Today was a teacher work day; no kids.

My presentation to the staff about goal setting conferences went very well -- I received many compliments throughout the day. Took all of 30 minutes; mercifully short and painless. I know I did well because even the new teachers in the building didn't have any questions.

Next hour and a half was spent with the reading and literature teachers. We read and scored three student responses to a short story using the state scoring guide; the purpose was to align our scoring with what the state sees as appropriate scores. Quite a divergence at first between our various scores, and between what we thought and what the state thought were correct scores. But some good discussion and some good learning had us scoring fairly accurately and fairly consistently by the third short story. Definitely a valuable exercise.

Putted around my room getting prepared for this week before I took off for lunch. Made some copies, wrote the weekly expectations on the board, along with a new "Quote of the Week," and solidified this week's lesson plans in my weekly planner. All ready to go now.

After lunch, spent two hours digging through student CUM files for test scores, last year's grades, and anything else that might help in conferences. Amazing what sort of information is contained in those files. One student had adoption papers, copy of a restraining order against his dad, a note from his mother to the school that she didn't have any money to buy school supplies this year -- interesting insight into his personal life.

From 2-3 P.M. I chatted with the counselor about a girl who had a minor emotional breakdown in my Literature/Speech class last week. We were giving speeches -- something she is very adept at -- and she just broke down before she could say a word. I asked the counselor what she knew about the kid -- turns out her family is extremely eccentric. The girl is also the most intelligent person in the school -- a real genius -- but is very up and down emotionally. One of her teachers from last year told me about breakdowns that occurred last year and how she handled them.

I only have this girl in one class (many students I have for all three of my classes), and she immediately caught my interest. I have been trying to engage her in conversation when I have the chance. I asked her about her instrument case while I was on bus duty last week, and she plays trumpet. Asked her what kind of music she listens to -- classical, jazz, what? She gave me a blank look, so I told her I played trumpet when I was in 8th grade, and that I have lots of good trumpet music I would like to share with her if she was interested. Again, not much of a response, so I asked her if she had a tape player. She said, "Well, we used to, but it broke." The way she said those words let me know that her home was deprived of any recorded music, and that they probably don't have any sort of stereo at all. I am going to record her some tapes of good trumpet music, and loan her my old cassette player in the hopes that this small gesture will enrich her life a bit and grease the avenues of communication between us. She is really lacking in social skills.

Tuesday, September 28, 1999

Our school operates with an alternating day schedule ("A" and "B" days) which means I have half my classes on one day, the other half the next, and classes last for an extended period of time (75 minutes).

Today was an "A" day -- three Literature/Speech classes, plus my prep period (no prep on "B" days). Easy but tedious day today. The lesson plan for all three classes was the same: briefly discuss the religious imagery used in The Old Man and the Sea -- and reinforce the concept of allusion which I introduced last week -- and then have the students read the rest of the book (last 30 pages) in the hour left after our discussion.

The brief discussions went fairly well; they always do when I discuss the way Hemmingway tries to get readers to connect Santiago with Christ. All the kids who go to Sunday school and who have religious parents or religious leanings themselves always perk up and become very interested. And they always look surprised because they never see the allusions themselves while reading until I point them out (the meaning of the old man's name itself, the continual references about his crippled hands, the scene at the end where he puts the mast on his back and walks up the hill to his hovel, the little boy who acts like his "disciple", the issue of faith).

This discussion works well in that the kids are now much more attuned to indirect references authors make, and know what "allusions" (one of the many literature terms they must know) are.

While the kids read and finished the last sheet of questions on the last 30 pages, I graded their papers -- as quick as they came in. (No afternoon bus duty today, so I finished grading the last class' papers from 2:30-3. Was very happy I got all the papers graded today -- about 80 total.) So there was just lots of quiet work time for all of us today.

Thursday we will have the final comprehension test, and I will pass out the three essay questions they must write on next week. Then I'll show the movie--and I'll grade their essays while they are watching. "A" days are nice in that I get a lot of my work done while the kids are reading; I almost never have any work to bring home on "A" days because I get to grade papers while they are reading. And they're nice because I get my prep period on "A" days (9-10:15 A.M.)-- I had two cups of coffee this morning during my prep, which kept me wired enough to sit and grade papers most of the day. "B" days are much more hectic because I don't have a prep period that day and I never have a moment to myself to collect my thoughts, to sigh, to pause and consider what I am doing in class, to grade papers...it's just 90 miles an hour all day in a furtive frenzy.

Wednesday, September 29, 1999

Today was an "B" day, which meant Block classes. Block class is where I have the same kids for two periods in a row and we have Language Arts class and U.S History class back to back. The periods are rather long, and I have the same kids for two and a half hours in the morning, and then I have another group for two and a half hours in the afternoon.

L.A. class consisted of:

1) D.O.L.-- Daily Oral Language. This is my abbreviated way of teaching a few elements of grammar and to instill good editing habits in the kids. Over the last several years, it has proven to be an extremely effective way for kids to learn where to put commas, when to use semicolons, what to capitalize, how to use quotation marks, and other such stuff. The purpose is to help them be able to compose an essay with very few errors. It only takes about 15 minutes a day; we do four or five sentences like the following:

the japanese company has bean to develop to new computers and they plan to market there products next year

to enjoy a shakespearean play like hamlet a person should read it before seeing it i believe

I write the sentences as above, and the kids have to write them out and then edit them. I pick students to fix individual sentences aloud for the class, and they have to explain why they did what they did.

It takes a very short time for them to pick up the various rules for commas and other such stuff. This method enables the kids to get lots of practice and review with the basic rules (e.g., commas before a coordinating conjunction, with appositive, in parenthetical expressions, before quotations, with a noun in direct address), and in only a few short months they can write essays with no obvious grammatical errors.

2) Vocabulary List #3: irate, prompt, intoxicated, palatial, omen, soothe, swagger, vast, fragile, glutton

We go over definitions and sample sentences using the words, then the kids write a story using all the words. I supply a list of weird topics that they get by chance; I have 3x5 cards with various topics on each, and they pick a card at random are have to write a story on those topics.

Sample cards:

* mountains, volleyball, grandparents

*volleyball, dragons, spinach

*movies Egypt, kites

*jeans, sisters, brothers

*summer jobs, pizza, war

The kids enjoy writing their stories, and they enjoy even more the chance to come in the next class and read them aloud. (Perfect off-beat humor fit for an 8th grader!) I will also test them on these words Friday (next class).

3) History class: Review of chapter 2 of the history text ( test is on Friday).

4) Simulation game. This is their favorite part of the day. It's a competitive simulation where they are groups of colonizers in a new world. Each group of 5 students competes with the others to amass the most wealth -- land, food, horses, guns, people, etc. This game coincides with their study of the Spanish and English colonization of America (chapter 2), and they really get engaged with it big time. Some students even go home and draw maps, work up complex battle strategies (groups can battle Indians and each other), complex treaties to enact with other groups, etc. Lots of fun! But extremely noisy and boisterous -- quite a bit different than normal classroom fare.

Got all four things done today - a productive and fun day.

Thursday, September 30, 1999

"A" day, three Literature/Speech classes. Two things going on: my short version of a training on the state Reading Scoring Guide, and the final comprehension test on The Old Man and the Sea.

The reading scoring guide training took about half an hour, the tests took about 20 minutes, and the other 25 minutes were spent starting the three essay questions about the novel which I will grade using the scoring guide -- these pieces of work have the potential of being one of the required portfolio pieces of work that proves the student has met the state reading standard. Essays are due next Wednesday.

The girl I spoke of a coupe days ago (trumpet player who had an emotional breakdown and didn't give her speech) is the only one who scored a perfect score on the comprehension test -- like I said earlier, she caught my attention very early on; a really outstanding mind. Test had 50 questions. The mass scores were about what you would expect -- about ten percent earned an "A", a few more scored a "B", the majority scored a "C" (a very common score was 38/50) about 10% scored a "D" and three or three or four scored an "F". (I scored all the tests on the spot, in class, while they were starting their essays. I worked like a demon to get them all scored because I believe immediate feedback is vital to learning. Papers or tests returned a week later just don't have the same sort of impact. The first thing I did today upon walking in my door was take a nap -- had to rest my eyes!)

A few words on the reading standard:

Students must do three things well in order to meet the standard:

1) Comprehension -Identify main ideas and important details and make interpretations about the meaning of the selection.

2) Extending Understanding- Draw conclusions and relate how the selection relates to other texts, experiences, events and issues in history and culture.

3)Text Analysis -Analyze the author's ideas, techniques and methods and make supported evaluations about the selection.

It's tricky to create proper essay questions that correlate to the three different categories, but I have gotten the hang of it over the few years. The third one is the one 8th grade students take a while to get the hang of. It usually takes me several books and lots of instruction in writing itself for them to get it. But, I did have a student today who demonstrated an innate understanding of what is expected. He posited that Hemingway used very short, simple, straightforward sentences -- without much figurative language, or descriptive adjectives -- and that was a really boring writing style. I told him that was exactly right! Hemingway's sentence structures and writing style is meant to be boring, and the rhythm of reading them makes you feel like you are out in the boat, bobbing up and down, almost nodding off (thank goodness it's only 127 pages!) and that serves a definite purpose. Now if he can only include cites from the text demonstrating that quality in his essay, I can score him very high and he will have met the standard.

For the other two, the big thing is for them to learn how to use examples from the text to support their statements -- doing so is the basic difference between an essay that doesn't meet the standard and one that does. Also, they have to show an ability to understand inferential points the author makes. I came up with a brief and effective statement that helped them understand what "inferential" understanding is: "On most days, the sky is very cloudy in Oregon. Now what else can you infer from that statement? What else can you figure out even though I haven't said anything else?" They can figure out that it rains a lot in Oregon, and that is basically it, as far as I'm concerned. I think they got that concept today.

Next week I'll show the movie. They watch, and I grade essays.

Friday, October 1, 1999

"B" day, block classes. Five things going on:

1) D.O.L. sentences -- they turn all the sentences they have done this week (10), and I grade them.

2). Vocabulary Stories -- this is turning into a very fun part of each week. Read some good stories aloud in class, very entertaining. One subject that two students both wrote on using this week's vocabulary words was: George Washington, love, lunch. Those stories were both very funny.

3) Vocabulary test -- almost everybody did very well.

4) Jeopardy -- we played boys against girls in both block classes today. Six sections in chapter 2 of history text, and I wrote five questions for each section (I wrote them very quickly this morning before class between 7-7:30). Made a jeopardy board on the chalkboard, questions worth 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 points each. The boys won in my morning block, and the girls won in my afternoon block. Got very loud and boisterous, very competitive, and was lots of fun!

5) Right after jeopardy, which serves as a quick review and prep for the test, we had the test. 100 points, which is a lot in my class. Daily assignments are typically about 20 points, so even if students get an "A" on all the daily assignments over different sections of the chapter, if they fail the test they will have a poor grade. Most didn't do well, and this first test of the year serves as a wake-up call for them-- they now know they actually have to study and prepare for these tests. The few students who actually did study did well. Typical score was around 68-72%, with only 3 or 4 students scoring in the high 80s or low 90s.

One part of the test everybody did well on was the map of the thirteen colonies. They all memorized them, and scored well on that part. Most did fairly well on the essay question too, which made me happy. The essay question asked them to explain the religious conflicts in the Puritan colony of Mass., and discuss the two people who left (Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson), and the reasons they left.

For me, it was another day of full of lots of grading. I got most of it done today, all the vocabulary tests, all the vocabulary stories, and half the history tests. I have parent conferences on Monday and Tuesday, and I expect I will have plenty of time between conferences to finish grading rest of the history tests.

After school we had an SST meeting -- Student Services Team -- with a particularly troublesome kid and his parents. His parents called the meeting because they know he causes a lot of trouble and that his grades are very low. Interesting boy. 6th grader. Dad is in prison for a drug offense, and the mom took her son off his ritalin this year because she is concerned about her son getting dependent on "drugs." The SST has a grade team representative (I am the 8th grade rep), an administrator, and the school counselor, and any specialist that fit in. We brainstorm the problems and strategies to deal with those problems. Turns out the boy is incredibly bright; reads at the 9th grade level, scored very high last year as a fifth grader on the state's standards tests, but had miserable grades then and so far this year -- D's and F's. He acts out for attention, forged his mom's name on notes home, gets kicked out of class often, never does his homework, and is so disorganized that he isn't able to turn in work he does do.

Had a very good meeting, and we came up with what I think will be some very helpful strategies. Will just have to wait a few weeks to see if they have any positive impact. Meeting lasted an hour, so I was plum tuckered out when I got home. A very busy day.

End of Week 1.....