Ms. Fletcher

Why “Think Back Thursday?”  Partly it’s the result of a meeting I attended last week with the P Panorama Middle School English teachers. We spent part of our time talking about ideas to help us post more regularly on our blog. And to be honest, Think Back Thursday is my own twist on Mrs. Chili’s Ten Things Tuesday. Yesterday it occured to me that posting to a theme might help.  But what theme?  Nothing I thought of yesterday seemed catchy enough, but this morning as I was deliberately reflecting on my week, it came to me–Think Back Thursday. With two days left in the week, and by looking back at what I had hoped to accomplish in the week, I still have time to git ‘r done. 

The 8th graders are working on revising their book review rough drafts. We talked about the parts of their writing they could improve–sentence fluency, word choice, organization, etc. and we talked about the ways to do that–adding, deleting, and replacing. Thinking back, I realize I didn’t model this, so that’s how class will start today.

The 7th graders, on the other hand, are just getting started their book review rough drafts. We’ve analyzed sample book reviews and “unpacked” the rubric using a web-cluster like the ones I learned at the SpringBoard training two summers ago. Thinking back, I didn’t unpack the rubric with the 8th graders, and now that I’ve done that with the 7th graders, I want to be sure to refer back to their web-cluster. I will do this on Friday and maybe I’ll have students write little sticky notes that reflect on their progress and then put these on the web-cluster.

Some high points… one student who has resisted reading has become totally absorbed with a Frank Perelli book and tells me everyday (sometimes twice a day) what’s happening; the 7th graders are analying commas ala Jeff Anderson and Mechanically Inclined; the 8th graders are taking charge of themselves and getting situated for reading workshop without being told at the beginning of class; I re-structured the music class so that I am working with small guitar groups on a regular basis.

(Some portions also posted at the Panorama B English blog http://panoramabenglish.blogspot.com/.)

Following is something I posted to a question on teachers.net about getting kids under control:

On 9/24/08, Juli wrote:
> Please help me out here. I have 16 boys in a class of 21.
> They aren’t openly disrespectful, but refuse to stop
> talking. When I go through my discipline steps and take 20%
> for each offense, then they get angry and disruptive even
> more so. How do I get these kids under control?

That’s a lot of boys! But back to your question of how to get kids under control…

First off, having control over other people, even kids, is an illusion. Control over another person only happens in two ways: 1) The other person allows it. 2) One person has more power than another. At younger and younger ages, kids are proving that we can’t force them to do much of anything. For sure you can’t force someone to learn. And after a certain age you can’t force anyone to do anything against their will, unless of course there is an imbalance of power.

So how come some classrooms are “under control” and others are not? In my opinion, it all boils down to a balance of motivation and influence–student motivation and teacher influence. Other than their anger over losing 20%, how is your rapport with them? If you don’t have rapport, you don’t have influence. People won’t care about anything you say until they know you care about them.

To what degree is learning being impacted by the talking and anger? If there is very little learning taking place, you need to do something drastic. What you do will depend on you and your unique personality.

My classroom management is based on caring and problem-solving:

1. I take a sincere interest in each student and set a tone that is fun, friendly, firm, and consistent. Kids will do anything for the people they care about–this is the heart of the motivation and influence that I talked about above.

2. I have one rule based on the idea of problem-solving. Choose safe behavior that supports the learning
expectations. If students choose behavior that is unsafe or unsupportive they are creating a problem that gets in the way of learning. The person who creates the problem is the the one who needs to fix it. The students comes up with possible solutions and chooses which one to try. But before it gets to the problem stage, I ask reflective questions to redirect the behavior, “How is your behavior supporting everyone’s learning right now?” or “When might be a better time to do that so that you can support everyone’s learning
right now?”

My ideas have developed from several sources… Marvin Marshall’s Discipline without Stress, Jim Fay’s Love and Logic, Fred Jones’ Tools for Teaching, and the Wong’s First Days of School. Most recently I’ve been influenced by Tom Carter’s ideas about the role of the alpha leader and the importance of safety and support for learning. (http://teachers.net/mentors/classroom_management).

Modified from a post by Artsy One at Teachers.net: http://teachers.net/mentors/middle_school/topic13013/10.15.08.18.35.40.html

To get started:

·         Think about the way a unit is set up, four civilizations to study, sections of a chapter,

·         SOCIAL STUDIES: NCSS themes or state social studies standards (history, geography, economics, civics, critical thinking)

·         LANGUAGE ARTS: Literary devices, story elements, revising techniques, writing genres

·         Design the centers for individual or group work

·         Arrange the room to accommodate activities

Discuss how to work successfully in groups and do team building exercises before beginning the centers.

·         Provide clear expectations for each group member

·         Clarify how to manage conflicts

·         Discuss how the process will work and how to manage time in order to accomplish all assigned tasks

Create a tub or envelope for each center

·         For each center that include:

o   List of objectives based on Bloom’s taxonomy (put in clear page protector

o   OPTIONAL free choice activity such as dioramas, plays, songs, stories, etc.)

o   Copied pages from a text or reading assignment, other resources or links to online materials

·         Keep the materials fairly “straight forward” so that not much is required beyond actually reading it.

·         Include ALL materials and supplies to complete the activities and projects in the tub.

Students experience how to organize time and plan ahead for multi-part projects.

·         Encourage the groups to go through the entire list of objectives and activities FIRST.

·         After reading the list, then they should look through the tub to be sure they have what they need

·         Let them know that they will have X number of class periods to complete the lesson.

Check every so often to be sure the tubs are stocked and read to go—provide a sheet for students to report missing items.

Test students at the end of each center.

Rotate to a new center after testing.