I was a Guest Teacher!

February 3, 2016

Day 221 as an Oklahoma Teacher

     Today, I did something that I will call as Guest Teaching. I taught "The Seven Ages of Man" by William Shakespeare to a group of sophomore students. Before I took over the senior class this year, I taught 10th grade for two years. I gave up my first hour planning period to accomplish this task, but let me take you back a week to explain why I made this decision.
      It was last Wednesday, and the sophomore English teacher talked about how teaching poetry was not what he liked to do, so I volunteered teach a class for him. He would just have to pick out the poem for me to use. Okay, it's time to pause for just a minute. The sophomore English teacher was my student back in 2007. Now, back to my story, he brought the poem to me on Friday, and I set it aside to look at it when I had time. The weekend went by and then Monday. I thought about what I had done to teach this poem, and I researched ideas. Honestly, I didn't have a definite idea until I walked into the classroom.
     I discussed with the class why people write poetry, I showed them some of my poetry, and then we discussed extended metaphor, imagery, simile, and tone. I showed them a painting called The Seven Ages of Man, and they made up smilies, metaphors, and imagery to describe the painting. Then, I read the poem to them, and broke them into six groups. I believe that students should act out poetry to be active learners, and they should just get up and move around to make sure they stay awake in class. Each group received a section to act out; I had one student in each group read the lines while the other ones in the group acted it out. I finished by relating the poem to the painting.
     The sophomore teacher said that he felt like he was back in 2007. I had fun, and I told him that he was going to teach my 5th hour class. My advice to any teacher is that we should visit each other's classrooms, learn from each other, and share ideas. I will definitely do this experience again, and I did confess to him that I improvised the lesson.