Sunday, March 12, 2006

Sunday night, not ready for tomorrow

Okay, so it's been raining like you wouldn't believe, unless of course you are in California, then of course you'd believe it, but I digress...

Because it's been raining, I've put off going into school until now, which is too late to go into school. I don't have tomorrow well-planned; let's face it, I don't have tomorrow planned.

Eek.

Back in the good old days, before standards and NCLB and drilling and killing my students with tests, I could wing it once in a while. Not often mind you, but I could carry a whole day just on the seat of my pants. No longer.

See, my reading class just goes slogging through the Corrective reading book, so I don't have real planning for that. My Honors classes ( I have three of 'em), now there's another story. We had their mini-research reports last week, and we are all off schedule now. Second period still has two groups that need to present, due to absences. In addition, I've not finished going over their abysmal Theme quiz with them. Of course, the fact that it was the first scan-tron test I've ever given, and the fact that the teacher's key had two mistakes in the first ten questions, and the fact that I didn't check it until after the quiz when almost 95% of all the students got question #1 and question # 5 incorrect, contributed to their terrible scores. Anyway, I'm writing another test for them, but can't give it tomorrow because I've not reviewed it with all of the classes.

Do I sound a bit manic? I feel that way. Two weeks until Spring Break, two weeks of freedom, then two weeks until the STAR testing. Am I going to get everything they're supposed to know in by then? No, not if I'm winging it.

Okay, so my fourth period class did finish all the presentations, but need to go over the quiz too. My sixth period, now there's a great bunch of kids. They have just one presentation to do, but have finished going over the quiz.

What can I plan to bring it all together? I know the quiz will be Tuesday, so I need to get it written, but what do I do tomorrow?

Next up is poetry and poetic forms. It's going to be different from how I've usually done it.

(Thanks to nobodyknows over at reflective teacher.)

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