January Teaching Recap

And yet again, another month has flown by before I post! :/ January started out back to school for 6 classroom days before semester tests. This year BV elected to have semester tests after Christmas break due to starting school a week later in the fall. I am definitely NOT a fan of this schedule. It was a headache for both my students and me... I appreciate the closure of ending the semester before Christmas break and starting anew with second semester when we return in January. Unfortunately, I'm going to need to get on board since our 2016-2017 calendar is already out, and the schedule is the same.

In English 11 my juniors finished up reading The Crucible when we can back from break, and then we tested right as the semester ended. We started the new semester with a week of ACT test strategies and practice. It was not super fun, but the majority of my juniors will take the ACT this upcoming month in February or in April. We just started a new unit last week that I am beyond excited about: a combination of The Great Gatsby and Jake, Reinvented! This pairing of texts was something I first learned about in my English Education undergrad class, and I am so thrilled to be putting it into practice! Between my two sections of English 11, I separated the books out so each class had 15 of each Gatsby and Jake. I book-talked both up, and shared the similarities and difference between them before drawing names and letting the students choose. I was a little worried that choices would be mostly one-sided, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that students were interested in both books! :) The reading is mostly individually paced with an end date. Along the way the students will complete their comprehension study guides and have discussions with their peers reading the same book. As we progress farther in the novels, the discussions will become whole-class/Socratic circle-like. Can't wait to update you all on how it goes!!

In English 9 my students and I began reading Finding Forrester before Christmas break. BV only has a class set of this book, so all of our reading has been done in class, most of which has been out loud. I haven't really ever taught a novel this way, so it has been an interesting new experience. We just finished Finding Forrester at the end of last week, so my students will test on the novel on Monday. Next we move into The Odyssey! I haven't read Odysseus' epic adventure since I was a high school freshman, so I've spent the weekend reading up and reviewing getting ready to introduce it to my students.

Another exciting, continuing development has been the information stream regarding the Macbook Air 1-to-1 implementation for next year! As of our most recent updates, the teachers will have our new laptops for the February 12th inservice, which will be structured around the new technology! Looking forward to jumping whole-heartedly into the Apple world and getting rid of my old, unreliable desktop PC at school! ;)

Happy beginning of February!!