Week Eight-Chasing Allusions

1 thing about this time of year is it seems to take forever to get to a holiday.

The research paper is coming along nicely the students have posted their thesis statements and started on the introductory paragraphs.  We are going to try out lining next week with a new program. Using sirs.com outlining program to create graphic organizer.

I was really thrilled at the way I was able to talk 1 on 1 with you to the creative writing students about your personal narratives.

I don't think I'll have to use the essay tagger program. I like the personal experience of writing on the papers.

Seeing Clearly-Week 7

The week was running a little slow at first. Research paper has been going at a good clip but students and 6 class don't seem to get the notion that they didn't need to work and not talk. I have to really coming down hard on them to get them to understand how serious they need to be about this.

Socrative is giving me some great resources that I can use to help them understand and do better on the research paper.

We're going to try using an outline graphic organizer form on SIRS  search database to see if that works well for the students.

In creative writing 2 the murder mystery dinner theater was a great success. Who knew that Nate would be such a great conductor the kids stayed in a character and they were costumes and we had a wonderful time learning about murder mystery.

In creative writing 1 book bingo still seems to be problematic it's hard to get the kids to continually work and get things taken care off on time. Still I don't want to get up because I think it reading is very important activity.

Today on Friday there was a big field trip in a lot of my students were absent on a day today really needed to be in class.

I feel for the first time in weeks I've actually gotten a lot of work done probably because of the PSAT on Wednesday and I've not so far behind my grading anymore. Does it really take 7 weeks in order to get your act together with teaching?

Finally I think finally I figured out a way to do a lesson planning and everything to the admin want and still keep my sanity. It's all on 1 page now and it's easy to keep up with and I can make note to say go along, and that's all I have to keep in a notebook.

Well that's it for this week off to waiting on the weekend hopefully get some papers graded on Sunday and next weekend we are definitely deep into research and we are deep into reading character sketches and we are deep into writing murder mysteries.

Want to Use Google Docs

50 Little-Known Ways Google Docs Can Help In Education | Edudemic

Finding Hope-Week Six

This week felt like a turning point week. I should have known that it would happen, but I was just so hopeless last week. Thank goodness there is always hope. I think I have finally figured out a way to write my lesson plans in a way that is effective for me and not extra work but also meets the requirements of the administration.

One thing that I'm beginning to notice is the fact that my creative writing students are above the level in which I'm usually accustomed to. they seem to want to write more They seem to be more interested in the writing and editing, and that's really a breath of fresh air.

Socrative is really working with my English 11 students. They have become very responsive to posting their thoughts into the Socratic venue. I like having all of the information come to me is in a spreadsheet.

I'm still not sure whether I will be using Essaytagger or not or if it's just more work then it's absolutely worth.

In English 11 we have officially started using the electronic note cards that we started using last year. They seem to be working very well.

Losing My Way-Week Five

This week was extremely difficult and incredibly long not only did we have homecoming week, I also had a field trip with the beginning week which kind of threw me off a little bit.

It seem like the week was just characterized by lots and lots of paperwork and lots of meetings and not enough time to do things I really needed to do. IF that's the way it seems to be going this year. it is very frustrating.

I had a great characterization class this week, and I hope to use it again next year.

Characterization

Characterization 101: How to Create Memorable Characters

Support Writing in the Classroom

"55 Interesting Ways to Support Writing in the Classroom" http://t.co/hpRWurdH My fav. is the Inspiration Board Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/finleyt/status/253213319090024448 Sent via TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com)

Research Paper

How do I cite a tweet?