“Celebrate the little victories…often!”

The title of this page is a quote from my principal. Needless to say as a first-year teacher, I have had my share of minor mental breakdowns this year, some in the privacy of my classroom, car, or bedroom, others in public view of supervisors, colleagues, and occasionally…students! After one such breakdown, Principal Principal encouraged me to look for the small ways each student succeeds. In this vein, here are some victories of late:

1. Last week, one of my classes busied itself illustrating a life-size, 2-D man with representations of the mental images brought to mind by Ray Bradbury’s collection of soft science fiction short stories, The Illustrated Man. While circulating the room to check progress and encourgae detail, I overheard one group of students discussing how the hands should be illustrated. One girl suggested, “We should put a sun in the right hand to represent the setting of the sun in the West since the West symbolizes death in literature and most of these stories are pessemistic. We can put the moon and stars in the left hand.” My heart spilled over with joy. She used multiple vocabulary words and remembered not only the stories but the moods, tones, and symbols that resonated throughout.
2. Today one of my classes began learning the background information about Shakespeare and Elizabethan England so that tomorrow we can jump into meeting characters from Romeo and Juliet. After viewing a short cartoon and perusing information from BrainPop.com and Folger’s Shakespeare Library, the class took an online quiz and made a 90 percent on the first try! Also, we finished the final sentence of the notes ONE SECOND before the bell. It was basically the perfect class.
3. My other class finished the Romeo and Juliet unit this week with multiple activities including a journal entry relating the “star-cross’d lovers” to Stephenie Meyer’s more recent young couple, Bella and Edward, a final test taken in PowerPoint on individual laptops, and a day of musical reflection, finding songs with allusions to or themes shared with Romeo and Juliet. Students who tend not to be engaged worked diligently. Songs from a variety of genres and dealing with a range of themes were delivered to my box. Explanations that not only recalled events of the story but also analyzed details and author messages made me smile.

Overall, it’s been a good couple of weeks!