Failure Is Success If We Learn From It

And so begins second quarter in District 200! I cannot believe how quickly first quarter has gone by! It seems like yesterday I went into Northwood over the summer to introduce myself to Mrs. D., and now I'm more than halfway through my student teaching. Where does the time go? I feel as though I've grown and accomplished so much since the school year started. It's interesting how you can go to school for years to study teaching, but it isn't until you work full-time in a classroom that you actually learn how to teach. Every day that I teach, I also learn - what a wonderful gift!

Report cards went out this week. You can imagine how much work goes into preparing grades. First, I decided to look over all of the grades I had recorded to see which students were missing assignments. Second, I made contact with these students and encouraged them to turn in any late assignments for half credit - some points are better than no points, right? Third, I collected any work that was turned in. Fourth, I administered a number of tests that were never taken due to absences. (It's unfortunate that students miss school so frequently. I have a handful of students who miss at least two days of school a week.) Fifth, I entered all of the grades into the Report Card (RC) template. It is required that I leave a comment on any student who has received a D or an F. Of course, I left comments for each of my students, even if it was just to let parents know that their students were doing well in my class. Finally, I posted the grades so that report cards could be printed out. And boy did it feel great to have my grades posted one whole day early!

One student was kind enough to pose for a picture with his Haunted House assignment, which is due on Tuesday, October 30th. He is one of my most hard-working students, and his drawing is beautiful. More pictures to follow next week. Permission to take this photo has been granted by the student's parents.

There are two struggles I wish to address pertaining to this past week.

First, I have been working on strengthening the boundaries between myself and the students. Of course, I feel that I have set up these boundaries for most students, but there are a number of students who tend to hang around my desk during class or visit me before school or during study hall. I think the two students that have really caused me to lower these boundaries are the twins, Dain and Jake. They are both great kids, but they are also very needy. The kids often crack jokes with me, which is great, but I think they have taken my leniency too far because they have been calling me "Noon" or "Nooney" for a couple of weeks without my correcting them. I hate to say it, but I've let it go for too long when I should have nipped it in the butt the first time it happened. On Thursday, I told them both that they are disrespecting me each time they do not call me Ms. Noonan. On Friday, they said that I was being mean when I told them that they needed to sit in their desks and work on their projects during class time. Dain will often hang around before going to lunch, and when I told him that his lunch period was time I was able to work on my own, he was confused as to why I was telling him to move onto lunch. I feel terrible, but it's my own fault. I have to work on being more conscious of treating all of my students the same.

And second, I am continuously working on strengthening my classroom management skills. I put a new a new consequence plan into motion because their talking has been somewhat excessive, to say the least. On Thursday, one of my seventh graders, Mikey, was talking, just as he does every. After asking him to quiet down several times, I told him he would have to serve a detention with me. I had finally done it! I had given out a detention just like everyone had been telling me to do! "Nail someone with a detention. That way, everyone will know that you are serious in your discipline." After class, I told Mikey that I was going to call his mother to see when it would be best for him to serve his detention. He seemed sad as he went on to his next class, and I felt terrible. When I told Mrs. D. that I had assigned a detention, she said to make a call home, but to tell his parent that we would hold off on a detention. What?! I was shocked! Mrs. D. second-guessed my decision and overruled the detention that I had just given out, even though she was one of the main people telling me to give out a detention when necessary. Why had she gone over my decision? Didn't I stick to my ground rules and give a detention as I said I would if someone wasn't following directions? Of course, now I feel that I should not give a detention ever again. I am confused as to what I should do.

Classroom Confidential: The 12 Secrets of Great Teachers

Chapter 6 - Great Teachers Know a Hemingway When They See One: Getting to the Heart of Writing

Luckily, I have the great privilege to teach writing in my classroom!!

Make your writing blow people away.

Schmidt opens the chapter with these mouth-watering (for me, anyway) words: "Some kids love to write. The verbal/linguistic region of their brain is positively teeming with polysyllables and highly polished phrases snatched from the radio, pilfered from adult conversations, or hoovered up during your last read-aloud session. These kids have an insatiable appetite for paper, as long as there's a pencil nearby. You know who they are - the ones who linger in the room at recess time, pouring intense, secret thoughts into their journals. Or write a class play, even though you're not in the market for one" (113).

Skinny to Steroids When we begin a new Spelling unit, we do a 'Stretch It' exercise that runs along the same lines as this exercise. This week's sample sentence is "They observed it." We normally do this on the board together as a class. I ask the students to answer five questions: who? what/which? when? where? and how? Here is an example of how the exercise goes:

• Who? The twins, Bobby and Billy, observed it. 
• What/Which? The twins, Bobby and Billy, observed the bats.
• When? Late last night, the twins, Bobby and Billy, observed the vampire bats. 
• Where? Late last night, the twins, Bobby and Billy, observed the vampire bats from the observatory deck at Brookfield Zoo. 
• Why? Late last night, the twins, Bobby and Billy, observed the vampire bats from the observatory deck at Brookfield Zoo because they had won an exclusive all-night pass to spend the night in the Bat House. 

This is a really great exercise that I use quite frequently in class. The students also have a great time completing it. Some students choose to write an additional sentence on their own, which is great. 

There's a Jewel While I always try to compliment and encourage my students, there is always room for more. I really like this exercise because if I call students' work out, two things happen: first, the writer feels like what he or she is doing is wonderilf, and second, the other members in the class see that if a classmate can write so well, so can they. It is also my goal to maintain a safe writing environment for my students. If I can not only teach but show my students that their writing is welcome in our classroom, I feel that my Hemingway's, Gaimon's, Shakespeare's, and [fill in the blank] will come into the light. 

I have bookmarked this chapter and intend to use as many of the writing activities as I can throughout the remainder of the semester!

October - My Month to Howl :)

I came into school one morning this week and this was on
 my desk! :) My kids are the best. 

With Halloween being about a week away, I feel more energetic than I have all semester! Since Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year, I tend to go the extra distance to make it super special.

My students seems to be having a good time in class - it's clear that they enjoy my over-the-top Halloween moods! One of my students asked, "Ms. Noonan? How can I get into the Halloween spirit?" I about fell to the floor, acting as if he asked me the more sincere and important question a person could ever ask. This week, I plan to give him some ideas on how to better get into the spooky season.

Banner and lantern

Mrs. D. and I have done some decorating around the classroom. We didn't go too crazy, but during the week of Halloween, I intend to really kick up the spookiness with haunted music, treats, and a festive contest to go along with our descriptive writing assignment (which I will talk more about in next week's blog).

I am currently putting together 175 treat bags to pass out on Halloween. They are adorable. Pictures will follow.

My desk

I never really thought that the middle grades were anything out of the ordinary, but over these past two months, I learned that I was mistaken. One of my most eccentric students, Nate, came into class Friday morning wearing his mother's coat. He said, "Ms. Noonan, because I was late this morning, I had to wear my mom's coat to school." At this point, I'm trying not to laugh too hard, but then he continues. "And when I put my hands in the pockets, I found these." Nate pulls out three empty, mini bottles of alcohol. I was stunned! Did I let him get caught having them? Did I risk getting caught with them? Aside from the panic, I couldn't contain my laughter at this point. I took the bottles from him and gave them to Mrs. D. Nate then asked if he could please put his mother's coat in his locker. I let him go and shared yet another laugh with Mrs. D. about the whole situation.

I've also been working extra hard on my classroom management techniques. I don't know if it's because I'm a student teacher or simply because we are going into second quarter, but many of the students in my classes cannot get a grip on their excessive talking. I gave each of my new classes a seating chart. I then explained that the noise level has been unacceptable. If not for myself, then I need to look out for the 75% of my students who actually make use of their time in school. I have had students ask to go work in the hallway because they cannot concentrate in the classroom. This is not fair to anyone. I've only had this talking problem for about two weeks now. Before then, there were no issues. Am I doing something different? Are students just getting more comfortable in my classroom? Whatever the reason, I've taken the necessary steps to change their behavior. I've been noting which students are acting up so that if a conference comes out of it, I have sufficient evidence that the student has had an ongoing problem. I also note down the steps I take. For instance, I'll warn a student, ask him to apologize to the classroom, have a one-on-one, make a phone call home, etc. I've also taken another step to hold students for ten minutes from lunch (I've done this twice this past week). The students know that I will resort to detentions if I have to, but until I actually assign one, the students may try to test me some more.

I'm looking forward to the next two spooky weeks!!

Classroom Confidential: The 12 Secrets of Great Teachers

Maybe it's time for me to step back and kind of take a close look at where I've been this semester and where I'm going. Midterm has just passed. I'm halfway done with student teaching! I'll be graduating in about two months (something I never thought possible), and I've come a really long way. But something is happening to me. The momentum that's been keeping me going is sort of fading. Is this because I've been sick? Am I just having a rough couple of days? Am I tired? Am I in the right place?

The last week or so has been tough for me. I've already been sick three times this semester, and the more things that keep rolling downhill, the more lousy I continue to feel. But no matter what takes place, I need to continuously remind myself that teaching is what I was put on this earth to do. And I must add that after reading chapters eight and nine in Schmidt, I'm again reminded of how wonderful the world of teaching is.

Chapter 8 - Great Teachers Are Gossipmongers: Putting the Social Back in Social Studies & Chapter 9 - Great Teachers are Drama Queens: Using the Arts as a Second Language

What's nice about Northwood is that all the teachers work together. There are many times that I've been teaching when the kids have said, "Hey! We remember this from this other class." When the students tell me that, I try to either add to what they've learned from another class or send them to that other class with something English-related. I've mentioned Channel 1 in previous posts. Channel 1 is generally watched at Northwood during the fifteen minute period before/after lunch. Because Mr. W., the history teacher, started showing it during his class each day, I decided to read newspaper articles relating to current events with the students. By doing this, I keep both the kids and myself up-to-date on what's taking place in the world around us. And in the instance when Mr. W. isn't able to show Channel 1, I then show it to my kids during the shortened period.

Many of my assignments require some sort of artistic elements. For example, our first major writing assignment required that we make a classroom newspaper, which I believe is an art in itself. Not only were the students required to write original articles, but they were also asked to compile the newspapers with mine and Mrs. D.'s assistance. They were asked to draw illustrations, create charts, and take photos (which they were quite successful doing). Our second writing assignment dealt with writing short stories. When I created the rubric for that assignment, I decided to assign 10 points (of the 75 total points) to physical creativity. On my last blog post, I included a picture of a locker one student created to go along with her story. Another student put his story on a poster board. His story was about a girl who was sick with leukemia, and the poster board symbolized the ad for a bake sale raising money for her medical bills. And another student, whose story was a historical fiction piece, typed her story out in an old-fashioned script.

I have final taken the role of Lead Teacher in the classroom, so now I'm teaching three eighth grade LA classes and two seventh grade LA classes. In the spirit of Halloween, I have come up with two very artistic assignments to go along with our theme of descriptive writing:

• Eighth grade: Students are required to make a blueprint drawing of a haunted house. I have created my own haunted house to serve as a sample for students. Their haunted houses will be drawn onto larger white paper. Not only will students have to draw all of the rooms in their haunted houses, but they are required to write six paragraphs describing six different rooms in the house. They must describe one bedroom, a sitting room, and a lab. They will then choose the three other rooms to describe, and if students want to describe more rooms, they will be awarded additional points. Rather than having my students write a six-paragraph essay, they will be describing something that they created on their own. 
• Seventh grade: Students are required to make a spooky menu out of colored paper, drawings, stickers, etc. To begin, students will be asked to think of some of their favorite foods and restaurants. They will then learn that they have been asked to create the menu for the spooky new haunt in town. 

Short Stories & Parent-Teacher Conferences. What More Could a Girl Ask For?!

In my dream world, I consider myself a fabulous writer. I'm on the New York Times Bestselling List. I'm a Newberry Honor winner. I hold a class on Thursday nights teaching young writers about what it takes to be published. To say the least, I live in a world where I eat, sleep, and breathe reading and writing.

All 90 short stories I was lucky enough to read and grade :)
It only took five days to get through them all!

Over the past couple of weeks, my dreams have come true (minus the whole bestselling author part): I've been working closely with my students as they worked on writing their own original short stories. We started from scratch. I taught them the elements of short stories. We worked on developing characters by performing a couple of different activities (journaling about characters and visualizing characters). We also spent a day using plot diagrams to map out Disney movies so that students would fully understand the five elements that are crucial to a good plot (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution). After this, I turned the students loose, and they went to work on creating their short stories!

"The Hurt Inside," written by Lexi, was mounted
on a beautiful hand-made locker she created. The
locker stands over two feet tall. This is a great
example of the product of a student who goes
above and beyond for an assignment. 

In addition to simply writing a short story, I required students to do something physically creative with them as well. Rather than just handwriting or printing out the stories, students were asked to draw an illustration, use colored paper, or mount their stories onto some sort of prop. Some of the ideas my students came up with were out of this world! To the left is a photo of Lexi's locker. Her story, "The Hurt Inside," gives readers a glimpse into the world of bullying and the life-changing effects it has on young people. Here is a list of some of the stories that students wrote:

• "The Balcony," by Brooke (Two young girls are taunted by a young ghost on a third-story balcony)
• "Dreams," by Lizzy (A boy finds out his girlfriend is in a psychiatric hospital, but soon learns that he's the one trapped in Spring Meadows)
• "Crisis in Ukraine," by Danny (A group of students takes a field trip to Chernobyl only to find that the Ukraine government is trying to kill them)
• "Paranormal Happenings," by Emilee (A young ghost from the American Revolution is awoken after a present-day family builds a shed over his tomb)
• "Nightmare of Sesame Street," by Stefani (You can imagine what this one is about...)
• "Letters to Kyoto," by Kevin (A Samurai goes to war, but writes the love of his life letters each day that he is gone)
• "A Stroll in the Park," by Grace (Trick-or-treaters are looking for more than candy this year...they want FLESH!)
• "Some Nights," by Nickolyn (A young lady falls in love with her father's apprentice)

Of course, I did run into some problems, mainly those relating to stealing others' ideas. One student stole the story line from Call of Duty, Nazi Zombies. I'm sorry, but when a man named Tank Dempsey shoots a zombie and a green, glowing ammo box floats over the dead body, I'm brought back to my own game-playing days. Hello! Ms. Noonan is not that old! Another student wrote the story of the three little pigs word for word. I was blown away. Not only was she stealing one of the oldest fairy tales in existence, but she was creating work that I would expect to see in the second grade. And another student stole the entire story from My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. While this assignment was meant to challenge my students, it was not intended to make them struggle. I wanted to give my students the freedom to play with their writing talents and let their stories take them somewhere. While over 90% of the students really impressed me with their work, a couple of them put no effort into their stories.

Parent-Teacher Conferences 

"Welcome Parents," reads the whiteboard in the conference
room. Two of my students, Alec & Emilee (both members
of student  council), were kind enough to do this.

Since I had never experienced parent-teacher conferences before, I really didn't know what to expect. Were parents going to yell at me for doing a lousy job? Would it be my fault that their child was failing? Would parents come in to praise me? How would I conduct the conferences? Am I capable enough to present myself in a professional manner? 

This is where Mrs. D. and I sat for conferences. I sat at the
table to the left. You can see the three piles of classroom
newspapers for parents to take and read. 

In preparation for the sixty conferences I had planned, I did a couple of things. Since our first big writing assignment was our classroom newspaper, I made extra copies of the newspapers for parents to look at and take home. Of all sixty conferences, I was shocked to learn than only about five parents that came said that their child shares his or her schoolwork with them. Then it sank in: These are young teens who have a enough going on in their lives. Why on earth would they take the time to show their parents the beautiful work they completed in class? But when I offered parents a copy of the classroom newspaper, they were appalled by the great work their children had shown in their articles. The parents were also very appreciative that I made extra copies for them (which made me feel really, really good).

Check out our super conference room! At Northwood, many
of the walls between classes are collapsible. For conferences,
we were able to fold back two of the walls, so our room was
the size of three classrooms. Mrs. S. is on the left (SPED), and
Mr. Cooper is on the right (Math). This photo was taken from
behind my table. (You can see the pile of newspapers again.)

I also promised myself that I would grade the students' short stories early if their parents were coming to conferences - that way I would be able to hand parents the most up-to-date grade sheet for their children. Unlike the classroom newspapers, over half of the parents at conferences sat down and said, "So tell me: I'm dying to know what you thought of my child's very long short story!" Some parents told me that they were receiving edited drafts daily from their own children as they worked on their short stories! Because I did not place a maximum amount of pages on their short stories, some students turned in twenty pages of work. How amazing! Many of the other teachers told me that they would have put a restriction on the length, and I completely understand why (grading could become monstrous). But because I love writing as much as I do, I wanted my students to flourish and let their writing take them where it would. Growing up, I was given many, many opportunities to write creatively - I was never held back. Therefore, I feel like it is my duty to let students give me what they will. After all, it's their short story. If they wanted to write me a novella, so be it.

When I gave parents their child's updated grade sheet, I also had extra credit to offer in case the student's grade needed to be brought up. For the seventh grade, I allow the students to complete two article reviews a quarter. Each review (if done well) is worth 10 points. For the eighth grade, students are able to write an essay in response to this prompt: What I would tell America's Founding Fathers. While this essay is required for seventh graders this year (it is part of our Veterans' Day assignment), it is optional for eighth graders. They must do it outside of class because they will have their own Veterans' Day assignment to do in class. This essay will be worth 30-35 points. Many of the parents took these extra credit assignments for their children to complete over the weekend (which is great!). I was glad to see how involved the parents were with their children's academic lives. By forming a relationship with parents, I will be able to work more successfully with students if I have that entryway into their lives outside of school.

My beautiful, delicious, and homemade pumpkin pie!
Thanks, Danielle! :)

Honestly, I could not ask for a better group of students and parents. Conferences were fabulous! I learned so much simply by meeting my students' parents. I was able to get a glimpse into their home lives, parental support, and out of school interests.  And not only were the parents amazing, but the students really showed me they cared about their grades by showing up to conferences. October is Ms. Noonan's favorite month :) And because it's October, Ms. Noonan makes it a habit to talk about how much she loves pumpkins every day! Danielle, a student who I've gotten close with due to our love of reading, did the sweetest thing at conferences: She baked and brought me a pumpkin pie! She hugged me and told me how much she enjoyed having me as a teacher. When we were done with her conference, it turned out her mother was an avid reader as well. She and I talked for another ten minutes about book recommendations for one another. 

So what did the parents think of me? It was clear that I have been making a difference in their children's lives. When I introduced myself to parents, almost every parent said, "So you're the student teacher I've heard so much about." Gosh, it felt so good to hear that! Many parents also told me how much their children loved having me as a teacher. I was so lucky to be able to attend conferences this quarter.