Week Six of Student Teaching

This week we continued the poetry unit. I also quizzed them on the vocab sheets they did last week. And it was Parent Teacher Conference. Hooray! The main focus this week was pre-writing.

The first activity I did was one I'd been thinking about for a long time, in terms of pre-writing. I made up a bunch of little vials that had common scents in them, vanilla, baking powder, baby oil, etc. I had them pass the vials around and write a memory they had attached to that scent, or if they didn't have memory to do word association with them. I was really pleased how it went. I was clearly not a 100% success and I need to do more teaching before hand, more modeling, in the future. But I think it is an exercise that I can recommend to other teachers who are having their students do pieces on memories. I also had them do a free write. I explained the purpose of these exercises, to loosen the brain up, get a new perspective, dislodge a memory that may not come so easily just sitting and thinking about it, that type of stuff.

In the future I still need to plan more. I believe in having my students do alot, but I am not teaching enough. I need to give them less time to begin an assignment and teach them more about it and how to do it well. I also have noticed that I have a good report going with these students but I am too lenient when it comes to talking. I still need to be better about jumping on those earlier. I think that I am afraid of the students not liking me. I'm pretty vain and want to be admired so I am not as hard on them as I should be. Although I did move a few students this week who were talking, so I am getting harder but if I were clearer in my expectations and jumped on problems sooner then moving might not be necessary.