Weekly Student Teaching Update

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11/30/2014 W eekl y Student T eachi ng U pdate - Jacl yn Kl ei n

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Weekly Student Teaching Update

From: Jaclyn KleinTo: DIANE STILLEYSent: Sunday, September 28, 2014 1:01 PMSubject: Week of August 25th Student Teaching Update

Good afternoon! Here is my weekly update from Indianola!

1. How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have?

This was my final week of having control of all classes. The 12th graders had a unit on

communicating ideas, the 9th graders continued their short story unit with "Gift of the Magi" and

using Blues music to study theme, and the 11th/12th graders are still working through Divergent

and began r evisions on a creative writing project from last week. I again had full instructional time

for each of the classes, as well as some responsibilities concerning the IEPs and 504s of some of

my students. I coordinated with Ms. K and the special education teacher Ms. H on organizing the

11/12 class for the coming weeks.

2. What were your most satisfying experiences? What were your most challenging experiences?

One of the things I particularly enjoyed this week was the vast array of media I used. I created a

really great lesson on irony using comic strips from humorist "The Oatmeal" and TEDtalks. My 12thgraders were working on ideas and formalist vs. transactional theory, so we studied poetry from

slam poetry performances to ee cummings to a song by the White Strips before getting into their

own composition. I really enjoyed being able to incorporate several different types and styles of

media into my lessons this week.

Unfortunately, the week didn't go perfectly. I made a bad call with my 9th grade English class. W

made an agreement at the beginning of the year that if they were able to work productively and a

respectfully, they may sit by their friends. After a day or so of unproductive work, we switched to

seating arrangement and the atmosphere improved. However, as I told my students, I believe in

Jaclyn Klein

Sun 11/30/2014 2:24 PM

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To:Jaclyn Klein ;
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second chances. I explained that if they could show me they could be responsible learners and stay

on task for two full weeks, we could go back to an open arrangement.

This Thursday, their two weeks for a seating arrangement was up. While the students had general

been more productive, I wasn't sure that moving back to an open arrangement would be useful I

worried that they would just go back to socializing and not focus on the content. After going back

and forth for a few days, I ultimately decided to give them a second chance and allowed them to s

where they wanted (with the understanding that they still needed to be productive and respectful

We did this for one day while we talked about the difference between dramatic and

narrative characterization. It was as I had feared many student were not paying attention and

distracting their peers. The next day, we had a quiz over characterization. Over half of them called

me over to inform me that we "never gone over this."

Needless to say, I was extremely disheartened. I haven't graded the quizzes yet, but I am not

looking forward to seeing how much the distraction impacted their grades. We're absolutely be

back to a seating chart by Monday and I'm planning on shifting some lessons to reteach

characterization. I'm just disappointed that this probably could have been avoided if I had stuck to

my guns.

3. What are the plans for the upcoming week?

The 12th grade class is transitioning back to Ms. K's control, so we'll be coordinating lessons on

how to conduct a literary analysis. We were both disappointed by their work last week, and so hav

decided that some areas need to be recovered. The 9th graders are finishing their short story unit

with Lady and the Tiger, then taking a final assessment on Thursday. I'm looking forward to being

able to see a unit all the way through, from preassessment to final assessment. The 11/12thgraders will continue revising and reading in Divergent, as well as hopefully doing some interactive

techniques later in the week.

Hope you had a good weekend! See you on Friday!

Best,

Jackie

From: Jaclyn KleinTo: DIANE STILLEYSent: Sunday, October 5, 2014 5:01 PMSubject: Week of August 25th Student Teaching Update

Here is my weekly update from Indianola!

1. How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have?
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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This week I began to phase out in the classes. The 9th graders rounded out their unit on literary

elements and took their final assessment on Thursday and Friday. The 12th grade

composition students started a unit with Ms. K on how to more successfully write a literary analys

and realizing they needed some explicit instruction. The 11th and 12th graders finished their 5

paragraph essay writing assignment and continued with reading Divergent. I still had complete

control in the 9th grade class and began phasing out to just troubleshooting and

redirecting students in Comp. and 11/12 by the end of the week.

2. What were your most satisfying experiences?

My most satisfying experience was grading the first part of the 9th grade English test. Over 90%

of the students scored an 85% or above. It was really gratifying to see how student s improved and

to know that they not just got the material, but that a strong majority of them had mastered it. I

very happily noted that reteaching of characterization was successful, as about 98% got all

questions on characterization right. I'm really glad that I made time to reteach the term while

having students in a set seating chart. While students were initially upset that they were no longer

able to sit by their friends, many of them owned up to the fact that Thursday was a bit out of

control and took responsibility for losing the p rivile g e. And even though I regret how unproductivethe class was that day, I'm glad that I at least gave them the chance and kept my promise to them.

think I may have lost credibility with the students had I immediately shut them down.

3. What are the plans for the upcoming week?

My last day at Indianola is Wednesday. On Monday I'll be doing an observation with a theatre

teacher in the district, and I imagine the other two days I'll be completely phased out to

observation in all the other classes. The exception would be in the 11th/12th grade English course

the more people running interference in that class, the more smoothly it runs, so I'll probably stillhelp out there. I have quite a bit of grading to complete before I check out of the district

completely, so that will probably take up much of my time.

Hope you had a good weekend! I'll see you on Tuesday!

Best,

Jackie

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Weekly Student Teaching Update