So, I haven't written a thing about my English 725 course, Place Conscious Pedagogy and Writing.  Why? Becasue it would take me days to write about the complex issues we have discussed in the past seven weeks.  I'm truly impressed by these graduate students who have stayed the course for some very hefty theoretical reading.  The responses to the texts have been insightful, brilliant, and incredibly thought-provoking.  The class is a mixture of gradute students who are graduate assistants and graduate students who are teaching full time.  This combination has crreated quite a community of scholars with a great deal of wisdom. Tonight, we met for the second time on TodaysMeet to have a synchronous meeting about our place-consicous unit plans and the conversation was incredible! (Oh, I forgot to mention that I'm teaching this via Blackboard with 3 ftf meetings throughout the semester). Some of the ideas proposed for place-conscious units were studying a local cemetery where Civil War soldiers are buried, local parks, immigration in Dallas County, community literacy after school projects, and two ESL teachers considering students writing about their "two" places.  All wonderful. We have read a great deal upon the varying aspects of place conscious studies: place-conscious pedagogy and various models, regional history, regional ecology and comunity action.  We just finsihed community action and the responses were riveting to read. I am excited to read the unit plans next week.  It has been quite fascinating to see how students have navigated the use of Blackboard as well.  One thing I know I need to change is how we can incorporate their blogs a bit more.  I had hoped they could showcase their work there and I need to emphasize that a bit more. 

Tomorrow marks the first day of the English 405 microlessons! I cannot wait to see what the students do in the classroom.  I have read the first two lessons and provided feedback but they really didn't need much! They are ready to go!  Last week we focused on our literature pair shares. We didn't have class on President's Day and Wedneday we had a work day so partners could begin work on their units on one of the top ten novels or plays taught in U.S. high schools. This semester I am happy to say, we have four Shakespeare plays and I couldn't be happier!  I'm always fascinated by what students do when first conceptualizing how they might teach the plays. 

The nice thing about the microlessons is that each student completes an evaluation or feedback form.  These multiple voices and perspectives is so valuable. With 18 sets of eyes, we all notice different things.  The whole point is to build a community of scholars and peers so that we help each other and build each other up into the best practicing teachers possible. We also videotape the lesson and each student is asked to watch it and then complete an evaluation of him or herself.  I did this coaching speech and even though it is hard to watch yourself, you do notice things that you do.  Or don't do.  

The last few days have been a bit tough with the murder of a little girl here in Springfield.  The alleged killer worked as a paraprofessional in a local middle school, so not only do we have an elementary school mourning the loss of a ten-year-old, we have a middle school where everyone is in shock and questioning that they had a coach who could be capable of such an atrocity.  We did spend some time in class talking about it as one student is in  a practicum at the middle school. I had a lesson to teach yesterday but I felt I should forego that so we could have a conversation about how to help students when a tragedy occurs.  Of course, when it is violent, it is so entirely different than a student dying by natural causes.  It's a source of fear and anxiety.   I think we came up with some good ideas on how we can help students: try to maintain normalcy, answer questoins as you can, but without going into details, simply say, "I'm so sad" or "I'm sorry."  

In the past few weeks, we have looked at the requirements for the microlesson and I have taught two lessons: one on Burke's "Big Idea" and one on digital story telling and how we can focus on a local topic or issue.  We also watched one of the videos my students did about poverty and hunger and then we imagined that as the final summative project for a unit.  I made a calendar on the board and asked everyone what they imagined my students did for each day of the unit.  (I was demonstrating backward design).  Of course, my students wanted to know, "Well, how do you know how much time it is going to take?"  Well, that is the trick of teaching and after a few years, you begin to figure out how long things might take, but that can change from year to year and class to class.  It's just one of those things that you plan ahead and have the plan and maybe you might have to add a day but eventually, you will learn how to pace and time a lesson.  

Well, two weeks have gone by and I am just now posting on my blog.  I am asking my students to be reflective practicioners, so I must reflect, too.  I want more time in my day!  I know new teachers feel the way I do in that it takes a tremendous amount of energy to create lesson plans and then teach them let alone find time to write reflectively.  By the end of the day, you are just plum tuckered out. So, to recap last week, we are once again in "catch up" mode, but worth it in that last week, Ms. Suzi Jordan came to visit to talk about the practicum experience and what she expects when she comes to observe.  I think it's good for her to come and introduce herself so students know her when she walks into the classroom.  It helps put them at ease.  And she also helps them to know what to expect and what she is looking for (based upon the assessment tool). We finally got to our deep map sharing last Wednesday, plus we looked at our case study guidelines !  And Monday, I demonstrated how we should use essential questions in the classroom based upon Jim Burke's "What's the Big Idea?"  We need to be considering the big idea each day in the classroom.  After I gave my lesson, students used Todays Meet to comment on what I did well and what I needed to improve.  I was really impressed by what they noted I did in the classroom and what I did well.  I allowed too much time for group work (or I should have re-directed groups by giving them another task to keep them focused) and I needed to spend time explaining the Common Core SS a bit more.  Also, to call upon students who didn't raise their hands.  So, today I addressed those issues by giving each student a card with a fruit on it.....and I called out the fruit for responses. So, today we started the class by "writing to the day" with  a focused free write asking them to write about what they felt we should assess in our microlesson teaching.  I was so impressed by what they came up with.  Each of them is to create a scoring guide and we are having a competition for the best one.  I need to go buy some books as prizes!  Each day in class, I try to utilize a new app on my iPad so they can also see what a teacher can use in the classroom if they go one-to-one with iPads. We ended the day sharing what small groups noted should be on the scoring guide and we celebrated that each person received an email about their placements in local schools!  And I forgot to tell them that I have been looking at their blogs and deep maps, and will continue to respond to them. Woo.  It has been a crazy but good two weeks. Especially enjoyed my trip to Atlanta for the i3 grant work where we got great ideas to continue our work in the College Ready Writer's Program.  A great, great weekend.  The highlight: Eatnig at an Ethiopean restaurant. Wonderful food.  No silverware. :) 

I find it rather difficult to write every day, albeit I did try to write a poem a day for 2013.  Some weeks, I would get behind and write several poems in a day.  Those were usually not my best efforts. 

The first two class sessions went way too fast.  Time has been my nemesis for all of my teaching career but even more so now that I am teaching teachers! Where does the time go?  I have so many things to tell everyone and never enough time to do so. I am a perfect example of someone who does not always get to everything I want to get to.  I wanted to get to asking students what they feel should be on their blogs, but we ran out of time.  I was happy with the responses on the Padlet wall as I gavve those questions to Mr. Reinert and Dr. Kohnen so they could offer a comprehensive look at what they needed to tell all of these individuals as they prepare for practicums and student teaching and Lord knows there is a lot of information to digest.  I am just astounded by all of the things these young people have to do in order to become teachers.  FBI background checks were unheard of in 1991!! Seriously??  And does this really protect students?  I doubt it.  We still have school shootings and we still have some perverts get into school systems. But I guess we need to do what we can to screen potential future teachers. But what's to say someone might just crack with all the pressures of teaching?  I also wanted to be done with Deep Maps by now, but alas, we may get to that on Wednesday, after Dr. Kohnen talks about the practicum placements and student teaching.  But we shall get to it. So, my reflection for teaching is this: How do we know how much time to allot for what we want to do in our classrooms? Do we ever get accusotmed to that?  Is it bad if we rush things or feel we must absolutely get to everything when we might actually be having a great conversation or students are asking very good questions? Do we have to be slaves to our timeline? No, emphatically, no.  If we do, we are going to die a little inside as teachers.  And will some teachers start teaching to the test so his or her students can score well?  I hope not. I don't want robots in the classroom. I want humans. 

Well, tomorrow is the first day of class for English 405 and it never fails--even after 22 years of teaching, I still get the jitters and worry over just about everything. I suppose I will always feel this way until I stop teaching.  Of course, I don't know if I will ever stop teaching.  Whether we are in a formal setting of the classroom, we are still teachers. It is so difficult to separate who I am as a human being from who I am as a teacher.