Co-worker of the day: Coach Baker, AKA "Bake"This is the man who comes to Saturday Academy and is my male counterpart, for whatever sticky situations might require a male counterpart. Also, he is good if I am about to send a kid home for not doing a blessed thing or for generally grating on my sensitive nerves. He is much more tolerant. Perhaps excessively so, but hey, I'm not culpable anymore once they're in his designated room.
Bake went to FHS and was a basketball star in his day. Now he's the athletic director and a floating science teacher. Bake is, in fact, the coolest.
Today, I was permitted a peek into yet another aspect of the coolness that is Coach Baker: the astute and caring pedagogue. We hadn't dished much about teaching strategies before, as he's all scientific and I'm all linguistic. We compare notes on kiddos, especially athletes. He's the one who filled me in on what went down with "my son," the one who used to call me Mama H. (
long, protected story).
Now on a couple of previous Saturdays, probably a month or two ago, Bake was picking my brain for Englishy advice, as he was having his kiddos write papers on the Scientific Method. I was quite impressed that he was being that attentive to the writing aspect of it--we need that cross-curricular help so much! He got a rubric from me based on the 10th grade writing test grading standards and had me check the Works Cited page of one of his sharpest students. It turns out, he was really paying attention--and I think it made the kids pay attention! I love that he is taking this aspect of even science seriously. SO important.
The strategy I think I will steal from him after today is the re-test. I have long wondered if it would be worthwhile to give kids a chance to take tests over, knowing that the majority of them will just guess AGAIN. Then again, I've had a couple of kiddos (PO, DM, and JR come to mind) who come to tutoring pretty regularly, and yet they are not getting the results on their tests that they need. They're improved, yes, but some of them still aren't to the passing point. I think these fellas could benefit immensely from Bake's technique. And it's very simple:
"They have to spend 30-40 minutes with me before they can re-take it. They have to be willing to do that much." In that time, Bake goes over the concepts with them, individually--something PO, DM, and JR so MUCH better with than in-class exercise. Then and only then does he allow them to re-take.
Now, I have hedged the re-take before, because I know for a FACT that several of my students, particularly my English ones this semester and a few Spanish ones I can think of, would just guess again. Or they would pull stuff out of their--out of the air--and out of class discussion that will not stick with them. I think that I can avoid this mainly by changing the format of the test and actually breaking it down with them for that 30-40 minutes. Even my more squirrely ones might actually have internalized something by then, if only because it was reinforced more deeply AFTER they absorbed tidbits from class. Plus I could make them actually LOOK at the page numbers in the book. I think I will offer this opportunity this grading period...but it might be overkill for the quizzes. We'll see.
Spoil 'EmYesterday, I spoiled the evil heathens that never read their homework. We went outside to read our story. Sure, SJ and DJ were chatting, JL was catching a bumblebee in a cup, and RO didn't get a book, but they were reacting to the story! A lot of times, my kids have just written off "War" by Luigi Pirandello as dumb and pointless, but we were having some good discussions. Though MR and SJ sometimes drive me crazy, they had some good thoughts. And DP was alert and contributing the whole time. MB was in a mood, I think, but she contributed still.
From this, I learned that I should not make those special things contingent upon completion of their other assignments. Those things are what will get them to
complete the assignments! I realize I was trying to punish them for needing extra help with the reading, for needing me to read to them some. I need to find that balance and slow things down. Henceforth, I think I will take two days for each reading section: one to prep and start it, and one to reflect and discuss.
And we will play the trench warfare game. And we will do the theme bags, adapted from the Spanish seminar I went to. In the spirit of pre-emptive spoiling, I even asked one who is bright--who I had thought was going to be my favorite--but rebellious, disobedient, to be in charge of freezing the cooler for the next day. It means she gets out early. If it doesn't win her over, at least I have a privilege I can use as leverage. Now to find some privileges for MR and BB...
Long TermNext year in English, I will not have 4 "Level 3" assignments per year. I will have 2. Instead of being worth 15% each, they will be worth 20%, and we will revise, revise, revise them. The first can serve as a sort of midterm. For English II, I know the first will be the world cultures project, in whatever incarnation it comes next year (maybe social issues in selected countires, as inspired by my now defunct xanga friend's--come back, ChiTeacher!--unit). The second, I might give still more freedom, perhaps an I-search...Or maybe a literary thing or an editorial. Or, God forbid, a writing test prompt.
Along the way, I think I will do like my own Spanish profs have been doing this semester. Every once in a while, they evidently just get inspired (or have to go to their office and keep us busy at the same time--probably both) and tell us to write some reaction thing, like a paragraph to a page. I think those are much more fun to grade than typical Englishy topics. They are more personal and, personally, I like to write them more.
For the Level II's in the future, I think I'll actually take a page from Ms. Williams. She has issues with the kiddos sometimes, but she has good ideas. She brought the
RAFT thing to my attention again today, and I think I'm just going to require that they do 2-3 of those a semester. How's that for choice? I might have them formalize one or two of those random writings (I've heard a name used for them, but I can't recall it--anyone?) here and there and turn them into "Level 2" assignments too. There will, of course, be turn-in dates. And in-class time to work on these.
Comments (3)
hello fello teacher! happy writings!