Days 3 & 4

Day 3 = Repetitive

For only the second time since I began teaching, I teach multiple sections of the same class each day - two classes of Spanish 2 and two classes of English 1.  Sometimes I forget what I have told which class and whether or not I'm repeating the same thing to the same people.  It gets really confusing.  And a little boring, too, actually.

Another reason why this day was extremely repetitive: teaching all four of my English classes about expository essay structure and writing rubrics = one lesson plan repeated over and over and over and over all day.

Day 4 = Baby Steps

All of my English classes wrote expository essays today.  By the end of my last period, I realized I probably should have started smaller... with just the introductory paragraph and thesis statement, for example.  After 40 minutes, several of my freshman came to with just a few sentences typed, asking if I would read what they had written so far.  Ummm, yeah.  Your full paper is due in 5 minutes.

While I'm glad I assigned all my classes the full essay (a way to gauge where they are, what they need work on), I always seem to forget that students sometimes need things in very small, slow chunks.

Baby steps, Mrs. Ryan. Baby steps.