Middle School TA

Today in class students worked on Where I’m from poems. Which are exactly what they sound like. My day was mostly spent grading more poems which I can’t lie I am getting a little bored of. Students also worked on their poetry final project which is students finding a poem they enjoy about anything and then they take a picture of the poem on the object or bring the object if it can go into school. I actually did this project when I was a student at MMS. Mine was about a brain and I made a brain out of bubble wrap. Sadly the project is due Wednesday so I won’t be able to see all of their projects. I worked from 7:45 am to 3:00 pm. I have now worked 80 hrs and 45 minutes in total.

After working at MMS for two weeks I don't have a perfect but a pretty good understanding of how it feels to teach. Over my time I have graded essays, poems, interviews, and homework. I have been able to do more than I believed I would when I planned my project out. I was also gifted with the opportunity to stay later two days this week for Mrs. Westerbacks extra help club where I was able to help students in more subjects than just English. All of our students are so much fun to work with. I was able to teach multiple classes this week where I was in control of the smart board and students. I would start by explaining the lesson to students and giving them examples to respond to. I would then walk around the class and read through student's answers and when I felt that they all had good ones I would go back to the front of the class and continue with the lesson. I think that this was an excellent way to teach the lessons because It taught students the skill they needed and the

Today In classes students worked on a figurative language quiz. Which was a quiz on all of the work that students have been working on since I arrived at MMS. The quiz contained all the types of poetry we learned. It was structured as multiple choice for interpreting poem sections and then filling in the blank for word choice/ personification. Finally, a couple of sections containing write your own small poems. The quiz was pretty lengthy and the majority of students spent most of the class working on the quiz.  I worked from 7:45 am to 2:00 pm. I have now worked 73 hrs and 30 minutes in total.

Today we worked on word choices in poems. Since the beginning of the poetry unit, they have been collecting and placing all of their poems in a slideshow. I have read through and graded them multiple times along with Mrs. Westerback. After having about 7 poems Mrs. Westerback decided that it would be a good idea to spend a class revising and changing words in students' poems. Because we are working with 6th graders you can’t just ask them to revise, you need to show them how and give them examples. We did this by taking poems and putting blank places inside of the poems and asking students to fill in their answers with vivid words. I also spent a lot of my time grading the homework from yesterday which allowed me to see if I was able to get through to students. The good news is that most students seem to understand it with almost no missing homework with most of it being completed correctly. I worked from 7:45 am to 3:00 pm. I have now worked 67 hrs and 15 minutes in total.

Today in classes we worked on personification. Mrs. Westerback used the slideshow that I worked on last Friday. It was a very proud moment to see the slideshow and examples I came up with on the board teaching the students. The way the slideshow was structured was that students would read through one-line examples of personification and then move to personification poems where they responded to two longer ones. Finally into creating their own personification poems. Classes today were also shortened due to aimsweb testing which is another type of Standardized testing. Sadly unlike last week, we didn’t get to watch a movie with students not taking it because all students were taking it today. During mid-morning In Mrs. Westerback and I’s homeroom we met for the test which was long and boring. After aimsweb we went back to classes as normal but a little shorter. I got to teach my own class today by running the board, questions, walking around, and checking students' work. Mrs. Westerb

Today in classes we focused on two main topics. The first topic was lie poems where students worked on how to write a poem using lies. For example I love when there is no coffee in the morning. Students seemed to really enjoy these types of poems because you are saying the opposite of what you mean. Our second main topic was alliteration. Students read through example poems of alliteration and tried to see where they could see it. After working to figure out what alliteration was they then worked on their own to create alliteration in their own poems. We then moved into the final part of the lesson which was preparing students for a figurative language test. We did this by working through a study guide containing examples of personification, Metaphors, similes, hyperbole, and onomatopoeia. I worked from 7:45 am to 4:00 pm. I have now worked 52 hrs and 45 minutes in total.

In class students today focused on similes in poems. This lesson proved to be easier for students to understand due to working on metaphors before. To understand similes we used poems containing similes as examples for how students can write their own similes within poems. Students towards the end of classes also worked on editing some of their previous poems. I also worked on grading poetry interviews from last Monday for Mrs. Westerback in my free time. I was also given the opportunity to watch/control the students' Chromebooks. This was a very interesting job for me to revive because I could see what every student was working on and I could shut tabs unrelated to class. I also stayed after school today to work with Mrs. Westerbacks extra help group after school. This was a cool experience because I got to help students with other subjects and not only English. I worked from 7:45 am to 4:00 pm. I have now worked 44 hrs and 30 minutes in total.

Over the past week, I have worked with my old middle school English teacher Mrs. Westerback. I have been her TA and shadow. Throughout my week I have learned much more than I believed I would. On my first day, I was gifted the opportunity to grade some essays from a little before I arrived. I graded about 75 essays on my first day and was just absolutely burnt out. On the second day, we had Standardized testing for most of the morning but normal classes in the afternoon. Wednesday Was a really fun day because I got to Teach my own class with the help of a substitute teacher. During the class I covered students began to feel more relaxed around me and began asking questions related to class and related to me personally. After teaching that class students began to wave to me in the hallways and talk to me when they saw me. This made coming to work a lot more fun for me. I have always enjoyed spending time with Mrs. Westerback but now it's double as fun with the students as well. Thur

Today in class students worked on how to write poems easily by writing Just Because stanzas and turning them into poems. The objective of the lesson was to work in opposites. For Example, a poem would start with just because I am ____ and would lead to three lines where you say I am not ___. After writing one or two students would extend the poem into multiple stanzas. After completing Just Because Poems students moved to create I don’t understand poems which work basically the same as Just Because poems but it is a different way for students to think about writing stanza poems. During classes, Mrs. Westerback asked me to work on a simile personification slideshow for classes in a few days. I had a hard time finding poems that accurately worked with the lesson but I had a lot of fun working on it and reading tons of different poems.  I worked from 7:45 am to 3:00 pm. I have now worked 36 hrs and 15 minutes in total.

Today in class we worked on I see poems to learn how to put imagery into poems. Students began by reading multiple different poems with examples of imagery.  Then students would write down all of the senses they feel in a place. After writing down what you see, what you feel, touch, and so on you delete the I part and it becomes showing and no longer telling. In one class we worked on extended metaphors because we didn’t work on it with this class yesterday. During this class, Mrs. Westerback had a normal teacher evaluation where one of the school administrators stepped in to watch her teach. She originally had all classes doing extended metaphors but switched this class's lessons because the extended metaphors are a much more interactive activity. Switching the lessons was a great decision considering the teacher's evaluation. I worked from 7:45 am to 3:00 pm. I have now worked 29 hours in total.

Today in class we worked on extended metaphor poems. Which is a continuation of what we worked on Monday. We also spent a large portion of class guessing metaphors in poems. This was a very fun and interactive activity where Mrs Westerback would put a poem up on the board and students would have to guess what it is a metaphor for. It was interesting to see students interpret the poems in different ways. Also after working here for three days I am becoming reaccustomed to the school. I had forgotten that every day they stand up and say the pledge of allegiance. I think it’s interesting that we don’t say it at all at proctor although we aren't a public school we are still an American school And honestly I believe we should say it at some point in the day. I spent a large portion of the middle of my day grading poems that were written over the last two days. I covered one of Mrs. Westerbacks class with a sub because she had meetings to go to. I had an amazing time and basically taught

Today some students had to work on finishing their SBAC, which is the standardized test in Connecticut. Mrs Westerback her homeroom class and I watched inside out to keep the students not taking tests occupied like the other teachers were. During the regular course, we worked on I-Wish poems where students would write a 7-line poem using the same start for each line. To help students think more about creating poetry and planning what they want to write a poem about. While watching class I realized how much things have changed since I was in sixth grade with all of the work being mostly on chrome books now. students today needed help staying focused and on task which makes sense because of having to sit down so long this morning due to SBAC. I worked from 7:45 am to 3:00 pm.

Today was quite exciting. I worked with Mrs. Westerback through 5 classes and her lunch shift, where we walked through the cafeteria watching the students. In class students began a poetry unit. I spent most of my day helping Mrs. Westerback grade papers. I graded about 4 classes with about 20 students per class. I am exhausted. I worked from 7:45 am to 3:00 pm.