I’m going through Lord of the Flies with my class right now, so I thought I’d write about it a little for this post.

Whenever I teach this novel, I face my students’ frustrations with the language. Golding uses very dense, descriptive language throughout most of the book. Students find this confusing and even annoying. I freely admit that I sometimes am tempted to zone out when I’m reading his descriptions too. However, I tell them that Golding does not spend so much time on strong descriptions just for the heck of it. From the beginning of the novel, I ask them to consider why Golding uses imagery the way he does.

This semester, we began the novel with a passage from Chapter 1 that is particularly descriptive. After I read it, I had the students draw whatever they could remember. They then compared their drawings to other group members. Finally, I had them go back to the passage we read and pinpoint the particular lines that were most influential on their drawings. In this way I called attention to the power Golding’s description has. There was not one student who said “I don’t know what to draw,” because Golding’s images do stick in your head.

Last week we read the first two pages in Chapter Three out loud. These pages are devoted to describing the character Jack as he is hunting in the jungle. We pointed out the imagery used, including how Jack is likened to a dog and an ape, and then I asked them what the point was. Rather quickly a student responded that Golding was showing that Jack is becoming a little savage, and describing Jack as an animal helps to further that idea.

A little later in the novel, when things started getting particularly nasty on the island, I am going to do an activity where half of the class notes all the imagery describing the island they can find in the 1st chapter. The other half will note all the imagery they see in a later chapter. When we compare the descriptions we will see pretty clearly that in the beginning of the novel the island is described as a beautiful paradise, but by the near end of the novel the presence of the boys and their descent into savage behavior has destroyed this paradise. The island becomes menacing, terrible, and literally destroyed. When I have done this activity before, students have been struck by this.

I think these activities help to get students to understand that authors choose their words carefully. Description is not just pretty; it has a purpose. In the case of Lord of the Flies, the imagery directly correlates with some of the major themes of the book.

All of these activities with my students help me as a reader too. I am much more interested in characters and ideas than setting descriptions. It’s just how I am. But by finding a purpose for description I gain a new appreciation of authors and what they are trying to do.

One thing I love about being a teacher is that I learn right along with my students. And what fun to keep learning about one of my greatest passions: reading!

79 out of 82 rough drafts turned in on time. Not too shabby!

I just have to mention how impressed I am with my freshmen so far this year. We had a rough draft of our paper due last week, and 79 out of my 82 students turned the draft in on time.

I did stress how important it was to me that they took the writing process seriously and took advantage of the benefits of editing from their peers and myself. Apparently these students took it to heart, because they definitely had their papers ready to go. Hardly any of the papers were shabbily thrown together or incomplete.

This says a lot for the work ethic of our freshman class. I am very impressed, and I am even more excited now for the semester.

Today the second year teachers came in to school and had a panel session with the incoming first years. We answered their questions and gave advice, all without administrators in the room.

We had some good advice, including take time for yourself, don’t do work all the time, ask people for help, don’t be afraid of administrators or department chairs, talk to people, and of course, stay organized (I should have followed that tip a little more last year). I think the 1st year teachers appreciated hearing from us. I know I appreciated it last year.

This meeting made me realize that I am really, truly, officially, not a first year teacher. What a weird feeling! Lately I’ve been feeling overwhelmed as I’ve been researching AP English information and getting nervous about teaching that class. I have a severe case of inadequacy; I want to make sure these students get great opportunities, but I am still learning myself. So, it was actually a good feeling to realize that I do have a year of experience. I have ideas that are backed up by actual moments in the classroom. I am not completely inadequate.

Going back to school and saying hello to all the friendly faces reminds me that now I am really a member of the community, not a new person in the community. It’s nice to be welcomed back by students and teachers and to feel like I belong. I’ve started to set some roots down.

Of course, this realization does not take away my feeling that I have so much to learn. It just makes me realize that as I begin a new year and take on a new prep, I have a foundation to start from.

A foundation is a wonderful thing to have.

Last year in my first year teaching I spent all of my time working on school. All of it. My poor then-fiance was incredibly understanding with my tendency to not speak to him a lot. First semester especially, I really worked from the moment I got up to the moment I went to bed. It was crazy. Second semester I got better, partly because I was planning a wedding and had a lot of extracurricular responsiblities to deal with.

My fear for this year is that I will revert to my workaholic ways. That’s fine, but I also want to make sure I spend time with my now-husband. It’s been so nice really spending time with him this summer. Second semester I really didn’t feel anymore behind than first, even though I was doing less work. So that means I shouldn’t have to do work all the time, right? It helps that I know the ropes a little more now. But, I also know that I am a perfectionist. I get bogged down in details, and I can’t let go of things if they aren’t done.

I’m really hoping to maintain a better balance, because it makes me a happier person. Are there any secret tips that other educators have to manage time? I wonder.

I went through a lot of debate this summer about my syllabus. What should it look like? How extensive should it be? What should it cover? I did research and looked at examples from other people. I’m just not yet sure about what I want my Syllabus to look like, as well as what some of my class rules should be.

Last year I was so frustrated by the students in my first semester classes simply not knowing anything that was on in my Syllabus at all. I also hated taking time going through with it and getting those blank looks from everyone.

My “solution” (ha) second semester was to give a quiz on my Syllabus the day after the first day of class. That went really well…. It didn’t help at all; I’m not sure what I was thinking.

I changed my syllabus a lot for this school year, which starts the 25th of August. I’m relatively satisfied with the final result, at least right now.

Changes I’ve made:

-I’ve toned down my considerable rambling and taken out a section about “My Goals for this class.”
-I’ve taken out the overview of the semester, with specifics on each unit, that I had last year.
-I’ve really reduced my Class Rules. The only personal one I have now is “Respect,” which I plan to go into more detail about in class.
-I’m only making freshman parents sign it, rather than the parents of all my students.

Problems I think my Syllabus still has:

-I don’t spend a lot of time going into details of my expectations for random situations – like getting up to throw away something, sharpening pencils, eating a four-couse meal, etc. Should I be going into detail on all those possible situations as an avoid the problem before it occurs tactic? My syllabus would be five years long then I fear.

-I don’t give a class calendar or go into major specifics on assignments. Should I?

-I’m planning on trying to go over this briefly on the first day of class. My fear, of course, is that anything I don’t go over will be unknown to my students. That’s probably why I did the quiz thing last semester. I just don’t want to spend a lot of time on it. I hate those glazed looks; I want to get them active.

Here is my syllabus for the sophomores. I’d love suggestions or comments.

syllabus210

Of course, I am always curious about policies for late/missing work and things of that nature. I spent time researching that as well. Really, all class procedures are still a work-in-progress for me, since I have only had two semesters to try different things. Comments on those ideas are appreciated too.

Why am I starting this blog? Ok. I survived my first year of teaching. My goal for my second year is to attempt to at least kind of know what I’m doing! One of the ways I think I can help myself is by maintaining this blog.

I used a class website last year to help my students stay informed, but I didn’t like the format of the site I used. I’m going to try using edublogs this year.

In order to figure out what I needed to do for my edublog, I first studied intensely Sue Waters’ amazing Edublogger site. If anyone is just starting an edublog, I highly recommed her. She explains things very simply. Thank you so much Sue!!! Then, because I like examples, I started…blogspying. I took a look at different classroom and personal blogs of teachers. Some of the blogs that impressed me the most were Huff English and Mr. B-G’s English Blog. Check these out on my Blogroll.

Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t just discover blogs magically. My education coursework at The College of William and Mary (Go Tribe!!) included two educational technology classes. I first learned about blogs, along with other great resources like Odeo and United Streaming from my professor Dr. Mark Hofer. He was a great teacher; he explained things very clearly and modeled everything for us. So I had the idea, and I did maintain a blog for the class.

Then, in my next technology class, I met the incomparable Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach. Check out her blog; you will see why I say she is incomparable. I was blown away by the things she and others were doing to explore how we can advance teaching. Is it just me, or are educators at the forefront of new technology use? She showed us wiki’s, Bloglines, and innumberable other resources. She inspired me to use a wiki when I student taught. Most of all, she impressed upon me the absolute necessity for teachers to help their students become even more technologically literate. Honestly, I am still overwhelmed by all the resources she gave us and all the ideas she brought up. I’m still confused about some of it.

Although I am totally sold to Sheryl’s beliefs, I have found it extremely difficult to make them happen. When I student taught, I did use wikis and WindowsMovieMaker with my students. We did do work on the computers. But I personally found myself unable to maintain a blog as I student taught. I was just trying to survive. In my first year of teaching, besides my website (which I struggled to maintain regularly) and online research for projects, I didn’t engage my students thoroughly in technology. And I truly was just trying to stay sane; there was no chance for a blog of my own.

Now that I am in my second year, I have two goals:

1. Maintain my classroom blog consistently (I owe it to my students).
2. Use my blog and the immense web resources at my disposal to improve my own teaching.

I DO want to eventually have blogs for my students, but I honestly need to see if I can do it for a year before I require my students to do it. I am hoping to use the forum on my classroom blog for one of my classes, so I will be subscribing students to that. But I think I need to take baby steps, considering I am only in my second year.

I really hope I can meet my goals. My first year teaching was the most ego crushing year of my life. But it taught me that I can’t do everything perfectly, and that I have the opportunity to get better. I’m thankful to be in a profession where I have that opportunity.