Days three and Four

Day three:

All the classes started "Object Biographies," the aforementioned fancy name for show-and-tell. My 9th graders had a lot of other things to do in class, so they didn't get a lot of the biographies done, but my juniors and seniors got it all done. Some projects were more last-minute than others, but there were certainly some cool ones. The ninth graders had independent reading, plus they started Daily Oral Language, AKA "the grammars." It was a straightforward day, but now I'm getting a taste of how precious class time will be with the ninth graders, since I'll have so little time for classroom discussion.

Day four:

My American Lit (juniors and seniors) class went to the media center to research Ben Franklin trivia and form some questions about him. The question came up "We don't know anything about Franklin. You mean we have to learn about him?" I answered in the affirmative. I had read a bit of his autobiography to jog some of my memory. He was a classy dude, and he was constantly in the right place at the right time. He was also pretty much successful in everything he did. We'll play a trivia game in class tomorrow, and I'm going to try and show them the episode of the office in which they hire a Ben Franklin actor/biographer to speak at an office party. There's a pretty fun exchange between the Franklin guy and Dwight that I especially want to show.

My ninth graders finished their object biographies today, in large part due to my request for a "lightning round" so that we can get through them and be done with it. They also took their spelling tests. I think next week we have to go through strategies together, which I believe I'll model with words from next week's test. The goal is to hit auditory, visual, and kinesthetic word memory techniques. One is to associate the word with a picture or focus on the look of the word, another is to repeat the word to yourself, letter-by-letter, and another is to focus on the motor movement of writing it. Those are the ones I know, and there are probably some better techniques out there, but I think that's doable as a starting point.

Just like I remember from elementary school, some kids are natural spellers, and others are decidedly not. I never was a natural speller, and I've had to work hard to make much progress in an almost forgotten art. They need it for standardized essay tests, though, so I feel it's far from a waste of time.

Be seeing you.

-Matt