Greeting - 3.5 - Greeting not included.  Our students greet their guide every morning ("Good morning, Jennifer") and show their homework planner with a signature from a parent.  Greetings between peers take place during the morning from arrival (8:10am) through the Focused Work Time period until we gather for our morning meeting.

Sharing: 3.5 - No sharing of personal details during the morning meeting.  Students have the opportunity to share individual experiences in our weekly cohort meetings - 11-13 students, mixed ages - during which time we also share weekly accomplishments and challenges.  Students are always welcome to share news as they feel comfortable in the large group, and we have a weekly SEL lesson on Fridays that includes small group discussions of emotional management, communication, and interpersonal relationship strategies.

Group Activity - 3.5 - No group activity.  Our midday meeting includes a daily discussion of current events, and our end-of-the-day meeting includes some team-building or sharing, including playing "Who Am I" guessing games or completing riddles, plexer word puzzles, or sharing jokes.  

Morning Message - 5 - a student leads a review of the daily agenda, and teachers add any additional information to support the daily work.  Students are expected to add relevant information to their weekly work plan, and update their plans as they complete work throughout the day.

For this assignment, I elected to film an actual morning meeting instead of changing what works for our community to fit this assignment.  I understand the function of the meetings as described is to help create a sense of community that is rooted in safety, compassion, and kindness.  This has been a motivating principle in the organization of our community since the beginning of the year, when we spent a great deal of time on team-building, establishing policies and cultural norms, developing our class values, and even writing a class constitution.  Our students have leadership opportunities through our student committees and our sixth-year service program, and support each other with student-presented lessons in a variety of content areas.  So while our community meetings do not follow the prescribed format from the video and rubric, I believe we meet the. intended goals through other  means.

Jennifer Robertson , Nov 5 at 8:58pm