The first 2 weeks!

 Throughout this blog I will detail questions, concerns, and anything that appears interesting over the course of my prestudent and student teaching career. Names of any students or instructors within the blog will not reflect actual names due to confidentiality concerns. 

            I am fortunate in the fact I will be at my top choice for school and with a great coordinating teacher this year. For the purposes of this blog my CT will henceforth be referred to as Mrs. Smith. We had exchanged a number of e-mails leading up to the school year and I love how open she is to ideas and encouragement. Before the school year even started we had lain out a schedule went over books that I could teach in the spring, and talked about expectations for the year.

I met with the class I will be observing for the fall semester on the first day of school and had an awesome day meeting all the new students. The first day was mainly a getting to know the students atmosphere with a reading of the syllabus. The next two class days we jumped right into it getting the students writing. With one day devoted to a rough draft and one day to edit and type. The essay format was left to a number of different open ended prompts with the majority of students picking the topic of “What I want to do after I finish school” I found it great that many students asked me if they could write about their after college plans opposed to after high school. With this being their first year of high school and college already on their minds I feel this will end up being a very rewarding year as the students seem very dedicated to their educations for the most part.

Monday was interesting I went to meet with my CT for her plan; however, I didn't realize her plan time is replaced with professional development meetings on Mondays. I was invited to come along which I did expecting just to be an observer. Once in the meeting though I was treated just as any other teacher participating in the meetings activities and speaking about concerns and questions for the school year. I’m glad I made the mistake of coming at the wrong time and was able to participate in this experience. I got to meet a number of the teachers, hear concerns not only from new but also veteran teachers, and take a number of resource handouts that were being offered.

Talking with Mrs. Smith during her actually plan time we decided I will teach a selection from The Odyssey. I’m thrilled for this as it has always been one of my favorite books and to be able to teach and plan a complete lesson on it is amazing. We had initially planned on a 2 week time frame for me teaching it; however once I got into the planning stages I realized it was not going to leave much time for any activities besides the reading and the state required essay. I asked about possible getting more time and expressed I didn’t want to cut into anything she might already have planned. The response “take as much time as you need to teach it.” I love how supportive my CT is!  So now I’m shooting for a 3 week window. The issue I’m having the most with the lesson is the reading/discussion days estimating how long this portion will take with student discussion can be a bit overwhelming. After talking with my CT I’ve come to the realization I’m just going to have to do a rough estimate carry over any reading into future days and over plan with activities that can be easily cut if needed. This way if the overall reading takes longer I can cut activities that are not vital, but would have been more of a bonus and stay in my teaching time goal.