Immediate Reactions:
After teaching my hook lesson, I felt a wave of relief, followed instantly by some serious self-consciousness. I had a good presence in front of the class, which was both surprising and helpful to me. Confidence in my lessons will probably take a while to come by, but at least I know I can look confident in them. That's a major plus as far as I'm concerned. I don't have to be right about everything, but I have to be confident in my role as the teacher.
With regards to the lesson itself, I still like the idea of having students move around the classroom at the early time of the day, but maybe not within a five minute intro. It made the already short period of time feel like it vanished in a flash. I didn't have nearly enough time to go over all of the words that the students had written down under the admittedly dated headings, and that hindered my lesson a lot. The intro would have connected much more with the poem itself if I had correctly estimated the amount of time I would need to tie the student responses to the poem. Part of that had to do with my shoddy directions, which caused a bit of a detour in the lesson, so it's hard for me to judge to method too harshly. I certainly need to work on both my clarity and my checks for understanding when I give directions.
After Watching the Video:
First thing's first, I definitely see how my directions were misinterpreted. Among other reasons, I used "good" to describe both the good and bad feelings. It was an attempt to ask for quality descriptors, but it came across upon second consideration as "give me good words and also good words." I should have described and given examples of what I meant by mood words. The lack of clarity in this first part of the hook made the intro to the poem seem forced and awkward when I decided to transition to reading it. The connection became too tenuous between the students' work and the teacher's lesson.
Next, it took even more time than I thought it would to transition from being in the seats to out of them and then back in again. I should have started my countdown a little earlier and also specified that it was okay if everyone didn't get two words on each of the word walls. To this point, it might have been a good idea simply to separate the class into two groups and have each group brainstorm different feelings associated as either good or bad.
Finally, I conflate the ideas of mood and tone a little at the end by asking the students how they thought the author was feeling. I should have asked, "how does that piece make you feel?" and followed it up with "what words in the piece make you feel that way?" This would have been a better line of questioning to direct students toward the mood, but I would have needed more expressive reading of the poem to inspire their feelings about it.
I do agree that the diction could be altered for clarity. The timing was also something I hadn't anticipated at all with the "LAG" time it actually takes for students to get involved.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I completely envy your calm collected demeanor. No matter what you said, I would have believed it because it was so easily spoken.
I really like what you said about breaking the class up into two groups, instead of having each student think of two words themselves. Even as a participant I felt like I didn't have enough time to run from one side of the room to the other. I think you would get a lot more ideas if the students could work together and work off of each other. I thought you did an awesome job, though!
ReplyDeleteJimmy,
ReplyDeleteI struggled with using precise wording, too; instead of asking for good descriptive words, I should have asked for concrete adjectives. I think I’m going to stay away from using the word “good” from now on. :-) Yet, even though I wasn’t 100% clear on what words you wanted us to write on the board, your enthusiasm was so contagious that I didn’t hesitate to participate. Also, your lesson made me realize that teachers have to take into account the time it takes for students to get up, get moving, and then settle back down. I thought you handled those transitions really well.
First of all, I think i speak for the whole class when I say that you clearly ran circles around the rest of us in terms of confidence and energy in front of the class. We were very impressed, and no doubt your enthusiasm would have been contagious to even the most sleep-deprived student.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the wording regarding mood vs. tone, I did find that somewhat confusing, but I know that when you are speaking things often sound different in your head than they do to a listener.
The only thing I might suggest is that when the students give you responses other than what you were expecting, perhaps you could simply go with it and clarify, but also acknowledge the students' responses and where they would fit in and how they could be classified in regards to the piece. For example, "Hmmm, thats not really tone, that's more mood, which means..."
Overall, very nice job.