Night unit- complete!

After three long weeks of planning and teaching the book Night, I'm happy to share that I have in fact made it out alive! As summative assessments, my students had to take a test (character matching, true/false, multiple choice, and fill in the blank) and write in class essays. My English 10 classes did remarkably well on their tests, and their essays ranged from phenomenal to abysmal... It was clear to me which students put forth the effort and those that were just daydreaming away.

I foolishly attempted to grade all 57 essays in two nights, which left me with more than slight carpal-tunnel and almost no brain function from lack of sleep. I had made a point to discuss four out of the five essay prompts (and by essay I mean paragraph-8 sentences including 2 quotes) with my students during class as they came up throughout the memoir. For the most part, their answers were great, and reading my first real set of essays was very eye-opening. I can see why teachers always say that the English department spends more time grading than any other content area!

After my students finished up their scantron tests, I had them fill out anonymous surveys about my teaching. It was both fun and heart-warming to read their comments :) Here are a few of my favorites:

• "She knows what she's doing and actually takes the time to get to know you and help you"
• "She is going to be a really good teacher"
• "She takes time to read and write back to every name tag"
• "She doesn't act like a student teacher, she talks like she has been doing this forever"
• "I think she is doing amazing (and I'm not just saying that so she gets a good grade)"
• "Definitely tries to pump up the class almost a little too much" *HA- my fav
• "She is young but I can honestly say one of the best teachers I've had"

PRESH, right?! When I'm feeling a bit down, I just open up these files and read my warm fuzzies :)