Practicum 3: Romeo and Juliet & Kate Chopin’s The Storm Part 1 (March 16th 7:45 to 2:45)
I woke up that morning ready for a fresh start with the dreaded ninth graders, but apparently my body was not ready. I was sick from not only the heavy medication I have been taking, but the realization that I will be stuck with the same dreaded ninth graders again. I was down for the count not wanting to go to that classroom, but I pulled myself off the canvas, put on my big girl pants, and drove to the school. On the way there, I found out that Metro thought it would be a good day to shut down for 24 hours. This caused a major backup on the highways, which is the only way to get to the school. I made it to the school fifteen minutes late than my scheduled time, but I would have been later if I did not punch the pedal to the floor a couple of times as well as do some moving violations on unsuspecting drivers. I parked quickly, rushed up to the security office of the school, got my badge, booked it to the classroom, and found the classroom dark with the projector on where students are writing down grammar notes. I tried the handle, but it did not budge. A student sitting next to the door opened it for me and I quickly grabbed my special seat next to the teacher’s desk. I whispered my apologies quietly explaining why I was late, but she just nodded her head and said that she forgot to get my cell number to call me if I had gotten trouble on the road there. She was genuinely worried about me. I assured her that I was fine. She said that I can come in during this block at any time because these particular 11th graders do not care. I nodded and said thank you while I pulled out my notebook to start my notes for the day.
The students continued on with writing their notes in their composition notebooks. The teacher uses a PowerPoint presentation for grammar notes. This particular set of grammar notes were Appositives. She provides the definition of appositives, examples and rules for using them in sentences. The students moved on to Kate Chopin by being introduced with biographical information. The teacher asked a student to handout a single paged biography of the author and called out students to read. They learned about where Chopin was from, how she started writing, and what she wrote about. They also learned that Chopin used French Creole cultural aspects as well as feminist points of view. The teacher then passed around tape for the students to tape their biography handout to their notes. She then introduced the short story that they were going to read for the week: “The Storm”. They read the short story out loud in turns. However, the block was ending and they only got through the second paragraph. Side note: reading out loud in turns gives the teacher a way to measure fluency, which this host teacher seems to understand.
The next block was planning and the host teacher and I talked about my lesson I was going to do after spring break. I gave her the rundown of the new and approved lesson for the eleventh graders as well as brought the full lesson for her to see. She told me that she wanted the groups to be only four students each, which made eight groups. I would have to get four more poems to have each group a separate poem to work on. However, I could keep the same authors. I told her that and she gave me the go ahead. I told her I would have the modifications for the next day and a print out of the graphic organizers for the lesson, so we can made copies. For the rest of the time, the host teacher went around making copies and setting up for the next block of students, which are the ninth graders.
As the bell rings and the ninth graders roll in, I notice that it is same class that greeted me the week before with outrageous behavior and foul language. But they were totally different. Their behavior was normal ninth graders, but still immature at times. I attributed this to the host teacher talking to them days before about their behavior while I was there. But, I had a suspicious feeling that they were so bad in their behavior because I was there and they wanted to make their first impression as abhorrent as they can. Anyway, as the students entered the classroom, there are given a worksheet and told to work on the first two columns. The worksheet was vocabulary for Romeo and Juliet. The first column was a sentence using the word and the student had to highlight context clues in the sentence to the words’ meaning. The second column is their educated guess on what the word means.
While students are silently working, for the most part, on the two columns, the host teacher answers emails as well as look at students of misbehavior and completion. She constantly looks at the back of the room to a group of boys messing around. They are eating food, talking, laughing and using their electronic devices. The host teacher often threatens them with referrals and has to wait for them to stop talking to move on. Their behavior is also the reason that they are falling behind the other classes in content and I am surprised that my host teacher gets anything done in that classroom. Once they finally finished the two columns in on the worksheet, my host teacher goes to her computer and goes over the worksheet with her students. They fill in the actual meaning of the vocabulary words. These vocabulary words are for students to gain more meaning from their text they are reading and have for SOL standards. As they complete that, students were asked to hand out the big literature books that weigh about five pounds each. The students were also asked to get out their packets that contain the different literary devices in drama they are going to look at.
As the students are getting out their packet, the host teacher projects the roles assigned on the projector. Each student has a part in the play, which allows the teacher to check for fluency in the students’ reading skills. This particular group of ninth graders are just finishing the fight scene in the first act of the play and going on to the first scene where the reader meets Juliet. While reading the play version, my host teacher pulls up No Fear Shakespeare for those students who do not understand what is going on in the story. She also tells the students that they are responsible for reading the modern and the dramatic version of the play on their own. While they are reading the play, my host teacher often stops the students to point something out that is important for them to know. For example, this particular day they were looking at puns, comic relief, and metaphor. She would point out that there was a metaphor in the section that the just read and she would have the students look for it, write it under the metaphor section of the packet, and cite it in MLA format. This would continue on until the period ends.
The next group of ninth graders enter the room and repeat the same process as the class before; however, this group was behind due to behavioral problems. There are a group of boys in the back that fool around, but unfortunately, my host teacher explains to me that this is typical of this group of ninth graders. In this class, my host teacher would threaten to write students up for using their devices in the classroom, eating, and talking too much. However, she does not write them up because she tells me that she does not want to be that kind of teacher. I find this problematic to two reasons; one, she will be deemed a push over by not going through with her threat, and two, the students lose respect for her in the long run. Students who see a teacher as a push over can get away with anything in the classroom and will be shocked when they move on next year to find that other teachers do not tolerate the same behavior.
The end of the day drew to a close and we talked at length about the classroom, my lesson, and the students’ behaviors. It was a blur of conversation going from one point to the next and before I realized it, I stayed until 3pm. I quickly made my exit, saying goodbye, and walked to my car wondering what tomorrow will be like because I am finally going to see the other 11th grade class and one more 9th grade class I have not seen yet.
