A Check-In

I know I have been off the grid with the blog lately.  This year has thrown a lot of personal things our way which has made keeping up with this a little bit harder.  Things are better and moving in the right direction now, so I thought a check-in was a due.

I cannot believe how fast the school year is flying!  It is already 1/3 of the way over.  New classes started this Monday.  I was kind of sad to say goodbye to my classes from last tri, but these new groups have been fun so far.  I have already started checking out books to students and getting the conversations started about different titles.  In fourth hour, we already have a couple waiting lists for Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake.  A student checked out The Selection by Kiera Cass first hour and needed The Elite by the end of the day (I did stress that I hoped she was doing work in her other classes).  A student checked out Rotten by Michael Northrop in my fifth hour today after I book talked it.  He said he just had to read it after he read a few pages.  Even the discussion about the Historical Fiction Research Project brought about some interest.  Students were already asking for books dealing with different time periods and topics so they could have their titles picked out.  We are going to look more at those books tomorrow, and we have new historical fiction books coming thanks to my latest Donors Choose project.

This fresh start is just what I needed at this time of the year!  I know we have just begun, but I cannot wait to see what this new group does.  I also am looking forward to trying new ideas and strategies as well as continuing to build on the things I started last trimester.  I hope to keep this more up-to-date with what we are doing as this trimester goes on.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy some of the extra days off! 🙂

Just one of those days

Monday was an AMAZING teaching day.  It was one of those days that really energize me and remind me how much I LOVE being a teacher.

Some amazing things are happening in English 10A.  We started the day with a discussion about Banned Books in honor of Banned Books Week.  Students shared a lot of great ideas and opinions on the topics.  We talked about choice and why it is important and starting thinking about who has the right to choose.  We discussed both sides of the issue a bit.  Students will reflect on the topic more with their Article of the Week assignment.

Even our grammar lesson was great today.  I have been following the work of Jeff Anderson for nearly five years now.  I used to hate teaching grammar; I absolutely love it now.  We start on Mondays with a mentor sentence to talk about the skill we are focusing on this week.  Last week we did semi-colons, and we are discussing colons this week.  The mentor sentence opened up a lot of discussion on skills we have started working with and the different was we may use them.  We also made some great connections.  More and more students are participating in our discussions on Mondays and sharing great ideas.

Our discussion about our mentor sentence this week.

Another added bonus about today?  My Donors Choose books arrived!  I cannot wait to share these titles with students!!

I am hoping to carry this awesome day throughout the week.  I hope you all have a great week!