Internship Week 6 (Week 8)

Connecting literature and classwork to personal life has created some great opportunities to get to know my students.  We read the story, Speaking of Courage by Tim O'Brien in my Junior English class.  The overall concept I wanted my students to take away from this reading was the theme of the story.  We established that the story was centered around the theme, "Courage" (although, we understood that theme of a story should not be summed up in one word).  My students and I 'discussed' (and I use that word lightly- I am still working on my students getting to open up to me) what it meant to be courageous.  I used exit slips for them to record their thoughts because I felt they were more comfortable with writing things down instead of speaking in front of the class.  I got some wonderful responses.

The biggest success I took away from this unit would be the poster project I did with the juniors.  I had them create a poster with a quote or saying about courage that they felt applied to their life.  Then, the students had to create a visual to go along with the quote they chose and explain how they have displayed courage in their lives.  I was so pleased with the posters and had students coming up to talk to me about what they drew and the situation they portrayed through their drawing.  I learned a lot about my students and will be able to draw from their personal lives and interests in future lessons.

Sometimes, all it takes for a student to open up to you is by choosing multiple means of expression for them to do so.  While discussion has been prevalent and effective in my past classes, perhaps projects are the way to go with my junior students.  I am looking forward to my final two weeks of teaching and hope to connect even more with the students to make learning fun and relatable to them.