Any Improvement is Good Improvement

I just got back from my night class, so I finally get to share about Day 2 of my unit. I assigned four pages of reading of a short story for homework between this past Tuesday and today. In first block (the New Beginnings block), no one read. In the standard class, about 40-50% of them read, and in the dual enrollment, probably 80% of them. So depending on how much reading they got done, today we had to adjust the lesson plans and read whatever they didn't. Seeing as they were able to do independent reading and answer the study guide questions on their own today, things went better. The first block kids still didn't like me, and still weren't happy that I was teaching them versus Mrs. C, but they were a little more respectful. Only a few snickers and smart comments. Even though I still am sweating the entire time I'm teaching them, I'm just pushing through and trying to do the best I can with them. Not that I am understanding of anyone being disrespectful, but I understand the negative reactions from them in general. So I'm trying my best to be patient and prove to them I'm not going anywhere and that I'm not that weak.

I ended up having to change my entire unit today. I had schedule for us to do a 1 to 2 page friendly letter assignment in 3 sessions, and then a PSA in the last 3 sessions. I was excited about the PSA, but aside from the dual enrollment kids, they just aren't quite ready for that. They don't know editing marks, revision techniques, what it means to publish writing (formally or informally), and so forth. So, I think I'm going to use this letter assignment as an extensive review of the writing process, with a majority of the focus on revision and editing. I'm going to have to change my learning goals and lesson plans, and my preassessment and postassessment data will now be invalid, but it's what they need. When it comes down to it, kids are more important than data.

I just looked up and there's a lady bug crawling up the wall right in front of me. There's hope :)

I just got a picture of our final deployment quilt today. It includes names of my university's students' loved ones that are deployed, are vets, or were KIA. Tomorrow, on Veteran's Day, it will be hung up in our Student Union ballroom. It's pretty awesome!

Deployment Quilt

I am a member of the my university's Yellow Ribbon Group. It's composed of current and prior service military, our ROTC, military family, spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, and friends. We meet once a week (even though I can't actually go to them this semester because I have a class) and discuss how we're doing, how we're handling distance, any questions about deployment, etc. It's basically a campus FRG group led by the ROTC leader and his wife. Well last semester, I came up with the idea of posting blue and gold stars all over campus with the names of deployed/KIA service members that are relatives and/or friends of students. Sort of like the Make A Wish Foundation's balloons you buy in the line at the grocery store. Well, we developed that group into a deployment quilt, which our leader sewed. We're going to sit in the dining hall during lunch and dinner hours and collect names from students; then, we're going to attach stars with those names on the quilt and hang it up in one of the buildings. It's really hard to be no where near a military base while I'm at school, and 6,000 miles from our base. College students don't quite get the hassle with pay, the crying for no reason, the empty space on the other side of the bed, moving all over the place. My university, however small, has a great support for military. If it wasn't for this group my junior year when he left for Afghanistan, I don't know if I would have made it. I just wanted to share with everyone how proactive and supportive my school is!

The quilt--which is quite larger than it looks!