Not a question of "if," but rather a question of "when."

http://www.theycallmeteacher.com/

“I had been pretty thick-skinned so far this year but at that moment, I melted.” This blog is from a teacher in her first year, working 5th grade, in the Bronx. This blog stuck to me because of it's foresight. One specific post from this blog (http://edwize.org/first-cry-of-the-year) discusses the teacher's first cry of the year. I know that all of us will experience a moment of collapse and meltdown in our first couple of years in teaching. This teacher's story of running into a wall of emotion, and then picking herself back up is one that must be heard by us preserves teachers. Not just for the sake of learning to handle situations like this, but also to feel less alone when this situation arises. What gets me the most when reflecting back on this blog, is how fellow teachers help and hinder this 5th grade teacher. The rest of the blog has posts that offer great stories and pointers throughout this teacher's first year. Experiences brought to life through detailed recollections and honest revelations helped me to connect with this teacher on a personal level.

...and I keep learning...

"Now that you are nearing the end of your first quarter of your internship, what has been your biggest surprise about being in the classroom and working with students?"

• Starting with just being in the classroom, I would say the most surprising thing I have noticed overall would be the intensity of which the teacher and the students work at It is a rare sight to see my CT just kicking back and not doing or thinking about anything. She constantly grades papers, organizes her desk, talks to students about late HW or gives them positive feedback, teaching a lesson, discussing future projects with the other 6th grade teacher... the list goes on. Having quite a few family members as teachers, I knew the job was not easy but I didn't have a grasp on the constant physical and mental activity that a teacher subjects themselves to on a daily bases. Remarkable.

Students as well as teachers are put through the ringer in 6th grade. Some hang with the amount of work being, appropriately, placed in their laps, but some don't. I was definitely surprised at the intensity level the students and the teacher endure.

• My biggest surprise in regards to actually working with the students has been their overall capability to perform in the classroom academically. I had my expectations set at a good level going into the school year, but those expectations have definitely raised since I have seen what these 6th graders are capable of doing. Their are a lot of things, individually and as a group, that surprised me, but the fact that as a class these students develop sophisticated insights into math problems, and reading analysis, and their writing, social studies vocabulary words, and many other things. Though they have so much more to learn in this world, it is true to say that they have a great jump on gaining a diverse and plentiful amount of knowledge.

Personal Narrative

The writing unit I am teaching in my classroom is focused on personal narratives. They have been learning what a personal narrative is, how to brainstorm ideas for their personal narrative paragraph, and how to plan a rough draft using a graphic organizer. We still have revising, editing and publishing left to do. Once they are done with their publishing we will engage in a sharing session that will be focused on receiving positive feedback and allowing others students to better know each other. The lesson I will focus on for this post is the lesson I taught which introduced the students to personal narratives.

1) Short term learning target:
Given the word two different genres of text students will find the differences and similarities between the two forms using a Venn diagram.

Given the genre “personal narrative,” students will help create a definition of the word by reporting their findings.

(2) Evidence:
I knew the students were successful through a Venn diagram comparing a personal narrative and an expository text, and through a class wide creation of a definition for "personal narrative." Some of the realizations that students made in the Venn diagram were that personal narratives describe an "experience," "what happened to the narrator really happened," "the (personal narrative) was emotional," and "it is first person." These are actual statements from the students that they noted in their Venn diagrams. This told me that a large majority of the students were grasping elements of a personal narrative. When we were done with this activity we closed by creating a student led definition of "personal narrative."
In groups they came up with ideas and shared; this is what they came up with:
· Usually true
· Meant to entertain
· Sort of like a personal biography, journal, diary
· First person
· An event from your life
· Tells the feelings

3) Reteach:
If I were to reteach for those who do not understand fully, I would bring in additional texts that would only be focused on personal narratives. Comparing two types of texts is a good idea, but it can lead to confusion if students begin to mentally combine the elements of the two types of texts. I feel that immersing the students in personal narratives that are at their reading level would solidify their understanding of what a personal narrative should sound and feel like.

(4) Extend:
I think that students who have successfully met my expectations would benefit even further by finding personal narrative examples in the world outside of school. I would look for three examples that students would find and bring into the class. The examples would have to differ from each other (for example, I would not want three emails as example, maybe an email, a letter, and a news paper clipping). I would also have them justify how their personal narrative examples come to be labeled a personal narrative.