Tuesday, September 13, 2016 (Day #15)

Post date: Sep 13, 2016 8:20:00 PM

Today I realized that I'm back into the swing of school. I'm still motivated to make my classrooms different, but it hit me today that school is officially going and I have to put my nose to the grindstone and move forward.

In Literature 9 it was rather relaxing - for me I guess. We finished our discussion of the questions, and then time was given to work on Ship Trip Island maps. Those maps are due tomorrow.

In English 10 we practiced (again) meaningful conversations. The environment needed for a meaningful conversation includes time, eye contact, comfortablity (food, drink, temperature), and ? I swear I can't remember the last item. Then we reviewed the qualities of an effective speaker. This is formal communication rather than the informal communication of conversation. We discussed how to start and end our Past, Present, and Future speeches. Tomorrow is a quiz and rehearsal time.

In American Literature we had so much fun. I really thought class went well, which was a surprise as I felt like I wasn't all that prepared. First we played Roll On Vocabulary, Roll On. This was an activity to review the ten vocabulary words. Staying in our vocabulary groups, everyone reviewed the different extensions of the words. For example, linguistics is a noun, but remove the "s" and it's an adjective; a linguist is someone who studies language. This is a section on Thursday's vocabulary lesson. Then we read page 20 in our textbook. Using an index card, everyone identified five facts that they thought were "brain-cell worthy". This strategy is to help us identify important facts that need to be remembered beyond the class period. We shared those facts with partners, starring those that were replicated. If a fact was "triple starred" then we could identify it as a brain worthy. Everyone has questions to answer on their assigned reading, and also a personal narrative assignment.

Great day! Tiring day, but that must mean I put in a full day of w-o-r-k. Sometimes I forget that what I do could be considered work. I just really love my job.