I'm beginning to think that teaching is like being bipolar. Amazingly, one class got their act together and actually read at home to catch up to the other classes. Yesterday we went back over parts of it and read through chapter 2 as a class. I've decided not to do groups with them though... there just aren't enough strong readers to match with weaker readers. Plus the numbers tend to fluctuate too much.
For the record - I don't really think that asking that a paragraph be at least 5 sentences is too much to ask. First, it's requirement in most middle schools and second, these freshmen won't graduate without doing it on the WASL. They take it next year - and if they don't pass within 3 times, they don't graduate, period. Do not collect $200 dollars, do not bother to finish high school. Whether or not the courts decided this state legislation is too harsh or unconstitution, discriminatory, whatever, can not be my concern. I can't gamble with their future because it wasn't nice.
Also for the record - we do literary terms for vocabulary, along with words that are currently in whatever they're reading. The school curriculum requires vocabulary. I just try to make it useful and something they will use during the school week, rather than a bunch of random words they don't understand and can't even figure out how to use. I also teach sentence diagramming with grammar.
It gets frustrating dealing with the negative attitudes day after day - especially when there isn't a whole lot to bring me back up. I understand that it's a constant struggle and preparing for the day is a bit like preparing for battle, but at the same time, I can't take all the responsibility for learning. Students have to take the responsibility for their own learning. Looking at the title of a book and saying "it's too hard" isn't taking responsibility - it's waiting for me to spoon-feed it in. Two/Four years later, managers will be laughningly tossing that student's job application into the circular file. So maybe the real question I'm struggling with is where to draw that line.
For the record - I don't really think that asking that a paragraph be at least 5 sentences is too much to ask. First, it's requirement in most middle schools and second, these freshmen won't graduate without doing it on the WASL. They take it next year - and if they don't pass within 3 times, they don't graduate, period. Do not collect $200 dollars, do not bother to finish high school. Whether or not the courts decided this state legislation is too harsh or unconstitution, discriminatory, whatever, can not be my concern. I can't gamble with their future because it wasn't nice.
Also for the record - we do literary terms for vocabulary, along with words that are currently in whatever they're reading. The school curriculum requires vocabulary. I just try to make it useful and something they will use during the school week, rather than a bunch of random words they don't understand and can't even figure out how to use. I also teach sentence diagramming with grammar.
It gets frustrating dealing with the negative attitudes day after day - especially when there isn't a whole lot to bring me back up. I understand that it's a constant struggle and preparing for the day is a bit like preparing for battle, but at the same time, I can't take all the responsibility for learning. Students have to take the responsibility for their own learning. Looking at the title of a book and saying "it's too hard" isn't taking responsibility - it's waiting for me to spoon-feed it in. Two/Four years later, managers will be laughningly tossing that student's job application into the circular file. So maybe the real question I'm struggling with is where to draw that line.
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