Parent conferences both days; the purpose was to establish meaningful goals, and steps to take, for each of our advisory students to achieve those goals.

Advisory class meets every day for about half an hour. I keep the same kids each year, and my job is to keep track of their academic progress and the state of their portfolio. I am the primary contact person for parents who are concerned about anything, and I am the primary person students first come to if they have a problem. Since I have the same kids for each year they are in the middle school, I get to know them quite well. So advisory class has its advantages.

It is also particularly useful for students to have a central place where they work on their portfolio (a collection of work samples that demonstrate their mastery of the various standards). I teach them how to organize it, how to determine which pieces of work are suitable, and it is where we have our end of the year interviews where kids give an account of their progress in relation to the standards.

Today and yesterday I met with my advisory students and their parents to create useful goals for the kids to concentrate on. I reviewed their portfolios, their test scores, their grades, and made a determination what academic area they need to work on the most, or what sort of specific skills they need to concentrate on developing. Together with the parent(s), we also set up what specific things we each can do to help that student achieve their goals.

For many students I recommended they work on their reading skills. A typical goal would involve setting up a time each day the kids could read at home (the idea being that the more they read the better they get at it), and the parents would make sure the kid follows through and help them secure reading materials. For example, one kid dislikes reading, has low skills, loves sports, and we decided that he would read issues of Sports Illustrated magazine each week -- parent would provide a subscription and make sure they sat down to do it each day at a certain time, even having the kid read aloud to the parent sometimes.

Another kid was terribly disorganized and forget to turn in homework, or to even do it. So we made a goal that the parent would get a daily planner, the kid would take it to each class and write down all class activities/assignments/due dates, and the parent and I would check it regularly.

These sorts of goals are very appropriate, I think, especially considering the standards the kids are accountable to. We will check back in during winter and spring conferences to see how much progress the kids are making.

I spent quite a bit of time explaining the standards to the parents after our goals were set. I also met with quite a few students who are not in my Advisory class but are in my other classes. I do a really good job of explaining the standards quickly and in a way the parents "get it." I got a lot of comments from them about how nobody has ever explained them so succinctly and well before, and how they now feel like they know exactly what is expected and what the kid must do to achieve them. I know that other teachers often try to explain them, but they do a poor job. I seem to have the knack for it, and the parents really appreciated me making it all clear for them.

Monday was a regular class schedule, 7-3. Today was a special schedule, 10-6, to accommodate parents who couldn't make it during those hours. Back to normal classes tomorrow.

Wednesday, Oct. 6, 1999

Not quite a regular class schedule today -- we had an assembly, so all classes were about 15 minutes shorter.

We had a quadriplegic motivational speaker at the assembly. Couldn't move below his neck. Quite good. His theme was life is an attitude, and we are in control of whether we choose to have a positive or negative attitude. The guy has his own web site: Go Ron.com. He is a talented artist, showed us paintings he has created with the brush in his mouth, signed a few cards/autographs for students afterwards with the pen in his mouth.

This was set up last year after we had a really hard year, in part because two students committed suicide.

"A" day today, which meant Literature/Speech classes. Two things going on: the final essays on The Old Man and the Sea were due, and we watched a movie of the novel, with Anthony Quinn playing the old man (Santiago). Will finish the movie next class.

I graded essays while the kids watched the movie. Some kids I allowed to work on their essays while the movie was on because I had told them last week that the essays were due at the end of class. I was pleased that most students came to class with them completed. These essays were what I graded using the state scoring guide, and if they did well in each essay I could score them high enough for them to have proved they met one of the state reading standards.

Students have to prove themselves in three areas: Comprehension, Extension of Understanding, and Text Analysis. The essay questions I created for this purpose are:

1. Comprehension -- Santiago often said the fish is his brother and his friend. In what ways are the fish and Santiago alike? In what ways are the different? Include a circle or T chart in your answer.

(I also used their scores on the test I gave them last week to determine their scores in this category.)

2. Extension of Understanding-- (do one of the following)

A. Does The Old Man and the Sea remind you of something else you have read, seen, or know about? Explain.

B. Do any incidents, ideas, or actions remind you of your own life or something that has happened to you? Explain.

3. Text Analysis -- (choose one of the following)

A. Some critics see The Old Man and the Sea as a parable for every person's life. Define parable, and explain how the author presented a parable in this novel. Cite portions of the text to support your thoughts.

B. If Hemingway were to ask you about the main strengths and weaknesses of this novel, what would you tell him? Cite passages from the text to support your points.

As is typical for me, I got them all graded today. Worked nonstop all day, even for part of my lunch, and for about an hour after school. (My eyes were so tired I didn't dare close them during the assembly for fear that I would fall asleep, and the first thing I did when getting home was make a cup of coffee.)

A majority of the kids did not write well enough, imo, to meet the standards in all three areas. Some did, and I will post the percentage tomorrow. I went next door several times to have another teacher read an essay and give me a second opinion. She convinced me to pass a student who I would have graded lower in one instance. Two students did a really outstanding job. One of them was so witty, well thought out, and so derisive that I will try and post her essays for people to see. (This was from the trumpet playing girl I posted about earlier, and I will try and get her to type them up so I won't have to do it. I also just heard from the Publications class' teacher that she is probably going to be chosen as the editor of the school's newspaper --an excellent choice!).

I ended up feeling pretty satisfied with myself. The students who wrote essays good enough to meet the standards followed all my instructions about what exactly they had to do, and the kids who didn't pay close attention and follow my instructions about the requirements for meeting the reading standards didn't write good essays. So hopefully the kids will learn a valuable lesson from this and do better the next time. They will have about 7 or 8 chances this year (we will read 7-8 novels in class, about one a month), and the kids have to produce three work samples that meet the standards to get promoted. So one down and 6 or 7 to go.

Thursday, October 7, 1999

Only 17% of the students who handed in the essays for The Old Man and the Sea met the reading standards in all three categories. That is about what I expected, so no worries. What surprised me though was the number of kids who did not turn in the essays. Out of 70 kids I have my three Literature/Speech classes, 20 did not turn in their essays. Several kids were absent, but it is rather disturbing for me to have 16-17 kids just not do them, or not do them on time (I'm sure I will have a few try and turn them in late, but I have a class rule against accepting late work unless there are special circumstances involved).

Today was a "B" day, which means block classes. Lesson plans were:

1. DOL sentences -- main aim today was to recognize dangling modifiers. No one did, but I believe they will from now on. I will include sentences with dangling modifiers over the next few weeks, so I am confident that after three or four exposures to this problem, they will recognize and fix them easily.

2. Vocabulary List #4 - went through the list of 12 words and their definitions, passed out story topics, and assigned a story using all the words which will be due next Thursday. Also told them we wil have a comprehensive test over lists 1-4 on Thursday.

3. Descriptive writing -- told them the keys to effective descriptive writing and played around with adding adjectives to sentences, then passed out a worksheet on similes. They had to complete a list of 15 half-done similes I had started. For example: My room is like______; The new girl was as quiet as ______________. Next week I will assign a descriptive essay.

4. Chapter 3, section 1 in History -- read and answer some questions.(Deals with the impact rivers had in the way people settled on and used the land in various parts of colonial America; Town commons and public schools in early NE colonies; the role of women in colonial America; land and labor (which leads into slavery in the next section); and the idea that lots of land helped foster the ideas of democracy and political equality in the early colonies.) I gave the class the choice of doing this in class, or doing it as homework. If they chose the latter, we could spend more class time playing our simulation game. They chose to play simulation longer and have homework.

Simulation was very fun. One colony in my morning block class made a big deal with the Indian tribe whose land they lived in to acquire a bunch of land. They traded guns for them. Big mistake, because I -- the big Indian chief - decided to use the news guns I had acquired to help me attack another colony. Play acting the chief is a lot of fun, and I get to do some unexpected things which adds some tension and excitement into the game. I managed to kill off a few colonists, but not to decimate them. So now the kids know what Indian attacks are like, and I'm sure the kids will get the idea themselves next week to attack the Indians, or to attack each other in their quest to acquire wealth. I am expecting some very exciting simulation rounds next week.

End of Week 2.....