Ready, set, FIRE - Ms. Potter's English I classroom

Welcome to Ms. Potter's English I Class!

This week, we had teacher inservice. I could tell numerous stories about the disorganization of my school at the moment, but I think I will leave this post as a visual dedication of my classroom. I used every bit of time I had this week to cover my walls with investment materials, decorations and of course, everything fire I could imagine.

Room view numero 2. I am in the new building at my "striving school," but this new wing is solely for the incoming freshmen. I think this is a GREAT idea because the freshmen won't be interacting with upperclassmen as much and, therefore, will not be peer pressured to "act a fool" or cause problems.

Room view numero 3. As you can see, I have a beautiful, new classroom and I've very thankful I was placed in this wing.

This is the first thing you see on the left as you enter my room. This will be used to house student binders and our textbooks.

Here I will post the class with the highest average on weekly quizzes to push the students to increase their scores as a class. The class with the most tallies at the end of the unit gets a healthy treat baked by me! (I refuse to give out Hot Cheetos or Honey Buns...I'm thinking a granola-based cookie or muffin would teach them how to eat healthier snacks.)

The other great part about this picture is the poster collection I was required to put in my classroom. These posters were purchased with grant money. You can barely read that they say, "alliteration," "symbol," etc. and they are, to me, a poor use of government money. Why did we not use the money instead on purchasing class sets of novels? Hmmm

I LOVE this wall. We are learning new vocabulary words each week and we will glue them on this visual so they will see themselves learning "hotter" words gradually throughout the year. Can't wait to see what it will look like with dozens of words on it.

"Class Points: Heating up with good behavior" These are the class thermometers and they can earn class points for good behavior. I laminated these so I can mark them with a dry erase marker as they "heat up" and then wipe it off to reuse it. The reward will change each week; the first reward though is going to be music time during class work time with my fire-themed playlist on Grooveshark (thanks for all the song recommendations!).

Big Goal. Enough said.

My corner of the room.

The students will fill out their own personal fire worksheet with high school, college and career/life goals and then they will pick one to post on the class fire. This will help me see what goals they have in life and how I can incorporate them into my teaching!

That's hootttt...I sorta wanted a picture of Paris Hilton here, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it haha.

I spy with my little eye...a reminder of someone special....

One of my favorite/most treasured buttons and, of course, my alumni Delta Gamma flower for inspiration!

Last, but not least, my Red Hot Student Work board. Formerly the "we be burnin" board. I changed the title once I realized (this week) that those lyrics were referencing smoking weed. Who knew?!

Hope you enjoyed this visual tour of CW38 (my classroom). Until next time...

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

BBQ, berries and Beale - oh my!

After completing TFA Institute on Friday, July 9, I drove back to St. Louis to meet up with my boo, Lyle. My day and a half in St. Louis spurred some serious reminiscing as I walked my favorite paths at SLU and met up with good friends; I felt like Bittersweet Symphony was playing in the background of my visit. Seeing roommates, friends and DGs (Katie, Emma, Christa and Jimmy, Kelly, Mary, Chris, Bopper, Colin, Paul, Nikki and Molly - great to see you all!) made me think again and again about the incredible people I have met during my time at SLU - and it was only a small handful! My roommates experienced some weepy Candace moments, but tears of love and sadness run together.

Lyle and I ventured south to my new ciudad. Though I was in Memphis earlier this summer for TFA Induction, my time was devoted to TFA-related sessions and events. Finally, this week, I had time to explore and explorin' we did!

Our adventures started at the cliche, but must-see, former home of Elvis Presley. Have you heard of him?
We read the thousands of messages, initials, love proclamations and shout outs to Elvis written on the wall surrounding his property. We even found the initials from our friend Megan Bowman's family!
Apparently, the Graceland gates are magnificently large and beautiful. We were pretty underwhelmed with them.
Wouldn't be a Memphis visit without scouting out some Memphis BBQ for the carnivore I am dating. Tasty spread, huh? And the portabella mushroom sandwich was delicious, too!
During our walk on South Main, we popped into this random nut store. The store is an original Planter's Peanut roasting store and only seven exist in the United States - two of them in Memphis. Pretty nuts, huh?
One of Memphis' touristy attractions is the River Walk, which is a half-mile replica of the Mississippi River. You can "walk" the Mississippi and see the cities, dams, bridges and other landmarks along the way.
Beginning our trek down the Mississippi...
Godzilla moment. Disclaimer: No dams were destroyed in the taking of this photo.
On hey there Michigan!
O hey there cooler state, Kansas!
On Wednesday, our mind turned to a berry different adventure: berry picking. We drove to Hernando, Mississippi to pick veggies and blackberries for a pie. These were the "fruits" of our labor.
As if our blackberry pickin's weren't enough, we drove to a blueberry plantation (family owned for more than 20 years) and strapped on our gear to pick ourselves some blueberries.
"One in the bucket, one in my mouth!" (Blueberries for Sal quote) The plantation doesn't use any pesticides so sampling was a must!
I spy with my little eye... a berry hidden bird.
My kinda man...holding the berries and my car keys.
Newly-legal Lyle enjoyed our night out on Beale Street - especially because it was biker night!!

I am now starting my "second round" of training, which is preparing me for my classroom this fall: setting my big goals, breaking down state standards, establishing my classroom management systems, etc. Post to follow with more updates soon!

Thanks for reading!

Hello Hotlanta, nice to finally see you

This Week's Quick List:

1. "It's about to be a WHAT? Girl fight!"
Two weeks ago, one of my students got in a bathroom fight (BIB - brawl in bathroom - as my mom crafted). He went to the bathroom and never came back. Assuming he had fallen in, I went looking for him and found him with his shirt off ready to throw punches. Anywho, this week, I was walking downstairs to get my students from cafeteria (where the students meet before class) and I walked into a girl fight. I tried getting the onlookers to line up on the wall to break up the crowd, but the fight was too enthralling. Even I was interested. Luckily, a faculty advisor had kicked off her shoes and was in the rough breaking up the girls. The main reason these fights occur is that students from several different middle schools attend the Long summer school program so there are many territorial fights.

2. Being creative in the classroom.
As many of you may know/have experienced/learned, I love being crafty and creative. Nothing excites me more than throwing together a scrapbook, homemade card, etc. So it's been a little frustrating because my vision of being a creative and cooky teacher hasn't come to fruition. Until this week! On Thursday, we conducted a "tone and mood investigation" complete with "top secret" files. Instead of passing out poems for them to investigate, I had the poems taped up and they had to break the seal to conduct their investigation. They then had to submit their conclusions about the tone and moods to me, the lead investigator. Not to toot my own horn, but it was pretty durn cute.

3. Lingo
Most of the boys in my class refer to each other as "shorty" which sounds like "shawty" and sometimes even "shaw". I also like when they use the phrase "act a fool." Don't be surprised if I start dropping these phrases, too.

4. Weekend adventures
Luckily, I have befriended Grant, an adventurer. My adventures with Grant started with a cantina last Friday in which I bought him a jalapeno margarita on a dare and he drank it. Jalapeno margs apparently equate to weekend adventures, so Grant and I tackled two of the most touristy ATL spots this weekend: Coca Cola Factory and Aquarium. I'll let the pictures tell the story:



Welcome to the world of Coke, a museum with Coke memorabilia out the wazoo, a continuous loop of Coke advertising and loads of facts about how Coke dominates not only its industry, but the world in general. Humility was a scarcity in this place.



With soda products from more than 60 countries, the museum's best feature was the tasting room. Testers are guartenteed to get a stomachache, especially after super sweet products from Africa or the bitter products from Italy (Beverly from Italy was the worst soft drink we sampled). Luckily, Asia's soft drinks are extremely bland and watery, so I would rehydrate and cleanse my palate with those!



Grant enjoyed the sampling. And the sticky museum floor.



Though I loved sampling the Coke products from around the world, I loved the American Coke room at the end because we ran into my friend Michele and her sister. Surprisingly, I hadn't even had some of these drinks; you can tell I'm not a pop drinker!



In my Public Relations and Marketing classes, we studied New Coke, the infamous PR/Marketing blunder of Coke's in which Coke released a 'new Coke' that was instantly hated by consumers and thus pulled from shelves. But, what I never learned in my classes was that it was called Project Kansas!



After our refreshing Coke adventure, we experienced the Georgia Aquarium - the largest aquarium in the world! It was incredible, to say the least. There is something so soothing about watching fish swim in giant tanks, especially with the dimmed lights and soft music in the viewing room; I could have napped there, but that would have been weird for the other tourists. I took this picture in the tunnel that went through their largest tank.



Penguins! The penguin exhibit allowed us to crawl under the exhibit and pop our heads up in plastic cylinders to view the penguins up close and personal.

5. Quotes of the week:

Me: "We are short one student, so Brice, Mandarius and Montrio, can you three work together in a threesome over here?"
Boys: (Erupting with laughter) "A THREESOME?!?! Noooo!!"

Lesson learned: 8th grade boys don't respond well to the word 'threesome'.

The Long Lost Blogger Returns!

Well folks, sorry about that hiatus. I got a lil' busy with something I like to call TFA BOOT CAMP.

Some of you might be doubting my "I'm busy" excuse, but this is a level of "I'm busy" I have never experienced. Let me share with you how my day works:

5 a.m. - Wake up to shower/get ready (the roosters are still sleeping, I checked)
6 a.m. - Head to cafeteria to pack my daily lunch (lunch box and all) and eat breakfast
6:35 - Load onto busses and head to schools
7 - 8:30 - Classroom prep time
8:30 - 9:30 - Academic Intervention Hour (we work with our class on reading, word games, testing questions to help build their reading fluency and accuracy)
9: 45 - 11:20 - My teaching time!!!! Every other day I get to teach and the days I don't teach, I observe my teaching partner.
11:20 - Walk students to lunchroom.
11:30 - 12 - LUNCH. Favorite part of the day. Especially since I've been awake for six hours at that point.
12 - 4:30 - Various teaching sessions. We meet with curriculum specialist or literacy specialist to learn about a smattering of topics: classroom management, implementing reading strategies, how to check for understanding, etc. (all interesting!)
4:30 - 5 - Bus ride home. Some of my lucky friends or families get windy phone calls during this time
5 - 6 - work out. It was a personal goal of mine to work out a couple of times a week to reduce stress. So far, so good. You should see my killer biceps!
6 - 7 - Dinner at the cafeteria
7 - 11 - PLANNING... lesson planning, investment planning, management planning...are you catching the pattern?
11ish - BED, my second favorite part of the day!

So who do I spend my day with? And where do I go?

Atlanta Institute has TFA corps members from Hawaii, LA, Greater New Orleans, Memphis (represent!), Nashville and Atlanta. We are distributed to a variety of elementary, middle and high schools to learn how to teach and then teach summer school at our prospective school. I'm at Long Middle School.

Meet my fabulous teaching team! Jean and I (bottom row) teach fiction in the mornings and Caitlin and Danny (top row) teach non-fiction in the afternoons. If I was introducing us to students, I would say, "This is Ms. Wilson-Stayton, Ms. Potter, Ms. Yates and Mr. Currie."



Now that you know a little more about what I'm doing in HOTlanta until July 10, here is my Quick List for you to enjoy:

1. "We're all in this together" - To quote the beloved High School Musical song, I have found that one of the redeeming parts of this hellish schedule is that EVERYONE is experiencing it. Every TFAer here is going through the same stress, pressure, lack of sleep, etc. which makes for therapeutic meal time conversations in which we de-stress by sharing about our days (and maybe sometimes thinking, "Sheesh, my day wasn't so bad compared to that!"). It helps to have support and encouragement, too!

2. Have you thanked your parents lately? Or former teachers? - During one of the most profound sessions I have experienced was a literacy session where we discussed the scary rates of illiteracy in our country. Did you know about 44 million Americans cannot read a simple children's story? Isn't that nauseating? It is a vicious and dangerous cycle. Many of the students I have read with over the past weeks can read, but not comprehend; they cannot predict, summarize, interpret or even describe basic details of a text they read only minutes prior to my questioning. Some of the basic skills we have while reading (making inferences, visualizing, summarizing) are things I'm trying to teach my 8th graders.

3. Developing a Strong Teacher Voice - "I need silence and eyes on me in 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1." Now say that in a strong teacher voice. We actually spent an afternoon practicing our strong voices. It is a delicate balance of care and concern, confidence and firmness. Maybe one day, you will do something to provoke this teacher voice. I'm guessing Caitlin (my sis) will be the first to test that out.

4. Quotes and Questions - Every once in awhile, I get questions or here things that make me smile. Naturally, I record them. So enjoy a couple.

Ahmad: "Did you go to lots of college parties?"
Me: "I don't know what those are?"
Students: "Yes you DO! We know about them too, don't worry."
----
Ahmad: "Are you going to be a teacher?"
Me: "Ahmad, I am a teacher. What do you think I'm doing here?"
Brice: "Babysittin"

5. TFA Lingo - From attending CS sessions and LS sessions, to working with our CMA and Collab, to perfecting our INM, GP, CFU and IP in our LCs, Teach for America is full of abbreviations. I won't take time to explain because it is all too much to explain...just know there are a lot!

On that note, I will leave you all with promise to blog again soon: TTYL!

And so it begins...

I'll start this blog with the cliche first-time blogger phrase: "Well, I've never blogged before and thought I would give it a shot."

It's true though. I have never blogged. And I want to give it a whirl. With all the "newness" in my life that I would like to share with friends and family, I thought a blog would help spread the word. My promise to you: I will avoid lengthy paragraphs and opt inside for my go-to format of list making. So I hope you come back periodically to view the "Quick List" in my life...o, and pictures coming soon!

Today's Quick List:

1. Induction in Memphis: Last week, I stayed at Rhodes College in Memphis for Induction. TFA training consisted of meetings and panels to discuss TFA mission and core values, our leadership development, hiring process, Memphis city and culture, etc. It is all extremely informative and I tried to become a sponge to soak in the information. More importantly though, it has hightened in me a desire to excel next year to provide my future students with an incredible educator and education.

2. My Memphis Corps: This year, Memphis has 106 first-year corps members, which is double the size of last year! It is such an eclectic group. We represent a variety of states (Utah, Alaskan, New York, KANSAS, Arizona, etc.) and a variety of backgrounds and majors (grad students, authors, journalists, lawyers, etc.). I think I have 80% of the names down and I'm determined to know all my corps by first names soon!

3. "Speed Dating" of hiring: Last Thursday, I attended a "meet and greet" for principals and teachers where I had to stop at a variety of tables and sign up for job interviews with principals. I basically introduced myself, handed over a resume and waited to see if they wanted to continue "dating" aka interview me. The next day, our Memphis group went to the interview fair and the principals interviewed us more in depth. I landed a teaching position at Wooddale High School, teaching high school English (not sure yet what grade). I'm excited to revisit some of my fav high school novels - Animal Farm here I come!

4. National Civil Rights Museum: During our Induction, we visited this museum, which encompasses the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Because many of the students that TFA teachers instruct are black, the National Civil Rights Museum brought into focus how our fight for educational equality (no matter the race) is today's civil rights issue. It was humbling to see the long history of discrimination, segregation and racism and to know my work will directly impact a huge issue (lack of quality teachers) that many under-resourced schools face.

Posting about my arrival in Atlanta coming soon!

Testing this out!

Test post!