In English, we have been doing a lot of writing and have been pre-writing in order to build up to the drafting process. Both of my English classes worked for 20 minutes on their pre-writes and came up with some incredible topics and statements. I had students writing on universal healthcare, the differences between San Francisco and Oakland, the motivation behind becoming a barber, family, football, life story, how running track relates to life and more....and beyond the pre-write, they then articulated their thoughts into a paragraph.
*Now, I know this doesn't sound like much but it was incredible to watch in my classroom*.
Writing is such a powerful tool. It is something that each of them can be proud of and instantly see their progress. I was so excited in class and said aloud "I am so pumped at the work each one of you is doing right now..." and one student replied (while laughing) "Ms. Searing, you are the only one." But, deep down I think they were already proud of themselves and each other.
It just reaffirms the fact that they can do it. They can be pushed academically and they can respond. Each of them can make progress in their reading and writing because in 3 short weeks, they have each learned to pre-write (it as a new concept for most) and draft. Now, comes the fun part-revising and publishing :)
*In History, we are doing current events so I focused on 9/11 today. One of my 9th graders wasn't writing when the other students were doing independent work so I asked why. He proceeded to tell me that he didn't know what 9/11 was and so he couldn't respond to the photo that we were all looking at. I was dumbfounded but then realized 2 things:
1. He was 4 when 9/11 happened.
2. No one has ever bothered teaching him about that day in history yet alone the effects of it on the U.S and the world.....
Sheltered lives some of my students live but yet amazing what they can teach me about "the streets"....
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