The end is near...

Finishing up my lesson plans on a literature unit over the book The Maze Runner...this is exactly how I feel about the deadlines, finals and work I still have left. Will I make it out on time?


I have learned so much in this semester as a mom, student, and teacher. Between all the observation hours, a new job as a paraprofessional, the new strategies, British Literature, Demographics, test scores, MoPTA 1.1.1 and 1.1.2, my son leaving for boot camp...stay tuned to see how this semester ends.

Update - Final paper on Defoe's Roxana - A!!
Update (1-1-16) A in all three classes.

Wax On, Wax Off

We are all familiar with the scene, right? This is what Buehl referred to as the Mentor-Apprentice Model. Daniel is tested in several areas, he just wants to learn to fight. Mr. Miagi has the awesome responsibility to teach Daniel discipline. That is what teaching reading in the content area means to me. No matter what subject is your core subject - we are connecting students to deeper knowledge. We are teaching them to wax the car, paint the fence, sand the floor, catch the fly, paint the house. We are giving them the tools to use no matter what class they are in, all the strategies are the disciplines. There will be students who feel they don't need it, I hear at least once a day - Man, this is stupid, when will I ever use this...in Daniel's case - he felt he was Miagi's personal slave until it was time to put all that practice to work. This is when Daniel learned the value of all those lessons. This is when Daniel calmed down. This is when he began to focus. Mr. Miagi even says - Focus Daniel Son. THEN the value was added, eventually all those strategies led him to the ultimate victory. What does advanced look like? How will you scaffold to get every student there? Readers are leaders and Writers are Igniters --- so inspire, teach, mentor, lead....you are changing the world one student at a time. I, Stacy Waldmann, do solemnly swear to teach reading and writing in my Special Education classroom now and my classroom in the future. I hope to inspire, I hope to find the hook that tethers those "at-risk" students so that I can be like Mr. Miagi in the end, smile and know that I played a significant role in the life of a struggling student.

The Blended Family and the Kiss of Death

Although I am still looking down the barrel of assignments, finals, papers and lesson plans I did complete my observation hours yesterday - all 60 of them! I collected all my paperwork too. It was a nice little birthday present.
I have been a paraprofessional since the beginning of this semester. I have learned so much in seven weeks time. I have learned that teaching is like one big blended family. We all have responsibility to educate, train and mentor each other's students. Some of us have more "custody" than others. Some of us are authoritarian, while others are authoritative.
Chapter 9 - Controversial
Chapter 9 is chock full of assessments, test, and all sorts of definitions you should know or do know when teaching. That last two weeks have been assessment upon assessment in our blended family. STAR math, STAR reading, EOC's and so forth. I will be rereading this chapter again. In the class I am in, there is three classes happening at the same time. I even said to one teacher, that we are one big blended family. She chuckled and agreed with me.
Chapter 10 - The Kiss of Death
Today, one of my students, who chapter 10 would label "at-risk" asked me to listen to music. The other -teacher asked - "What did Mrs. E-- tell you?" to which he replied, "she said I couldn't listen to music." It was in that moment that the term of endearment took on a broader meaning. My student, her student, our student...did what many a kiddo does, - ask mom, ask dad...keep asking until you get a favorable answer.
I told him that doesn't work in my home or my classroom. He got back to work and got back to work. This brings me to the "kiss of death". One pages 403-405 of our text it talks about adolescents. The text says, I don't have to love my students, I just need to like them. I see this in reverse. I have to love them, because sometimes I will not like their behaviors. It gives three clear factors for what is needed in the classroom.
1. clear expectations 2. consistency 3. short term memory loss
I think short-term memory loss was my favorite to read about. This in my classroom is a must. It may be hour to hour or minute to minute.
The kiss of death happens when you are inconsistent. [top of page 404] Isn't this one of the number one heart aches in parenting, whether you are a blended family or not? What your two year does today, may make you laugh but the same behavior at 8 may not be as funny. Be fair, be consistent and be constant.
I believe that adolescents are begging for boundaries. A lot of them don't have any. Like the student I was referring to earlier...he said in effect, I have no boundaries. I do what I want. In our classroom, structure if vital. It is also safe. This brings me full circle to expectations. They need to be clear, they need to stay the same and every one needs to know them and agree to them.
This is done through social contracts at the beginning of the year. They go back to these every week.
Figure 10.1 on page 375 will be a quick go  to guide for me in the coming days and weeks.
The four D's - Defect - Deficit - Disruption - Difference.

Bio Poem

Stacy
Compassionate, encouraging, faithful, determined
Wife to Chris, mother to five, grammy to Arielle and mentor to many
Who loves God, family and harmony
Who enjoys teaching, loves to read and write
Who fears missing opportunities, living a mundane life, and not making a difference
Who was the first to earn a college degree in my family, who traveled to Haiti and Mexico on missions, and who has poetry published
Who wants to write children's books, and who hopes to teach abroad
Born in Fort Sill, Oklahoma and lives in Rolla, Missouri
Waldmann

In the Flow???

This is how I think I am taking it all in, very delicately. Little sips of great knowledge, wonderful strategies

BUT this is my reality...

Does anyone else feel like picture number 2, besides me?? HAha!
There are only very small windows in which to pause and reflect in 8 week courses. I have learned so much and hope I retain at least half of it. Dr. Steffes does a great job teaching and coaching.

Veering for a moment -
Balance, time management and breaks...
I am struggling with  balance and time management - full-time job, family (at the holidays), my son leaving for boot camp, British Literature (6 more discussions, 4 more papers and a final), FE class hours, FE observation logs & reflections, 9 more lesson plans and 10 more Blooms questions. When the water gets turned off and I awake---my son won't be here during my break. We are doing his Christmas Friday.
This is part of teaching and I am learning a lot!

Back to takeaways - my favorite two strategies tonight were WebQuest and Anticipation Guides.
Kaci and Katie did a phenomenal job on presenting their lesson plans. I liked Kaci's bug unit and Katie's conjunction, interjection lesson - I like that she had the students moving.

Here is to trying to manage time well and getting it all done!

Poetry - Lessons Learned

Ashes of the Heart 

Forest of the Heart
the gleam of dying embers
markings of love lost
a dream that seemed eternal
dashed under foot, ask and soot

A form of poetry called a Tanka. A 31 syllable poem divided into five syllabic units 5-7-5-7-7, all five lines should flow into one thought. I wrote this several years ago.

Here is one I wrote

Offense
Gossip like waves
billowing
found shore
the ropes between us
frayed
clutching another
we tire
and
shell

Free verse, Poetry in Motion (2006) [You only have so many tiles to use, it has to flow in to a complete thought, no meter, no rhymes, just write]

I decided for part of my ten lesson plans to dive a bit into poetry. After many hours of observation and conversations with my awesome cooperative teacher I leaned this direction.
They are reading "Tears of a Tiger"(ToT) and started their research on Perseverance, historical figures who exhibit this trait. In the book ToT, there is a section of poems written by the students. I suggested doing a lesson on poems, poetry, or some form of MLA for research. Then she suggested poetry versus prose or mixing the research and poetry with a bio poem. Since our lessons have to be developed around strategies, I dug a little deeper in to those strategies from our first text. [I find I spend a great deal of time reading, researching strategies and asking questions]

It took me two day to write one lesson plan. I used a template from out text KQR (KWL strategy) and after reading about it again decided to extend this lesson over a period of two days. I also used a Bio Poem template from Teachers Pay Teachers. My cooperating teacher(CT) gave me one from Read, Write, Think, both of them were very similar.

I taught my lesson today for observation.

Here are my takeaways -
Since I work there I decided to make my copies for the instructors critique this morning. What I did not take into consideration - a lot of teachers print in the morning, the printer may be out of paper, your lessons may end up lost. (All three happened to me) I loaded the printer and prayed as I walked to the classroom that the CT still had my lesson plan I gave her to look over the day prior. She did. Game back on.
Now in the classroom, teacher lets students know I will be teaching and turns the room over to me. I give an appealing opening, draw students in, even get a few laughs. I hand out KQR form and look down to see that my Bio form was not cut in half. I look at the CT and ask, before finishing she gets her scissors and cuts them for me. [kids have no idea, instructor has no idea - I am eternally grateful for her help]
I hand out the Bio poem forms and begin to walk them through it, suddenly realizing my personal bio poem is on my laptop in the room I am a para in...so I use the one on the first form the teacher gave me a week ago on Rosa Parks.
Today, the strategy was solid. The students had a working knowledge of poetry. They gave basic "Rules" that they knew. Mixing a biography and a poetry style that doesn't rhyme added to their working definition of poetry. Building and connecting their fiction and nonfiction work was bonus.

Today, I realized that even the best laid plans fail some times, I could have floundered, stopped teaching, made excuses, or a number of things but I kept teaching. I kept engaging and I taught the lesson.  The instructor who has observed me before said she could see growth.

Here is my instructors email to me this evening - "You did a great job and will be a wonderful teacher. Students will be lucky to have you. I meant to tell you that "Mrs. Teacher"  walked me to the room. She told me what a great job you were doing and how much everyone liked having you there."

Email from my cooperating teacher - "You did a great job today."

I hope to continue to grow and learn.

A rePORT on the imPORTantance of CSSR

ImPORTance - to carry significance

http://membean.com/wrotds/port-carry
http://www.morewords.com/contains/port/ - 407 words with the root PORT - whoa!

Every time I say - CSSR (I hear the Beatles singing, USSR) but I digress.
CSSR - context, structure, sound, reference. I really enjoy acronyms that carry significance. It is a strategy that helps me remember the gist of the lesson. Now if I could also put it to a song - BONUS!
 I gravitate to this strategy because I feel that as Dr. Steffes stated it is so very important. Words - are so important.  I could go into a 10 point mini sermon but I will save that for another day.

Step 1 - context, read the sentence or paragraph can you guess? No? [For me the beauty of words and how we use them, changes things] Not only does it help us become better readers, but also writers.

Step 2 - structure, not to geek out on you but I am THAT student who likes, enjoys, relishes in breaking down words and diagramming sentences. What is the origin? Greek? Latin? Pre- Af- Suf..fixed on the root, rooted grounded, what is it surrounded by? Surrounded??

http://1aiway.com/nlp4net/services/enparser/

I could do this for days...

Step 3 - sound,  this step helps me some, EXCEPT when I was 12 reading Matthew chapter 1. Those names were so hard to pronounce. (Still are but now I can have it read to me) Our school uses the Wilson Reading Program and I immediately thought of that when reading this section.  It helps students break down words using the blends, open and closed. I hear this recited 3x a day. 

Step 4 - reference. this is always my go to strategy. I make a list of words I don't know, or understand in context, especially if I do not have the time to look it up immediately. 

This is the nugget of CSSR on pages 161-162 of our textbook. 

I wish I would have read about CSSR prior to teaching a lesson on prefix/affix and root words last semester. 

One of the history teachers use Cloze quite often with notes history directly taken from the text. Students seem to be able to read and find the missing words but I am now interested to see if the words would come to them by reading the surrounding text before reading from the actual text book.