A Day in the Life...

Today I'm going to blog about my day as a high school English teacher--the ups, downs, ins and outs of a regular old day on the job. Kind of a live blog, but not really, because I can't actually blog and teach at the same time. But I'll be updating this in draft form throughout the day, and post it at the end.

7:20 am
Got to school later than I would've liked. My schedule today: teaching first three blocks. Already prepped for my first block class (Honors British Literature), but I need to photo-copy a packet for my second block class, and I won't have time in between. Throw the packet on the copier and get to class--I can swing back by the copy room and get it between classes (assuming someone doesn't remove to someplace I can't find).

7:30 am (Class: Honors British Literature, Grade 12, twenty students)
Into the classroom. The lights are off and a student (one of my goofier ones) is standing across the room, opposite the door, wearing a sombrero and rings a bell (the type that you ring at a hotel desk) when I walk in.
Apparently I'm not as surprised as he hoped I would be. Switch on the lights and set my stuff up in the front of the room. Sombrero and bell go back into closet where he found them. Less than half the class is there at the bell because traffic is backed up all over town--roads are still closed due to all the rain and flooding over the weekend. I sit and chat with the folks who are there for a few minutes as people filter in.

7:40 am
Finally, most of the class is present and settled in, so time to get started. We're talking about the symbolism of the chestnut tree that's been struck by lightning and split in half in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Yesterday they worked on drawings of that image as a way of close reading the passage--no, not artsy fartsy, just an effective way to get them to pay careful attention to every detail of the text, and to give them a chance to work the creative sides of their addled teenage brains after a few consecutive days of intensive analysis, reading, writing, and discussion of other parts of the book. Now, they're using their drawings (and each others') as a way into the symbolism of the passage. Really nice discussion ensues, although only about a third of the kids are really speaking up--others are listening, but maybe a little too uncertain (or sleepy) to talk.

8:00 am
Wrap up the discussion, make an impromptu change to the class agenda--we were going to talk about Bertha Mason (Jane Eyre's famous "mad woman in the attic"), but I've decided to put it off until next week so we can give that topic its due attention. I haven't assigned any new reading for hw, so it'll help us catch up too.

For the second half of class we're working on our "whole-class" essay. They've been assigned an individual 2-page close reading essay on a passage of their choice in Jane Eyre, to be submitted any time they like up to Fri 3/26 (not surprisingly, I haven't received any yet...). To help them with that, I modeled one possible approach to the assignment last week by walking them through my thought process in connecting some passages and finding one to write about. Then we brainstormed as a class, developed some notes and eventually a working thesis. My own"homework" for today had been to draft an introduction for our essay, so I present it to the class and ask for some feedback. They're always harsh critics when they get the chance. The intro's too long, they tell me, which might be true. Some students are hesitant to give their teacher feedback on his own writing, so I keep trying to couch it in terms of it being "our" essay, that we're co-authors. I worry they're not buying it, but I really do want it to be that.

8:14
At this point we're revisiting our thesis and about to start outlining where the essay should go from here when The Smell returns. The Smell is a pestilent odor that periodically permeates the two classrooms I teach in throughout the day. It's the school's septic system. The field outside our window is apparently the leaching field, and with all the rain, its been percolating on and off for the last couple of weeks. I tell the class it's an "effluvia of sewage," to use one of their Jane Eyre vocab words.

8:15
Smell unbearable. Students covering noses and mouths, might start retching. Odor is strong enough to impede thought. Class dismissed (ten minutes early). We can't stay here, and there's not enough time to find a new room or an odor-free spot outside. So it goes.

8:20
Back in the Eng. office. My Dept. Head comes in shortly after--he was teaching in the room next to mine and had to let his class go too. (They had been taking a test, and one student wanted to know if they could get their grades scaled because of the smell).

8:25
Now first block is officially over. As it turns out, I would have had time to make those copies between classes after all. Oh well. They're on the table in the copy room, so no problem. Gather my things and off to my next class, which meets in the same room as the last one.

8:28
I find my next class, college prep seniors (my sf&f class) in the room wrinkling their noses. Yes, I know it reeks in here.

8:30 (Class: Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, Grade 12, twenty-three students)
Two students enter to report that there's an empty classroom down the hall, and it doesn't smell there. I write a note on the whiteboard and we transplant to an empty science lab down the hall. This is better than I had been hoping; I was about to tell the class that we were going to go outside (it's gorgeous outside, and it smells inside) for class. But since they have a reading and writing assignment to work on in pairs for most of class, I open the side door in the classroom and let them sit just outside if they want to.

9:15
Students have been working hard--this is a good, surprisingly well-focused group of second-semester seniors. We just finished reading H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds this week, and we finished watching the Stephen Spielberg film adaptation (with Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning) yesterday. Next week we'll be listening to the infamous Orson Welles radio adaptation of the novel (the one that sent about 1.7 million Americans into panic). So right now the kids have been reading an article all about that strangely believable American cultural phenomenon. Some of them have also finished the discussion questions at the end, but most will have those for homework. In any case, I'm using the last ten minutes of class to start talking a bit about the movie. The question: If H.G. Wells was commenting on his contemporary society (1898 Great Britain) in his novel (we've been talking about the novel, and the genre of sf, as social commentary), what commentary is Stephen Spielberg making about New Millennial America in his film?

9:25
Discussion went nicely, even if brief. Next week we'll do a compare-and-contrast of the movie and the book to get a little deeper into how they each work as social commentary, I tell them. Of course, this is all going to lead into an investigation of the radio broadcast as a social commentary of its own, but they don't necessarily realize this yet.

9:30
Homeroom. After taking attendance and reading announcements, I check my email and see that the previous track coach has emailed me the school records, so I show them to a couple of the track athletes who are in my homeroom. We talk track for a bit.

9:40
Homeroom over. Third block starting in five minutes, which is my College Prep English 1 class (regular freshman English). Same classroom. I'm nervous about the smell. This class (25 students, 11 of whom are LD, ADD, or have an emotional disorder) will not really adapt quite so well to an unexpected change of location. Luckily, I get there and find the smell has dissipated.

9:45 (Class: College Prep English 1, Grade 9, twenty-five students, one classroom aide)
We're reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and we're currently in the middle of the Tom Robinson trial, the climax of one of the central conflicts of the book. To help keep track of all the details of the trial, the class today is going to work in groups to take notes on the evidence and witness testimonies. I give them a chart for their notes, separated into four boxes, one for each witness (Sheriff Heck Tate, Bob Ewell, Mayella Ewell, and Tom Robinson, the defendant). They haven't read Tom Robinson's testimony yet, so their groups (4 students each) are recording details about the first three witnesses.

10:15
The class has been working for about a half hour, mostly diligently. I always have to push them to use their books. (No, I don't expect you to have perfectly memorized everything you read for homework. Yes, I do want you to consult the text so you can record good and accurate details.) Part of it's laziness (Ohhhhhh, do I have to get it out of my bag?), part of it's forgetfulness (I think my book is at home), and part of it is general freshmen befuddledness (Wait, we can use our books?). In any event, with some pulling of teeth, a bit of whining, a few doses of distraction, and occasional bursts of productivity, all the groups of have finished.

As a way to go over their notes and initiate a discussion, I ask for a volunteer to put their notes on the projector. (Each English classroom is equipped with a document camera, which looks kind of like an old school overhead projector that you'd use with transparencies, only sleeker and flatter. It's hooked up to a ceiling mounted projector, so you can project an image of a page, or anything really, onto the screen). We get a volunteer for each character on the chart, and look at the notes generated by the volunteer's group. Kids offer feedback, additions, corrections, and questions.

10:30
We're still missing one witness's testimony: Tom Robinson. Their homework tonight is to read the next two chapters, the first of which contains Tom's testimony. So in the last ten minutes of class, we start reading that next chapter together in class and have time start taking a few notes on what he says (the fourth quadrant of their chart).

10:40
Bell rings. Have a nice weekend, we'll finish our notes on Tom on Monday, and then put together the evidence ourselves and play jury: what really happened?

10:45
Back at my desk in the English office. Done teaching for the day. Exhausted. Teaching first three blocks (7:30 - 10:40) is a haul. Need a few minutes to decompress: check email, read some headlines, look at a couple of blogs I read (like The Valve).

Just to explain, English teachers here teach a total of four classes, but one of those classes drops each day of the week, so we teach three a day. Every class then meets 4 times a week, and every four weeks (give or take) each class meets 3 times a week (when they drop both Monday and Friday). The class I didn't teach today was my second section of College Prep English 1, which is my smallest section, with seventeen students, but also my most difficult to manage class. When we do meet, it's in the afternoon, so I don't mind not having to teach them on Friday.

10:55
All right, back to work. Done teaching for the day, but still plenty to do. Specifically, since it's Friday, I need to fill out a progress report for each of my 25 students on IEPs. IEP stands for Individual Education Plans. Federal law mandates that every student with diagnosed special needs have an IEP, which details info about the disability, appropriate accommodations, learning goals, etc. Classroom teachers fill out a progress report for each of these students, which then goes to each students' special education teacher. Each progress report asks for quiz scores, test scores, number of absences and tardies, behavior, participation, upcoming assignments, and missing assignments.

As soon as I start filling out the progress reports I realize that I haven't finished grading two sets of freshmen quizzes that I want to report. Oy.

10:35-11:15ish
Grade quizzes.

11:15-11:45
Eat lunch (leftover rice with some leftover vegetables mixed in... Friday, Lent) in the English dept. There's no traditional "teacher's lounge" at this school, which is fine by me. Our department is one room with 12 desks (11 teachers + one secretary) and a big work/lunch/meeting table in the middle. We typically filter in and out during lunch block (an hour and a half class block, thirty minutes of which (either the first thirty, the middle thirty, or the last thirty) is lunch for teacher and student) and chat about classes, students, real life, or anything else.

11:45-1:00ish
Back to grading those quizzes. Occasional breaks for email, to talk with a colleague, etc.

1:00-1:15
Need a break from the quizzes. I use the last fifteen minutes of fifth block to do some copying for Monday's classes. (I pretty much already have planned what I'll be doing in those classes).

1:20
Last block. I have media center duty. (The "media center" is the library). That means I sit at a little desk in the "quiet group study area" and make sure groups of students actually remain quiet. Whispers only. Four to a table. Go to the commons, you're too loud and you're not studying.

It's an uncharacteristically gorgeous early spring afternoon, so I'm not expecting many kids to be inside studying last block on a Friday. But there are more than you'd think. As soon as I get there, I yell (not really) at them to go outside because it's beautiful. Some of them take my suggestion. Others don't and stay there to study. These are the kids who are smart about time management and will get all their homework done now so they don't have any during the weekend.

2:00
It's pretty quiet, not a lot of monitoring for me to do, so I'm able to finish up the quizzes. Now to fill out the reports...

2:15
Bell rings. School's over. I hustle over to the one special ed room that's off the media center. Then I put the rest in each special ed teacher's mailbox downstairs in the main office. Back to the English office to gather my stuff.

2:30
Change for track practice.

2:45-4:30
Track practice. Gorgeous weather! Great afternoon. Last day of "conditioning week" (the first week of practice) so we do "fun relays," which is basically more conditioning. :) After ten relay events (sprint, push-ups, sit-ups, squat-jumps, back-pedal, inch-worm, wheel-barrow, leapfrog, piggy-back, suicides), two teams are tied for first. Lots of drama. Tie-breaker is a bleacher stair run. That's too close to call. More drama. It's late, so I decide the tie will be broken at a later date.

5:20
Home!