Lesson Plans, the Author's Blog, and the New Standards!

February 1, 2016

Day 218 as an Oklahoma Teacher

    My English IV classes will revise and edit their definition essays. They will first revise their papers on a hard copy, correct the mistakes on their google docs, and then upload the assignments to google classroom. They will share their papers with each other in class. This should take up Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday and Thursday, they will read and discuss an article using a discussion strategy like Socratic Debates or Speed Dating. On Friday, they will work on their senior papers or senior projects. Some of my students are way ahead while others drag their feet and fall behind. I guess that is why I called them the Ambitious Procrastinators.

     My A.P. students started doing a research project titled the Author's Blog. They have to research information about the author, the plot, the characters, the settings, the themes, symbols, figurative language, and diction for a piece of literature that has been on the A.P. test. They had to choose a book that they hadn't read and fill out the information. On Tuesday, they will write their blogs and be ready to present their ideas to the class. Every two weeks, they will complete this assignment. I hope this helps them make a connection between books they have read and books they haven't read. On Friday, it's Genius Hour, and like the other classes, I have the students who like to procrastinate and the ones who get the work finished.

     How do my lesson plans relate to the new ELA standards? By the time students are seniors, they should be professionals at completing independent work. Well, that's what my students do. At this level, I have become the guide on the side instead of the sage on the stage. Independent work is part of the new ELA standards. Reading, listening, speaking, writing, and vocabulary which are literacy strands are also included in each unit that we cover in class. Literacy instruction cannot be taught and then stopped. It takes consistent repetition and practice in each unit for students to make progress.