Student Teaching Weekly Log Name: Lexie Kurovski

1.

Week 2/10-2/14

How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have? I started teaching full time this week. I was a little nervous, simply because I havent taught or taken a class in poetry in a long time. Even though the material is simple, I still wanted to make sure I was providing the information to the students in the best way possible. The first day went fairly well. I started the week off with a cartoon activity that students seemed to really enjoy. However, by the second day, the students had me a little worried. My students seemed to understand how to interpret a poem when questions were asked of them. However, when I asked for them to transfer their interpretation into their own words, they really struggled. I talked to Mrs. Titus about my concerns and we discussed how we could possibly scaffold the students with their writing assignments. We developed a plan for next week and I definitely felt better about the situation. The rest of the week seemed to go rather well. Students enjoyed writing their own poems. 2. What were your most satisfying AND your most challenging experiences? I felt that I got to work one on work with several students. They seemed rather confused about particular assignments, but once I spoke to them individually, the assignments seemed to really click. I enjoyed this one-on-one and small group time. I feel that I am getting to know my students and therefore, am getting better at fulfilling their needs and answering their questions. I would have to say that my most challenging issue this week is exactly what I talked about in question one. I didnt necessarily want to backtrack and re-teach the students concrete poetry. They seem to understand the poetry, but struggle with transferring their thoughts to paper. However, I am glad I came to this realization as early as I have, because I now have a main goal for the next couple of weeks. I want to teach students how to transfer their thoughts and reasoning to paper. 3. What are the plans for the upcoming week? Next week is another poetry week. We will be studying figurative language concepts like similes, personification, symbols and metaphors. I am excited to teach these lessons in hopes of helping students master figurative language as well as interpret/analyze poems in an effective way. Monday is a professional development day for me. Therefore, I will only be teaching four days next week.