Another school shooting or why am I doing this?

There was another high school shooting today, this time in upper Minnesota where a kid shot his grandparents, then went school and killed three of his classmates, a teacher, a security guard and himself. They say it's the worst shooting since Columbine. It's disheartening that this happens, but after working in a couple of different high schools, I can see how it does.

There is a student that I work with who has some serious issues. He is crying out for attention in very unhealthy ways. My supervisor has reported the incidents to the administration and the guidance counselors, but they refuse to do anything. This is going to be the kid that hurts someone. I don't see him opening fire on the schools, but he's more likely to hurt one or two individuals and himself. Yet if he could get some help now, we may be able to prevent this.

My dad asked me why I want to teach in NYC with all the violence in schools these days. My answer to him was that the most violent incidents have happened in the nice suburban schools, not the intercity. Nowhere is really safe, and if I can reach out to that kid, maybe I can help prevent more violence.

Reflection 3/14/05-3/18/05

Not a lot happened this week. I'm still not getting a lot of assignments, but because of the end of the marking period (which fell on Wednesday) and few kids turned in their late work. Late is better than never. It frustrates me how many of the students come to class regularly, yet don't turn in the assignments. I've given them time in class to work on them, seen that they are producing pieces in peer editing workshops, but I never see the final draft. I don't know what more i can do.
I have one student who I am having a problem with. One girl in my creative writing class gives me a lot of attitude every day. When she needs help, she goes to Ms. Summers for it, blatantly passing me. I also don't know what to do about her. Monica says that there really isn't much I can do. She said she had a student like her last year and it is annoying, but it's up to her. As long as she isn't hurting anyone else, I should just let her go or give her attitude back. I'm not sure which approach is better. I'm wary of the attitude idea, but if it works, then it's good. I think I'll play it out and see what happens.
Other than that, it was a quiet week.

Reflection 3/7/05-3/11/05

Last week, I began using peer editing in the classroom. Most, if not all of the students had done some sort of peer editing before, so I gave the class a few guidelines, told them to exchange papers, and let them go. Very soon, however, it disintegrated into social time or time to work on their piece. depending on the student.

I tried to figure out how to keep the students more on task and engaged in the editing process. The first step I took was to add two things to the week's assignement: they are required to turn in a draft and a peer editing worksheet with their final paper. I did this primarily to make sure the students understand that I feel more than one draft and peer editing are important.

On Thursday, we had our peer editing workshop. I developed a worksheet for each students to fill out while working on their partner's paper. On it were items like, "What was the main point of the piece?" and "A brief summary of the piece." I also included something positive and about the piece and something the author could improve. I wasn't sure how this would work - I was afraid that the students would interpret this as "busy" work, but I briefly explained the sheet and turned them loose.

It took a couple of minutes for the students to settle in, but everyone was taking the editing workshop more seriously than last week. After the students filled out the sheet, I overheard many students discussing the pieces and what they wrote on the sheets. I was very happy with the outcome. It seems that they simply needed a little more focus to the workshop and the editing sheet provided the direction. I will definitely use this in the future!

Reflection 2/28/05-3/4/05

My first assignment was due this past Monday - the character sketch which I had assigned before break. I was a little disheartened when only four students turned it in on time. Two more came in later in the week. I went by Ms. Summers policy and late papers were dropped a third of a grade per day late (B+ became a B after one day, etc.).

Monica let me do all of the grading and I was a little nervous. I had only given checks for their daily assignments - I only want them to write each day, and I don't feel it is fair for me to evaluate it. To grade the character sketches, I reviewed the assignment sheet and underlined all of the requirements for the paper. This way, I created a rubric to evaluate the papers.

The biggest issue that arose from the papers was a severe lack of editing. It was obvious that most students did not even reread their papers. Tenses didn't match, sentences were missing words, wrong words were used (the type that spell check would catch. I was a little worried about this and brought it up when we did peer editing this week. I told them what to look for and hopefully it will help. I'm not holding my breath though. For our next assignment, I am including much more specific editing guidelines on the assignment sheet. I know that these kids know this stuff - they've proved it to me in other pieces they've written. They just aren't taking an extra moment to reread their work and move their paper from a B to an A. I will continue to look for ways to motivate them to do so.