Gearing Up For a New Year

Just one more week of official summer vacation left. The last week of August we have back to school teacher meetings. Yesterday I had the privilege of sitting in on the Elementary teachers' summer meeting. It was fun to hear about the ways God has been work in their lives over the summer, and to hear their excitement for the coming school year.

Between tutoring and sitting on the back porch with my kitties, I have spent the last few weeks moving into a new classroom. I'm very excited! We got new carpet installed in two of the high school rooms, and I've been moved into the slightly bigger room. My student who is advising me on color schemes (she's hoping to go into interior design) stopped by yesterday, her response was, "It looks so homey!"

For most people, what they first notice is the books. I get comments such as, "you have more books then the school library!" (which is sadly true), and "people will mistake this for the library". I've also been asked, "Is this your office?" No, no. This is my classroom!

Last fall at the NERA conference in Portland, Donalyn Miller asked the audience, "How do people know that books are your brand?" I chuckled. There is no doubt in people's mind that books and reading is "my brand". My classroom, my Facebook feed, my Twitter feed. Books, books, books.

I'm a literacy teacher. Kids need to be exposed to books if they are going to learn to read and write!

In addition to my new learning space, I'm planning to bring some new practices into the school year. We will be using the Whole Novel method of studying literature (see Whole Novels for the Whole Class by Ariel Sacks); we will be using a new vocabulary study website, Membean, and we will be doing 20% Time (also known as Genius Hour).

Here is a brief video tour of my new classroom.

I am excited for this new school year, although I still have a lot to do to get ready!

Wagon Wheels

I had the best of intentions, really I did. I started off the summer so well doing my IMWAYR posts. I was going to blog at least once a week. Then things got real with our move, and the wheels fell off the blogging wagon. Blogging didn't happen, my Twitter feed grew dusty, school plans got pushed to the side. Now here we are, two weeks out from the start of school and I'm trying to get back in the saddle, get the wheels back on the wagon, and hoping that it's not to late to be at least a little prepared for the school year.

Early in my teaching career, my dear friend, pastor and administrator explained to me the Rotter-Covey Square.

(image source: http://www.achieve-goal-setting-success.com/set-priorities.html)

Too often we allow the tyranny of the urgent to take over. As I enter the last two weeks of the summer and look at all the planning I wanted to do and did not get to, as well as the planning I needed to do and did not get to, I feel my stress level rising. I need to manage that stress well. I want to enjoy my job as a high school administrator and I want to enjoy teaching- both my high school students and my fellow teachers. I think it's time to fill out a Rotter-Covey Square and try to enjoy my last two weeks of summer in this beautiful house that we have moved into. If I sit on the porch, I can look at the pond and not the piles of boxes that still need to be unpacked!

It may be 9:30 and I'm still in my pajamas, but I've emailed three teachers and one teacher candidate. So that's good, right?

Smile File

At the end of the year I assign my students an end of the year letter to me. I ask them to write me a friendly letter sharing their accomplishments, hopes, dreams, opinions on middle school, and most daring of all, advice to me as a teacher. I gave the 7th graders two weeks to do it (they tend to freak out over even the smallest assignment- next year should be fun with them). I also told them if they finished it early they could pass it in early. I got my first one today.

It was a very sweet letter. Her favorite things about the year were all the reading that we did together and all the books I recommended and had in my classroom library. She told me that combined with my encouragement about her poems helped her to reach her goals of reading and writing more. The very best part, the part that really made me tear up, was her closing. She ended it, "Your sister in Christ and book buddy," and then signed her full name.

Contagious

In the midst of the end of term - report cards, wrapping up projects, starting new material- day-to-day middle school craziness, and being sick, I'm trying to take time to savor those seemingly little things that remind me why I love teaching. My students are reading! My 8th grade boys, who have been so resistant to reading, are talking about the books that they want to get and are eager to read!

I've been working away at them slowly, trying to find books they might like, reading to them, and encouraging, even nagging them to read. The tipping point for these guys was The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. I began reading it to them and they are all dying to get their hands on a copy so that they don't have to wait for the slow pace that we have to take reading only 10 or 15 minutes a day in class. They're going to their local library to try to get it and bugging their parents about going to the book store.

One of the boys, S, whom I wrote about last week has already read the second book. Today as we were walking back to the classroom after working on a project in the media center, two of my most reluctant readers where talking about the series: "I wish there were more books. I want to know what happens, but I don't want it to end."

Because of some other things that were going on we didn't get to read during class this morning. They begged me to read during snack break. So for 10 minutes before Math, this group of boisterous boys and giggly girls, who are always looking for chances to get free time, sat in silence, eating their snack, and listening to me read.

Yesterday one of the 7th grade moms said, "I don't know what you did, but T loves to read now! Thank you so much!"

These moments bring me joy. My kids are discovering the joy of reading!