whumph.
I'm running out of steam for work. Granted, I've gotten a decent amount done today - a lesson plan and a half (if short), a couple pages of notes on Sir Gawain, a wee bit of grading, some lesson planning...
I have been a little frustrated recently because my students haven't really been enjoying what we've been doing in class. Now, granted, some of this is the material. We spent a fair amount of time one period last week doing definitions in 11 Advanced, and definitions just aren't fun. Also, the students don't seem to like poetry much, particularly Bryant, who is, admittedly, dense. 12 Standard has started the Canterbury Tales. We've been working our way through the Prologue, and while a lot of the individual portraits are entertaining, after a while you really want some plot. And that's me, with my comprehension level, as opposed to them, who have a much lower comprehension level. It's not been fun. Last week was definitely a downer of a week.
So really, there's not a whole lot I can do to make definitions more fun aside from try to give fun examples, which I did. And I can't make Bryant any less dense, either. And although I could try to do some more fun sort of lesson format, the first poem of his we do I think is much better done as a class so they can get the hang of things with plenty of support. I really don't know how I could do better there, although I wish I could, because having 26 kids radiating dissatisfaction at you is just not a good time. But for Chaucer - I could have done better there. I didn't plan well enough. I'm going to try to rectify that as much as I can in the upcoming lessons without being really inconsistent (because that's always a bad thing, too), but we'll see how it goes. Small steps at first. We'll start with brightly-colored stickies of "I don't get this part." And then maybe that thermometer activity that I found on the internet. Other than that, I'm not sure what I can do about the Prologue. In some ways, it's kind of like definitions - you just have to get through it. If my students' reading comprehensions (and work ethics) were a fair bit higher and I could trust them to get through it on their own at home, we might be able to do more fun things with it in class, but there are just too many things in there that they won't understand without help. Sigh. This is also frustrating, because if I even just had students with all good work ethics, I could still make this work. So my un-motivated students are ruining things for my motivated students. Worse, it's an awful vicious circle - their lack of motivation prevents me from trying to do the fun things that would get them more motivated because they require too much initial willingness to try. I dunno, maybe I'm being really down on them. But I think I can say with a fair amount of confidence that at least 5 of my 16 students would just piss away an assignment like that, and that isn't acceptable. Or is it? If it's their own fault, is it all right? Is it ever all right to do something knowing that a third of my class will bomb it? But if it's their own faults - and it would be so good for the rest of the class - when do you give up on a kid? Or, when do you stop holding their hand and leave them to sink or swim on their own efforts? I think three of the ones that I'm thinking of are already failing the class.
Sigh. Angst, confusion, frustration.
But I have discovered something: I don't regret this. I do think it's worth it. (Right now, anyway. *crooked smile. It's true that that does seem to be a little subject to change.) It's hard as crap, but it's worth it. I guess that's something good.
I have been a little frustrated recently because my students haven't really been enjoying what we've been doing in class. Now, granted, some of this is the material. We spent a fair amount of time one period last week doing definitions in 11 Advanced, and definitions just aren't fun. Also, the students don't seem to like poetry much, particularly Bryant, who is, admittedly, dense. 12 Standard has started the Canterbury Tales. We've been working our way through the Prologue, and while a lot of the individual portraits are entertaining, after a while you really want some plot. And that's me, with my comprehension level, as opposed to them, who have a much lower comprehension level. It's not been fun. Last week was definitely a downer of a week.
So really, there's not a whole lot I can do to make definitions more fun aside from try to give fun examples, which I did. And I can't make Bryant any less dense, either. And although I could try to do some more fun sort of lesson format, the first poem of his we do I think is much better done as a class so they can get the hang of things with plenty of support. I really don't know how I could do better there, although I wish I could, because having 26 kids radiating dissatisfaction at you is just not a good time. But for Chaucer - I could have done better there. I didn't plan well enough. I'm going to try to rectify that as much as I can in the upcoming lessons without being really inconsistent (because that's always a bad thing, too), but we'll see how it goes. Small steps at first. We'll start with brightly-colored stickies of "I don't get this part." And then maybe that thermometer activity that I found on the internet. Other than that, I'm not sure what I can do about the Prologue. In some ways, it's kind of like definitions - you just have to get through it. If my students' reading comprehensions (and work ethics) were a fair bit higher and I could trust them to get through it on their own at home, we might be able to do more fun things with it in class, but there are just too many things in there that they won't understand without help. Sigh. This is also frustrating, because if I even just had students with all good work ethics, I could still make this work. So my un-motivated students are ruining things for my motivated students. Worse, it's an awful vicious circle - their lack of motivation prevents me from trying to do the fun things that would get them more motivated because they require too much initial willingness to try. I dunno, maybe I'm being really down on them. But I think I can say with a fair amount of confidence that at least 5 of my 16 students would just piss away an assignment like that, and that isn't acceptable. Or is it? If it's their own fault, is it all right? Is it ever all right to do something knowing that a third of my class will bomb it? But if it's their own faults - and it would be so good for the rest of the class - when do you give up on a kid? Or, when do you stop holding their hand and leave them to sink or swim on their own efforts? I think three of the ones that I'm thinking of are already failing the class.
Sigh. Angst, confusion, frustration.
But I have discovered something: I don't regret this. I do think it's worth it. (Right now, anyway. *crooked smile. It's true that that does seem to be a little subject to change.) It's hard as crap, but it's worth it. I guess that's something good.