World Youth Day: Meeting #2

This weekend I had the privilege to attend the second World Youth Day meeting hosted by the Diocese of Sioux Falls with the other pilgrims attending the trip! As WYD draws closer and closer, I become more and more excited for everything I will be blessed to experience!

Our meeting started off with prayer, and we spent some time learning about the life of Saint Faustina, one of the patron saints of WYD 2016 in Krakow, Poland. This spiritual formation piece of the pre-WYD time is one of my favorites. Below is a transcribed copy of the notes I took during our lesson:

Saint Faustina

• birth name: Helen
• born in 1905
• heard Jesus' voice first at the age of 7
• at 16 she went out to work for a family to bring income to her own family
• after 1 year of working she wanted to go into the convent (her parents were not supportive)
• at 17 she had to go back out and work for another two years
• at 19 she first applies to the convent
• she must work for another year to raise the necessary funds
• at 20 she applies to the convent again and is finally accepted
• 3 weeks later she realizes she wants more (stricter, more time for prayer)
• she becomes sick and is sent away for a time
• eventually died at the age of 33 from tuberculosis
• **God raised St. Faustina up with a group of other saints (St. Maximillian Kolbe and St. John Paul II) when Poland needed them

I am especially looking forward to an action item off the agenda- we will receive 3 book recommendations, one for each saint, to read through and pray on for the remaining time before we depart for Poland in July! 

As always, thank you for following my journey! You can find more regular updates on my GoFundMe page here: https://www.gofundme.com/getmaggietopoland :)

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!!

2015 Recap: A Year in Pictures

Blogger fought me every upload along the way, so these are unfortunately in no particular order!

nannied the cutest little girl, Cecelia

celebrated Independence Day

went to work in my classroom

spent an inordinate amount of summer at the zoo

traveled to Florida for the Jostens Adviser University conference

loved on Merlin

read SO MANY BOOKS

visited college friends

grew in my faith

substituted at the elementary level

created a style instagram account (@teachertrends)

babysat my favorite girls

accepted a high school English teaching position

said goodbye to Dottie <3

celebrate Chi Omega's Eleusinia with my extended family

chaperoned prom

received some serious student love from SFLS

caught up with a childhood friend

swam and sunned all summer

got some professional development (and made new friends!)

hung out with my favorite professor

babysat a real baby :)

WENT TO HARRY POTTER WORLD

more professional development

caught up with a college friend (and met her CUTE baby)

committed to attending World Youth Day 2016

escorted a favorite former student (a Homecoming royalty candidate)

said see you later to Cecelia

made it through day one of teaching high school English

roadtripped to Fargo, ND to see a teacher friend

went all out for Homecoming dress up days

cheered on the Lynx

went apple picking

celebrated 23 years of life with my students

took my Journalism kids on a field trip

learned that comfy students are happy students

survived my first ever parent teacher conferences

was invited to speak at a teacher panel

had too much fun with my mentor

crafted for my students

chaperoned winter formal

went to Christmas Eve Mass with Dad

celebrated Christmas with the whole family

ordered too many pair of Tieks ;)

participated in Challenge Day

and loved it

Thanks for a great year, 2015! However, I'm fully committed to making 2016 even better! :)

Almost to Break!

This week has been full of fun and events so far. On Tuesday I scheduled my second formal observation of the year with my principal. I will have 4 total formal observations over the course of this school year since I'm a new teacher. Last time my principal saw one of my English 9 classes, so he requested to see one of my English 11 classes this time around. My 6th period is my rowdiest bunch of the day, but it's a class full of good kids. Tuesday came and my principal arrived just as scheduled. About 30 seconds after class started, the fire alarms went off! Talk about additional stress! It was clearly NOT a planned drill since the principal was surprised, so I took my kids and my roster outside where we waited for about 20 minutes before the all clear was given. Needless to say I was quite nervous by the time we made it back into my classroom! However, my principal has to see me teach for a full 50 minutes, so we rescheduled my observation for another day.

On Wednesday I had the opportunity to visit another local high school and attend an iBooks training hosted by Apple representatives. It was a super informative and fun day full of learning. I was nervous to leave my students with a substitute, but it turns out my fears were unfounded. My sub left great notes about each of my classes! I'm looking forward to being part of our 1-to-1 initiative, which goes to the school board for a vote next week. The initiative itself has already been approved and the money allotted, so the vote next week is for which device. I'm a staunch Apple supporter, so I am thrilled that is the proposal! I'll keep you all posted! :)