A compliment of sorts
I was out of school on Thursday of last week for Professional Development. I decided to make it into a long weekend and made an appointment with a specialist/surgeon on Friday. I returned to school with a note from the sub saying that my students were well behaved-made me VERY happ-and the following conversation:
“Miss Teacha, what was that work you left us on Thursday?” Student O was referring to the guided reading I have left behind. “It was really hard . . . It was just busy work, wasn’t it?”
“No, it wasn’t busy work. It was actually reading that you needed to complete. You will be using the information to do an assignment later this week.”
“It was long and it was a whole chapter. It was hard.”
After class was over, there was another student staying after to make up an assignment from earlier in the semester.
I prompted her, “Tell me, what was it really like? Was there a lot of conversation and noise?”
“Naw, Miss Teacha, everybody was working really hard on the assignment. Really, the only thing you heard was, ‘I can’t find number 22. Can somebody help me with 15.’ Outside of that everyone was really quiet.”
“Wow, was the assignment that difficult?”
“It wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t easy either. It wasn’t one of the readings where you just copy the information from the textbook. We actually had to read the text, comprehend it and then answer.”
“Oh, good! Ya’ll read the textbook! Exactly, what I wanted!” I beamed. She gave me a quizzical look.
Poor thing, she just didn’t understand why I was so excited.
People are so against book work because it requires students to regurgitate or copy information Nope, not my book work. My questions require students to demonstrate they comprehend and can apply the information. I don’t give many bookwork assignments in my AAH class-actually, this was the first! I am really excited about how successful it was. The goal was to prep them with the content needed to complete a foldable later this week. The foldable will demonstrate everything we have been discussing & seeing (through the film, Roots) about the Middle Passage and the Atlantic Slave Trade.
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A student of mine was telling me about a documentary he saw on the discovery channel a few weeks ago about Hindu funerals /widow burnings. He said the show had something to do with human sacrifices. I have looked everywhere to find the title of the program so that I could see it and possibly use it in my class. Did anyone see this back in January? If so, do you remember the title of the program? Thanks for your help.
lesson planning, random mutterings, students | Miss Teacha | 
February 9, 2010 7:10 pm
