Education is the Mother of Leadership

Fifth Period's classroom newspaper!

Late last week, the students finished up on their newspaper articles. Mrs. D. and I have been working hard on editing and assembling the classroom newspapers (which took a long time to do). All this week, they have been asking to see the classroom newspapers. It's been hard to tell the students that we were still working on them, but I stayed late on Friday after school and finally finished compiling them! It's been one thing to read the students' articles and gather them into a classroom newspaper, but it's something completely different to see the finished product of the newspapers! On the left is a picture of fifth period's newspaper. It turned out to be seventeen pages! I have an activity planned on Wednesday for the students to go through their newspapers. I will also give students the chance to read their articles aloud. After completing a project like this, I think it's important for students to have the chance to share their work with the class.

Unfortunately, I was out of the classroom the first three days of the week. I felt sad to have missed school. Planning is one of the greatest parts of teaching. So when I had a great week of short story writing planned, it felt terrible to sit home for three days while Mrs. D. taught my plans. When I returned to school on Thursday, nearly fifty of my students asked where I had been and how I was doing. Mrs. D. told the students that I was in the hospital over the weekend, and my students explained that they were worried about me and had missed me. While it was terrible to miss class, it felt wonderful to be missed by my students. Mrs. D. even made a joke about my absence: The kids really missed you. They wouldn't stop asking about you. What am I? Chopped liver?It's interesting. As I'm writing this right now, I'm thinking of my students. It's Sunday afternoon, and I wish that it was already Monday and that I am in the classroom right now working with my students. I've been blessed with a really great group of students. Jokingly, the students told me that they thought I left them like their last student teacher (who, they say, I also happen to look like as well). The students then began talking about a surprise going away party for me at the end of the year. This almost brought tears to my eyes, the thought of leaving them. They asked if I was going to come back, and I assured the students of three things: 1) I'll technically be done and graduated by December 15th, but I'm going to finish out the last week in December and go into Winter Break with the students; 2) I plan to come back and work with the students on the spring musical (I already discussed this is Mrs. D.); and 3) I will absolutely, definitely, and surely be at their graduation in May. I have made these three promises to my students, and nothing is going to stop me from fulfilling them.

Here is a journal prompt I used to introduce character development:
Complete the following story: As Tom looked around at the creepy wax
figures surrounding him, he became aware that he had stumbled into a
restricted area of the wax museum. Suddenly, he heard a strange noise
 and saw... (Who?)

This week will be my eighth week as a teacher! In a week and a half, I will be filling the role of Head Teacher by taking over the two seventh grade classes in addition to my three eight grade classes. In regards to my writing projects, I want to take a look at where I've been and what I have planned through October:

• Energetic Paragraphs - students were assigned to look at and use some of the vivid language we've been studying and creating  
• Newspaper Articles - students did some exploring around Northwood and wrote a range of articles relating to interviews of school personnel, reviews of books and movies, articles, tips, and sports coverage
• Short Stories - students drafted, edited, and completed original short stories using short story elements, the five parts of a plot (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution), and vivid language
• Veterans' Day writing - students will write poems and short stories in honor of the veterans who will come speak at our school during the first week of November
• Spooky writing - I'm not sure what I'm going to have the eighth graders do, but seventh grade students will be creating Halloween menus using descriptive writing to come up with Halloween haunts and scary recipes

I am looking forward to meeting some of my students' parents this week during parent-teacher conferences. I'm also blown away to realize that I am close to hitting the halfway mark of my student teaching experience. What a journey it's been!