Winding Down on Year 15

There are only 10 days left in the school year. Soon year number 15 will be in the books. It's hard to believe that much time has passed. It really doesn't seem like that long ago that I was teaching five sections of Communications 10 way back in 1998. My highlights of that year included just surviving. And I'm not kidding.

 My how things have changed!

 This year I had several highlights that are among my best achievements. My favorite unit was when I had my second College Comp II tackle Steven Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From. Instead of simply having them read it and write a paper, I tried to step outside the box a bit, so to speak.

 I gave the class a quick summary of each chapter. Then I had them get into groups. Next, I had them select which chapter sounded the most interesting to them. Finally, I charged them with reading it, deciding what the key ideas in it are, and then (using a Madeline Hunter lesson plan guide) construct a lesson plan to teach the rest of the class about their chapter. What I didn't tell them right away was that I had also contacted members of the administration and had them choose which chapter they found most interesting. Then I paired the student groups up with an administrator and had them collaborate on constructing and presenting the lesson plan.

 Each lesson was amazing. I learned so much from them. And I was just like a student again. I had no idea what the groups were going to really do.

 I just showed up, eager to learn, and was totally blown away.

 I can't wait to revise this assignment for next year and get it down even better.

 Another highlight was from my first semester remedial reading class. We were in the middle of reading Kaffir Boy. As I read the text aloud to them, the class (made up of quite a racially diverse group of kids) began to ask some amazing questions, not just about the text, but about race and gender and bias and assumptions and stereotypes and expectations. The resulting conversation was so good, it didn't even feel like I was the teacher anymore. I was just there with osme co-learners and we were just discussing. It was that good.

 Another highlight was the mock 'how to' paper my third block College Comp class wrote me while I was in the hospital recovering from my car accident in early April. Of course, the 'how to' paper was on 'how to recover from a car accident' and it was hilarious. Each student took a turn offering advice and making it flow well. Though it was one document, their voiced still stood out. The paper actually came with their imitations of my comments. There was a sloppy "ok" written in perfect Reynolds-esque cursive next to one paragraph. Then there were a couple of equally sloppy "ha's" in several spots. And it concluded with one of my hallmark phrases: "This text is rich with potential." Of course, they even got themselves a copy of the rubric and proceeded to score themselves a perfect 50/50. Imagine that! 

Finally, a personal school related high light was having my essay "The Myth of Teacher" published in What Teaching Means: Stories from America's Classrooms. It has been quite an asset to be able to share with the students all of my drafts that I went through in order to arrive at the final draft. Then I even have .pdf copies of drafts the publishers sent back with comments and requested revisions. The best part, though, is that I always tell the students that I actually submitted two essays to the publishers. The first one was a much longer and much better (or so I thought) piece. However, they didn't select that one. They selected the essay that I submitted almost as an after thought. So there's a lesson for them: sometimes they author is not the best critic of their own writing!