Round Zero

'Allo friends and family. After my "fun" post about Memphis adventures with Lyle, I thought I would balance things with a "work" post about my week and a half of prep work with Teach for America. Round Zero, as TFA calls it, is our last round of training. We come back to together as a group to really set plans for our year and our classroom. Separating into our specific content areas (mine is secondary English), we are able to collaborate and share ideas for effective planning during our first year teaching. Here is my "Quick List" about the week:

1. BIG GOAL - Big Goals are like the strong, marble pillars of a palace; they stabilize classrooms just like they stabilize a palace. Without the Big Goal, the pillar, your classroom falls and crumbles. The Big Goal drives your class throughout the year and builds excitement in your students. My Big Goal....(drum roll please)...."We will be able to intelligently and independently engage in RING OF FIRE literature circles, discussing class-chosen novels that are two grade levels ahead of reading level." What does this mean? I want my 9th grade students to be able to sit in literature circles and independently discuss a novel of their choice without my help; they will discuss symbolism, irony, theme, figurative language, etc. because, throughout the year, they have reached a new level of comprehension about literary elements. I want them to be intelligent members of society and, to me, this starts with being able to read and talk about literature of our time. I want to build excitement around this by inviting community members, college students, parents, administrators to participate or watch our final literature circles; the students will get to show off their new knowledge and how they, just like adults, can thoughtfully discuss a book.

Why 'ring of fire' you might ask? I direct you to #2...

2. BURNIN' for LEARNIN' - Yes, meet my classroom theme: fire. I knew that MY classroom had to be themed for me to be a happy teacher and to provide me with enough pun/play on words material. Cue Johnny Cash folks. I thought about how each student has a fire burning within them and, as I teach them throughout the year, the fire of knowledge will grow. During these final literature circles, the RING OF FIRE will form to talk about the novel. Catchy? Cheesy? Both for sure, but that's my style! Luckily, with this theme, I will have vivid flame graphics and thermometers as we "heat up" and improve tests scores. I will have plenty of catchy phrases for posters and bulletin boards as we "ignite the sparks" of literature or "burn through" novels, poems, plays or "we be burnin'" board to display exemplary student work. I will have an AWESOME soundtrack for classroom music (which will be a reward for good behavior). PS. Have any favorite songs with fire lyrics? Post them in the comments section!

3. A Calendar Like No Other - I'm a planner, but Teach for America has pushed me to plan at a whole new level. Once we established our Big Goals, we began work by backwards planning. We mapped out our various units (mine are short stories, memoirs, poetry, journalism/media, intro novel, drama, nonfiction/research, and final novel/literature circle), and then began placing the Tennessee Board of Education learning goals into the units we wanted to teach them. For example, I placed "SPI 3001.8.4 Identify and analyze how the author reveals character " in my short story unit. We had dozens of learning goals to sift through and copy and paste into units, but this gives me an idea of exactly what I will be teaching and when. We then focused specifically on Unit 1: Short Story. I began making daily objectives (for example, "Students will be able to identify the change of dialogue throughout Thank You M'am and explain how it shows Roger's character development") and placing them in my master calendar so I knew what I would be teaching each day and with what short story. Whew! It's a lot of planning.

4. A Calendar Like No Other - Part Deux - After stacking my days full of objectives, adding more into the day seemed like the next best step. Sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not. I then calendared in all the diagnostics (reading, writing and English I pre-test) into my first couple of weeks along with classes devoted to "teaching" my Big Goal, introducing classroom procedures, classroom culture building and more! Finally, I calendared in INVESTMENT - what will I do to invest students? Ms. Potter's Lunch Bunch, attending football games, holding tutoring sessions, calling parents, sending home newsletters, bringing in guest speakers, and much more.

5. Get Binderized - One of my classroom procedures I am most excited to implement is my binder system. Each student will have a binder and will be required to keep the binder updated and organized. Ahhh, to teach organization! Sharing the joy of tabbed sections and ordered work - I can't wait. It sounds like I am forcing this upon unwilling subjects (which I am), but I know that many students have not been asked to be responsible for tracking homework grades, writing vocab words in certain sections and whatnot - I want to teach them the value of orderly work and notes and how this helps with studying (and life!). RED HOT binders, here we come!

Teacher inservice begins Monday so I hope to soon post pics of my classroom once it is decorated and awaiting students (start August 9). Thanks to everyone for supportive texts, calls, emails and posts!

I leave you with some quotes:
"Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us." Sir Thomas Browne
"Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us...so go set the world on fire!" Me