Dilatory

I've been dilatory in posting lately.  One of the constant struggles that teachers face is balancing the different aspects of our lives.  I like to blog about my experiences in the classroom, but the undertow of the daily workload often pulls me under.

Since the beginning of the school year, I have done some extensive revising of my lesson plans.  Trying new activities keeps the material fresh for me.  One of the units to which I applied a very different approach is the Canterbury Tales.  Instead of reading the work out loud in class, writing papers about assigned characters, and creating posters to depict the characters, we created a blog.  Each student chose a character from The General Prologue and blogged in that persona.  I was apprehensive about the project from the time of its inception until about the middle of the project.  I had no idea how my students would respond to the idea. 

Since I was the first teacher in the district to use blogging in the classroom, I wanted the project to be well-received by the students, and, more importantly, I wanted the project to reflect their learning.  It did!  I think the project was a great success.  My only wish is that the blog could have been public.  Our district is very concerned about security, which I understand, but I wanted the students to have a true blogging experience with a varied audience--a world audience. 

I also tried Socratic Circles for the first time this year.  Usually when I implement a new strategy, I use my eleventh graders as guinea pigs.  They adapt more quickly than my ninth graders, and they are often more verbal about their needs.  Consequently, implementing new strategies with them becomes a valuable learning experience that prepares me for using the same lessons with my ninth graders.  This time, however, I tried Socratic Circles with my ninth graders.  In fact, I haven't yet done Socratic Circles with my eleventh graders.  My ninth graders responded well to the experience.  The most common comment I received in verbal and written feedback was that they wished they had more opportunities to discuss literature with their peers because doing so helped them understand the literature on a deeper level.  If that's not a reason to use the strategy more, I don't know what is!

I'm teaching Taming of the Shrew right now.  If you teach the play, but you haven't seen the BBC's version from the Shakespeare Retold series.  You should watch it immediately.  My students loved it!  They say it's helped them understand the play on a deeper level.  They also said they now appreciate the timeliness of Shakespeare.

I'm having a great year with my students.