InstaDigest: October 28-November 8
This year, my new admin decided that for the first 1.5 weeks of school, we would do nothing academic. Just community building and norm-setting. Then, for the second 1.5 weeks of school, we couldn’t introduce anything new — we could only review material from prior years. Then, we went on some field trips. Had a summer reading party.
The result: I didn’t even really start actual content this year until October. And boy am I feeling it.
In many ways, it was lovely to have the pressure off at the beginning of the year. But now I am feeling panicked — especially with my 8th graders who need a few things before they can submit high school applications.
In 7th grade, we are just now (finally) finishing these music memoirs. Eighth graders are now about midway through their personal essays, which feel annoyingly big and important.
Here’s a bit of good news: in September, 30% of my 8th graders fell short of their weekly reading rate at some point during the month. In October, only 3% did! As a reward, I gave them what they have been asking for for months: blankets for our library reading day. (Pictures below.)
We’ll see what happens in November, but all I did was this: when a student failed to meet their reading rate, I emailed them and copied their parents. I offered to meet with them to strategize about how to find time for reading outside class or make in-class reading more productive. (Only two students took me up on this.) A tiny bit of non-grade-based external pressure seems to have done the trick in the short-term.
Alright, you’ll see we did not do a lot of schooling in the last two weeks. Holidays. A school Dia de los Muertos festival. All the usual interruptions. But here are my lesson plans from the last two week and a few pictures of my daily school life.
(P.S. If you registered for our first PD of the year, Strategies for Planning a Semester, you will find that in your inbox on Saturday! There is still time to register for this single session or the all-access pass with code MWCALLACCESS, giving you 40% all PD this year!)