quite an adventure. I received an email from TFA with the form I was supposed to get my fingerprints done on, so I printed two copies, filled them out, and took them to the Police station. When I got there, I was told the...

Don’t Believe the 40 Hours

After you accept your position as a Teach for America corps member, TFA sends you a PDF with links to articles and videos that you’re supposed to read, watch, and absorb before arriving at Induction. They tell you it should take 40 hours, and give you a timeline for when certain sections should be done by.

Don’t believe it.

I’m a really fast reader, but in order for you to really get the most out of your reading, you should be highlighting things that are important, potentially taking notes, et...

Robin Makes It to the Semi-Finals!

Thank you to everyone who posted a review of my book, Robin: Lady of Legend! It has successfully made it to the Semi-Finals of Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award. That means it beat out 99% of the competition (in other words, it was in the top 1% of all entries).

The three finalists will be announced on May 18. I don’t think I made it (finalists were supposed to be contacted today), but I am grateful and please with how far Robin did go (and I’m officially a second-prize winner). Thanks so much...

The Unauthorized Teacher’s Survival Guide

I came across an abandoned book recently called The Unauthorized Teacher’s Survival Guide by Jack Warner and Clyde Bryan. It is truly an excellent resource for beginning teachers (especially those who will be teaching Elementary)! It is short (only 168 real pages) and very smooth reading (that is to say, it’s quick to read and quite entertaining). The small glossary it included helped me with my Praxis II exam, and in general the advice and suggestions it offers are wonderful to consider. The...

Praxis II: 5015 — My Experience

So I just got done taking the Praxis II: 5015 (Elementary Education: Instructional Practice and Applications) and wanted to share with all of you my experience. Check out the two posts below:

Praxis II: 5015 — Study Guide

I took the Praxis II: 5015 (Elementary Education: Instructional Practice and Applications) recently and wanted to share with you some terms/concepts I found particularly useful to know!

Though this guide is based off the Praxis II: 5015 test, it is also pertinent to the Praxis II: 0011 (5011), 0012 (5012), and 0014 (5014) tests.

Language Acquisition

Digraph — A pair of characters used together to represent a single sound (phoneme). (e.g. “sh”)

Dipthong — Going from one vowels to another without d...

Praxis II: 5015 — Done!

I took the Praxis II: 5015 (Elementary Education: Instructional Practice and Applications) today. I’m not allowed to write any of the questions from the test (I wouldn’t anyway), but I can tell you in general how it went. I thought the multiple-choice was pretty easy, with most of it being common sense (in my opinion). There were some terms that I was glad I had studied (phonemes, etc.) but on the whole I was able to infer the correct answers based on context clues, even if I didn’t know what...