Inspiration is Awesome-reflection #3

As a pre-student teacher, it is easy to get overwhelmed! There are days that I think, "Am I going to be a good teacher?" Usually I can pinpoint where the frustration stems from-an unruly student, family commitments pulling me away from homework, or seemingly unreachable deadlines! Thankfully, a fantastic day follows-a day filled with engaged students, fresh ideas, content family members, and deadlines completed and checked off my to-do list! Today, I had one of those fantastic kind of days!

Today, I found inspiration...the kind that makes you want to be more than an average teacher. It began with a problem that I have observed in my 7th grade CWC language arts class. For several weeks, I've observed students making very basic mistakes in their writing. At first, I was surprised that their writing displayed errors such as improper capitalization, beginning multiple sentences with the word "and" or "because", and several others I consider elementary writing concepts. Not only were they basic errors but a significant portion of students were making the same mistakes. To make matters worse, the structured curriculum for this Title I school does not provide much instruction geared towards revision. My dilemma became a matter of efficiency because, while I try to walk around and help individual students fix these issues, there just isn't enough time. Also, what student wants to hear that they need to make revisions every day. So, after giving it some thought, I came up with a solution.

In our textbook, grammar instruction is a highly debated topic. Should it be part of the middle school curriculum and if so, how much should we try to fit in? My solution to this problem is to address one problem per week and to do so, "in character".  Provided my CT allows me five or ten minutes to teach a mini lesson twice per week, I am going to transform into another person/character to focus on one mistake per week, using Smartboard and the document camera. I have not decided on my character's name yet; however, she will be British (with a thick accent) and with the help of a few props, should surprise my students and get their attention. I've left out a few details and have a few more to consider, but I will let you know the results very soon. 

After sharing my idea with another teacher and para, I'm fairly certain students will appreciate the creativity and variety.  In fact, I learned there is another teacher in the building who dresses up in character for parts of his lesson and the students love it! I'm looking forward to trying it out because you never know until you try...right?!  My excitement is also growing as I look forward to teaching my unit next week. I'm learning that teaching with a restricted, pre-designed curriculum can be difficult to plan!