Day 24 - Flying mostly solo

I am actually writing this post on day 24- this hasn't happened in a while!

Today I got the opportunity to run class pretty much by myself, which is really good because I am being observed tomorrow; today was good practice. I planned a pretty straightforward lesson- a lecture with guided notes, followed by a writing activity. The students were not totally enthralled in the lecture, but at times we did get some good discussion going about Gilded Age reform movements. The writing portion of the lesson went surprisingly well, too. The students kind of groaned when they saw they would be writing, but I explained to them that it was going to be good practice before their upcoming chapter test. Most students are pretty good about getting the content into their essays, but the structure of most students' writing is pretty abysmal. I gave very specific instructions for how the students needed to construct their written responses and even provided a "this is how Ms. St. George would do it" example so that the students could just fill in the blanks if they wanted to. I used to think that doing something like that was simply giving the students the answer, but I've learned that in the educational world, scaffolding/modeling, as we call this concept, are perfectly acceptable. For the students who have more trouble with writing, filling in the blanks is a good way for them to learn the structure of a good response to an essay question. I am actually looking forward to reading and grading their work.

Fifth period gave me a little bit of trouble today, just because so many of them just would not stop talking. Many of my friends would tell you that I can be an intimidating/demanding person- they call me "Mama Angie" for a reason- but I have quickly learned that 16 and 17 year olds are not as scared of me as my friends are. What a shame. It's starting to get really annoying, but after school my supervising teacher gave me some advice on how I might handle that class in the future. We don't know if we've found a perfect solution, but we picked out a few strategies to try.

Tomorrow I am being observed all by myself . . . with 1st period. This could be really good or really bad. They were awesome on the day of our first observation and I am hoping for the same tomorrow. Even if it goes horribly, I am okay with that, too, but after giving the lesson twice today I feel prepared for tomorrow. However, all happy thoughts and prayers are most welcome :)