Rachel K. Reflections

Week 4 (January 30 – February 3, 2012)
This week I began the Themed Literature Unit, which I co-­‐wrote with Cleo Peterson. The learning objectives for this unit are based on respect, empathy, and the courage to do what you feel is right. I wanted to bring this unit to the 5th grade because I understand that students from diverse backgrounds must learn to self-­‐advocate if they are to help themselves to reach their personal dreams and to support themselves through times of happiness and strife.

During this week, the students were required to respond to songs about “writing one’s own future,” and drafted letters to a bully in which they were required to use “peaceful language” to encourage the bully to stop being cruel to a character from the story The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes.
The students responded well to this, and with a lot of coaching and revising they were able to score well in terms of writing conventions. I believe that the 5th graders need extra time to practice and improve upon their writing conventions. I implemented a vocabulary chart and two concept charts to aid visual learners and ELL students in their construction and understanding of what it means to speak up for yourself and others. The vocabulary chart was popular – students had to listen for the new words in our interactive read aloud each day and would use a hand signal if they heard any of the vocabulary. We would then construct our own definitions from context clues and prior knowledge, which was engaging for students and helpful for students of lower literacy abilities.

Strengths: The unit was both engaging to students and something that the 5th grade team felt was important to talk about with them.

Challenges: Writing conventions were quite difficult to get students to “buy into.” Perhaps it is because the majority of the students are weak writers (either in organization or understanding of basic sentence construction) and writing for them is neither joyful nor easy. I believe that more opportunities to practice basic writing conventions will at least improve student writing stamina if not disposition.

Rachel K. Non-Negotiables

I am back in school this week at Seattle U, and we are learning about literacy. Our teacher is amazing, and everything she says is liquid gold. One of our assignments this week is to think about what "non-negotiables" we'd like to hold high in our classrooms someday.  A non-negotiable represents something we will always insist on regardless of what age group to whom we instruct, and what subject matter we teach. I am terrible at assignments like these, but I have come up with a few ideas.

For my students, I want my non-negotiable to be, "avoid excuses," and to take on subject matter that they both adore and despise. What difference does it make if you don't like math? You can still be awesome at math if you hate it. In fact, I think it would be interesting to see a subject matter you despise as an enemy. CRUSH IT. Learn its weaknesses - observe it in secrecy, and strike when its back is turned!

That illustrated, my mission statement for my classroom is:

NO EXCUSES.

NO SURRENDER. 

Kids don't have to love a subject to kick its ass. Kids DO have to get through school. My long-term teaching goals are to ensure that my students learn meaningful things that ignite their passions and motivate them to keep learning, but who are we kidding? That's not going to happen all the time, so I'm going to train my kids as warriors as well as scholars.

For myself, I don't plan on kicking anyone's butts, but I do want to work hard for the little brains that surround me every day. It is always easy to say, "no" to kids when they ask questions, so my non-negotiable for myself is to, "find ways to say yes." This, on the advice of my table-mates today, will also be the title of my self-help book that I publish in 20 years when I am a life coach living in Sedona, AZ. Going off of this idea, my personal mantra will be:

Find a Way

I think that this will encompass many of the difficulties I will face as a publicly-funded employee with too much to do and not enough time nor resources to do it. Kids are too important to give up in the face of common sense, and I will try to find ways around these obstacles.