Today is my final day in my classroom for this year. Of course, I'll be back several times throughout the summer, but by then I'll have packed everything away and tidied up the room. So when I do stop by - I have a meeting next Wednesday - it simply won't be my room but just an empty shell. It'll likely be mid September before I have everything back in place and know where I've stashed everything.
When I came in with KoKo earlier this week, I found two cards from former students and several art works here. I always ask students to provide me with stuff to hang on my walls. One student left two of her drawings while another left a framed piece. Those will go up around Labor Day. The cards were nice too. One was from a senior heading off to the University of Minnesota. Though I only had him in two classes (Comp I and Brit Lit), I had a great time with him and his irreverent wit. The other card was from a student who was in Comp II and who will be in my Comp II class. She thanked me for putting up with all of her absences (she was in track) and for reading all of her work. I think she'll do wonderfully in College Comp next year.
Once this place is cleaned out, my attention will turn to completing the required lesson plan for the graduate course I'm taking as part of a Minnesota Historical Society grant through Hamline (there's no easy way to ever explain or state that). I enjoy the classes - especially the week long summer sessions where we work with two excellent presenters. While learning about Minnesota history and how it connects to national history is very interesting, it has zilch to do with my classes. Out of the eight or so lesson plans I've done, I haven't used one in class. Nor will I. They're just hurdles jump to get the credit that will get me a lane change. I'd use all the lesson plans, if I taught history or Minnesota history and lit. But I just don't. And 90% of what we have read and studied has been historical, not literature.
Kristie and I watched HBO's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" a few weeks ago. It really was excellent. So I think I'm going to do something with that. I'd like to actually show the film in one of my classes. Then I think I'll have students each create a blog (the evaluators love it when you can incorporate technology into your lesson plans). Next, they will choose one of the main characters from the film - Henry Dawes (director of Indian Affairs), Charles Eastman (a 'civilized' Native American), and Sitting Bull (the once great Indian chief now forced to live on a reservation). Then they will do some research on their characters - posting what they find on their blogs. After that, they will write an evaluation of their character's take on the events of "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" and what led up to the slaughter (he evaluators love it when you can incorporate different perspectives - and that is one thing I found very interesting about the film: it isn't told from 'one' side). The film does a good job showing the government's side of the event (Dawes' point of view), the Native's side (Sitting Bull's POV), and the Natives who are caught in between (Eastman's POV). I want students to analyze all of the forces pulling and pushing their characters.
See now I'm getting fired up about it. But will I ever use it? Maybe. But I haven't used a single lesson plan yet.
Well, time to clean and put away.
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