March 22 (Wed.)

I’ve been thinking about the problem with my novice kids, and while I don’t have a real solution completely worked out, I think I have an idea that might help. It’s really fitting nicely that we are moving into poetry on Mon. because that is going to be the key to all of this working out. I think what I will do is move them into a group together (oh yeah, we went back to groups last week when we started the play and they are hanging on pretty well-I think Jaime ruined more than I ever imagined…). Each class we will have a short period of time where each group gets a poem and a hand out based on the skill or strategy for the day. The novice girls will get a pronunciation exercise that is couched in a poem. SO… Lynn and I will be able to circulate like always, guiding each group through their individual processes, and then when they complete the task, they will present their poem and the way they used their skill/strategy to the group. The novice kids can do the same thing (making them included and part of the class) but they will share the pronunciation piece they learned as their strategy. This is going to take MOUNTAINS of planning… Maybe I can figure out a form for the main group where the strategy and the poem change, but the general format stays the same. This would also help them be more sure about what they are supposed to do, since the majority of this will be student-led. I’ll have to model it for everyone on the first day, Monday??? I’ve already got a lot of stuff from previous years, but I’m going to have to re-work things to meet this mold…
Class today… read Popo and Ixtla- Gabby volunteered to pronounce the Spanish words for us, Janet told us about how the mountains are really real. Minah was completely lost since we didn’t have time to go through the story earlier as a small group. Minah and Sumaya will go through the story again with Lynn during homework help, which will also get Johanna and Claudia caught up, since I finally had to break down and write them up for cheating for the 100th time. They are so blatant about it. I’m really surprised that they are continuing to copy each other. I am beginning to think this could be some kind of cultural thing, but this has really been the only year I’ve had a problem with it. Steven, who is in a completely different class, has been cheating as well, and he claims that copying an answer (off a TEST) is the same as raising his hand and asking me the question. He did say that when he asks a question during a test, that teachers don’t just give the answer, but might help him understand the question better, but he persisted in arguing that his copying wasn’t wrong. I’m going to have to talk to someone else about this.