Much Better

I was still a little depressed about how the 9th graders were acting yesterday. So what I did was look back on their journal papers on "Respect." I pulled meaningful statements out of these papers and made a list. I also included some from their "Responsibility" papers. I made copies and at the beginning of the class, I made them put their desks in a circle. I then told them, "A friend of mine told me that for the first time since I've been teaching, I didn't 'light-up' when I was talking about my students." I asked the students if they knew why. Some of them commented that it's because they were bad yesterday. At that point, I asked for volunteers to start reading the list out loud. I would stop them and discuss what was said and they began to realize that it was what they had written. I then compared what they wrote to their actions yesterday. This really sank in because a few times during the discussion later, some students told others to stop talking because they were being disrespectful. We read a good portion of the story today, although the discussion could have been a little stronger, but overall they acted much better today which was a great feeling. I gave them a writing assignment over the weekend and a new homework/assignment sheet that I will be collecting every Thursday and signing off on completed assignments.

In the 8th grade class, we began reading part 2 of Flowers for Algernon. I also had them write about "Respect" and "Responsibility. I know there's only 3 students, but it's refreshing after the morning class.