After prayer, we will go over the scribe notes, and I’ll
explain that in this round, the students will be responsible for posting to the
blog themselves. I like this idea because it will show the students how easy it
is to blog. Maybe that’s a writing outlet some of them will take up now or in
the future. It really is easy. Publishing at the push of a button. I will be
the scribe today so that tomorrow I can show them how to log onto the blog and
post. Because the periods are shorter today, we won’t journal. I think the
students probably need 30 minutes to work on this quizzy thing. And while they
are working, I’ll try to work on the department powerpoint.
Oh yeah. I need to check annotations. I won’t be able to
work on the powerpoint until that’s done. But it won’t take too long. I just
have to pick my way over all the laptops and backpacks in the aisles. If I
manage not to trip, I should be done with this in 10 or 15 minutes. I hope we
never have to evacuate in a hurry. The luggage in these aisles will sure slow
us down if not halt us altogether.
The annotations are looking pretty good. There a just a few
that seem random and faked. For the most part, the students seem to have gotten
right to the heart of the matter. Many of these annotations are downright
beautiful. They are thorough and insightful and even look kind of cool. I love
annotating. I wonder if any of the students here are seeing either the value or
the pleasure available in this form of interacting with books.
I do see a number of annotations that just list events. I
need to make certain to remind everyone tomorrow that we are focusing on
interiority. It is more important to record notes on states of mind than on
action. I also need to remind the students keeping notes on paper that their
annotations are useless without page numbers that refer back to the text. Now
that I think about it, a few of those lists of events seem strangely
non-textual, as if they are connected to some other summary of events and not
to the book itself. I do see a few students working exclusively with notes, not
opening their books. That’s a bad sign. As far as the one or two students who
are plainly behind in their reading, I would really like to meet one on one
with those students. It would be a good thing to find out what is holding them
back from completing the reading.
I admit, I thought the fever chart assessment was clever. I
thought it was a lot more focused than simply giving an essay assignment, and I
thought it would be friendly to those visual learners that dominate in my
classroom and sometimes get short shrift because I myself am so verbally
oriented. I must admit I did not anticipate the level of stress this form of
quiz seems to have brought on. The minute I projected it onto the board, there
was an immediate defensive response. Faces fell, eyes narrowed, the love could
not be felt. It’s funny, because looking at their annotations, I’d say a great
many students had exactly the notes they would need for this assignment. It
will be interesting to see how they do: as well as I think they will, or as
poorly as they seem to be expecting to do. It looks like the class is having a
hard time finishing in the class period. I will have to let some come in at
advisory or after school. I really hate to do this, and I am torn between my
desire to let every student show everything he knows and not be cut short
because of time, and my conviction that sometimes (oftentimes in fact) good
enough is good enough. Time constraints can be very valuable for helping us to
budget our time and effort. A 30 minute test is worth 30 minutes. I am
impressed that so many of my students are willing to put in 90 minutes on a 30
minute test: that’s their work ethic and dedication. But I also think the skill
of judging what is required is extremely valuable. I do think, for me, based on
my experience to date this year, some adjustment of my testing style will be
necessary due to the fact that most days at Kennedy I seem to have even less
than 48 minutes.
Let’s see, annotations are checked, students seem to be
calmly working. Checking the clock, we
have three minutes left. That’s enough time to report attendance, give
instructions on how and when to finish this quiz, remind students about their
saint quotes, give a few reassurances about the vocab “quiz” tomorrow and say
good-bye. That vocab quiz has been troubling me. We went over the powerpoint
slides with definitions and usage examples for three whole days. I have no idea
why it took that long; I guess classes were shortened on two of those days, and
we must have proceeded at a leisurely pace. Still, I like to have played with
and reviewed the words with a class before I quiz on them. I will have to think
of some alternate assessment tomorrow. But I guess I won’t tell the students
anything just yet. It’s best if they prepare for a regular quiz. Maybe I’ll
give a regular quiz. I love writing vocabulary quizzes. But no…a game of some
sort is better for where we are as a class with this vocab set. Maybe they’ll
enjoy doing a group assessment. That could be fun. But then again, the things I
think are awesome are sometimes hated on by my students.
Of course I didn’t even come near to that department powerpoint
presentation. I don’t know why I thought for a minute that I would. And I have
no idea why I volunteered to do it. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. The students are
leaving. They look worried. I bet they are doing better than they think. We
shall see.
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