Back to 7th Grade: Week 1

Well, this week was my first week of aiding for my Junior year of college.  It's so exciting to finally get back into my aspirations as a future English teacher after a long summer of working as a camp counselor.

For my Fall semester, I was put with a 7th Grade Reading teacher, Mrs. Largent, at a local junior high school.  I work with her during the 1st and 3rd periods of the school day and with an 8th grade Language Arts teacher, Mrs. DeGonia, during the 2nd period, every single Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  One thing that was interesting was that Mrs. Largent's classroom was a co-taught classroom.  Miss Kats has a specialty in Special Education and in English, which informed me that there were students in the class that may have had some sort of disability.  Since the students did not really know me yet, my entire week was spent observing, which I was a little bummed about, but I learned a lot about how each class typically works.

At the beginning of the class period, the students would write the "Agenda" for today in their assignment notebooks while the teacher would pick 2 helpers to hand out folders and check whether or not their peers had written down the agenda.  Then, they would have a check-in to see where the students are at in their individual reading books.  Either Mrs. Largent or Miss Kats would call their name, and they would respond with the page number that they are currently on.

When I first talked with Mrs. Largent, she said that the classroom curriculum circulates around the new Reading Workshop.  In the Reading Workshop format, students are required to choose a text based on their reading level (determined by MAP testing), and write logs or journals about what they have read.  Also in this format, students take part in read alouds where they will be required to think critically about the text.

The book that they are reading for their read aloud is entitled Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper.  This novel is about a teenage girl named Melody who has cerebral palsy.  During this read aloud, they are supposed to listen and use their "thinking voices."  Thinking voices are used not just for comprehension, but the expectation is that these students will make inferences about the story, characters, conflict, etc.  They can make connections, predictions, or pretty much say anything that is on their mind about the text, and it counts for participation points.  I can see myself using this technique in my classroom.  I feel like if I can choose the right read aloud, I can engage them and it will allow them to think critically about what they are reading.

After the read aloud, the teachers will lead/ teach a mini lesson.  This week, their mini lessons were about the elements of drama.  They spent some time reading about these elements aloud in class and even played a quick game to test their knowledge.  When the agenda for the day is done, then the students have time to work on their RRLs or Reading Response logs.  In order to assess that the students are understanding the content and working towards their individual goals, they fill out a section of the log each day that has tasks surrounding mini lessons.  In this way, they can connect the mini lessons to their own book!  In my opinion, I prefer reading journals, but for 7th graders, I believe that this is the perfect way for them to start thinking about setting and connections so that they can eventually ease into journals.  In addition, both of the teachers will conference with the students about their books as a way of assessing them.  In this conferencing, they will ask the student to talk about their book, whether it is hard, easy, or just right for them, and have them read aloud at the end.

Not the actual BINGO that they use, but something similar to this.

When it comes to 2nd period, I am invited into a different subject and overall experience.  Typically, each of Mrs. DeGonia's classes starts out with a writing bingo.  For ten minutes at the beginning of each class, she will have them write about a prompt from their own BINGO sheet.  So far, no one has received 5 in a row, so I do not know what the prize is.  But, I think that an activity like this would be beneficial in my future classroom, because it gets students into the habit of continuously writing.  Some of these BINGO prompts were about giving a tribute to any character, talking about their favorite subject, or arguing why or why not kids should be allowed to vote.  This also gives students an opportunity to not only be creative, but be able to think critically about their own beliefs.

For her class this week, they had a writing assignment due at the end of the week.  They were given ample time in class to complete it, but they truly squandered their time by talking and goofing around.  Their prompt was very interesting; the students had to create their own license plate and give two reasons why this license plate applies to them.  They needed an introduction, at least two body paragraphs, and a conclusion.  On Friday, I was actually given the opportunity to walk around and help students if they had any questions.  Some did have questions, and I only hope that my answers were helpful to them.

Overall, it was a really informative week.  My main goal for the upcoming week is to get to walk around more and answer students' questions.  I really want them to be more comfortable with me and know me as more than just the adult in the back of the room.  I want them to be able to see me as a teacher.

I'm excited to work with these classes!