Jessica's Reflection: Week of 9/8

I had a pretty good week! I continued with the two classes I've been working with, American Lit and Creative Writing. With Creative Writing, we talked about being specific in our writing and using concrete detail, similies, and metaphors. We also established a new norm, which is Friday as a "Writing Day". This means that there is no direct instruction on Fridays, only time for them to produce as much memoir writing as they can. Every week will have a theme. This past Friday, the theme was "Tina Fey Day" as all the prompts came from her book Bossypants. I think the students enjoyed having time to write about a variety of things as well as being able to choose from a large number of prompts. It's also a nice treat first thing on a Friday morning!

Creative Writing is a small class and I almost never have an issue with students sharing their opinions or their writing. This makes sense to me -- it is an elective, so most students feel comfortable with their writing. I'm having a different experience with the American Lit class.

American Lit is a class of 11th graders who are very chatty and funny. However, in full-group situations, they are reluctant to share their thoughts or writing. We begin each class with a journal and I often have to "draft" people into sharing what they've written. After being observed on Thursday, however, I've gained new strategies to start small and build toward full-group sharing.

Speaking of being observed -- that went alright. I'm honestly pretty disappointed in myself because of a number of little things that I realized I should have done differently right after the students left the classroom. That being said, I did learn a lot about thinking on my feet and time management. I feel confident that I will have a more clear plan for editing my lessons when necessary moving forward.

All in all, I had a good week. Tomorrow I will take over my last class, which is World Lit with 12th graders. We will be reading The Things They Carried. I'm pretty nervous about teaching a whole book -- I've never had to do anything close! -- but I'm really interested in and excited by the text, so I'm feeling good about it! :)