Author: ethan_varzeas

Journal Entry 10-26-19

After already teaching my regular students the vocabulary and background for “Masque of the Red Death,” I decided to do a quick review. All I did was show a short video on Poe’s life to reiterate some of the important parts of the previous day’s lesson. After showing the video, I went over literary terms with the students while they filled out a worksheet. After filling out the terms, we started listening to the audio book of the story. To keep the students engaged I asked questions about the text and I had different students summarize passages.

Journal Entry 10-25-19

To help some of my regular English 2 students stay engaged with the class content, I decided to teach “Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allen Poe for the week of Halloween. The poem has a lot of complex symbols in it, so I decided to spend the first day getting the familiar with the background context for the story. The idea was to get the students engaged with the time period, which would leave more room to teach literary devices. I showed a short video about the Black Plague and the life of Poe before giving the students vocabulary terms. The videos got the students interested in the story, and it helped keep them engaged in the vocabulary portion of the lesson.

Journal Entry 10-23-19

By today many of the students had completed their body paragraphs for their persuasive essays. The goal for the day was to get the students completely finished with their body paragraphs and at least started on their conclusion and counter-argument. The essay standards are set by the state, which meant that the students have to write in a very specific way to receive a high score. When teaching the counter-argument and conclusion, I gave the students a check list of must have pieces. If the students had everything that I asked, then they were free to move on to revising and editing their papers.

Journal Entry 10-22-19

After standing on persuasive essays the previous day, the students continued to fins evidence to support their thesis from the day before. Some of the students were still formulating a thesis statement, which took  some one-on-one coaching from Mrs. Barry and me to catch them up to the rest of the class. Helping the students come up with evidence to support their claims was the main goal of the day, which I supplemented with a whole class instruction on evidence. For students who were still struggling, I circulated the class helping them brainstorm their topics. Many of the students were overwhelmed by the thought of an entire essay, so I decided to break it for them into individual pieces that would add up the the whole essay.

 

Journal Entry 10-21-19

Both my Pre-AP and regular English 2 students began writing their second round of persuasive essays today. I took the day to go over what a thesis was and to remind the students what the important requirements for the essay were. With the Pre-AP students I set more stipulations on what their final product had to look like as a way of pushing them to meet Pre-AP standards. With the regular students I focused more on what they needed to improve on from the last essay and what they needed for this one. The day was mostly dedicated to helping the students come up with a thesis and introduction.

Journal Entry 10-17-19

After taking the PSAT the previous day, I took the day to have my students work in groups on an AP Objective. Usually these are done individually, but after having the students test for the last couple of days, I decided that they needed a break. They worked in groups the entire period to complete the objective by the end of the period. I went over the answers with the groups at the end to make sure that the groups were thinking correctly about the information. The students gladly participated in groups, which created good discussion, and it was easier for me to to speak with more students because they were already having discussions.

Journal Entry 10-16-19

Most of my students were out taking the PSAT test today, which left most of the day’s classes relatively small. Since so many students were out it would have been difficult to start new content, so my mentor teacher and I decided to give the students a day to complete their missing and make up work. Thankfully, many students had work to complete so they quickly set to finishing their incomplete assignments. The day was a great opportunity to reach out to my students and see how they were doing and to just connect with them on an individual level. A lot of the students who were behind gladly took the day to catch up, which helped keep the class on the same track.

Journal Entry 10-15-19

Today my Pre-AP students participated in the Wordwright competition. The students were asked to answer high-level questions about a passage. The same questions are given to every grade level, which was hard for my sophomore students to comprehend, but they took to the challenge. My mentor teacher and I decided to take the assignment as a grade on a heavy curve to help boost student scores. The students worked diligently on the assignment and many of them ended up doing very well. Although they were anxious, they succeeded with some encouragement and hard work.

Journal Entry 10-9-19

Today the students had to take their TSI background test before they take the actual test next week. The pre-test only took around thirty minutes for most students, so I decided to use the extra time to connect with my students. When some of them had finished I would ask them about their days or their week. It was a very productive time for the social-emotional climate of the classroom. Many of my students were hesitant to have an extended conversation with me because I am still relatively new to the classroom. I did my best to bridge that gap by being expressive and empathetic with my students.

Journal Entry 10-8-19

Today the students continued with their study of “Shooting an Elephant.” The goal of the day’s lesson was to get the students thinking about the primary focus behind the short story. A lot of students believed the focus to be on Western Imperialism, which is correct, but their reasoning and evidence needed help. To get my students to understand how to use the text as evidence, I showed them the various moments where the students could use Orwell’s language choice to examine criticism. Many of the students quickly picked up on the idea of language as evidence and they began to find their own pieces of evidence.