First days with students
The Spring 2019 semester starts on Monday, so I thought it would be cool to talk about what I am doing with my students for the first week. of school.
Normally, I would jump right into the curriculum and just treat it like any other week but I decided that I needed to work more on general skills that my students will need to be successful in my class and beyond. Therefore, this week we are working on reading, annotating, analyzing documents, and writing. These four skills are essential to get through my class, but also will help them in their other classes, college, and life. I am going to go through each day of next week so you can get a peek into what I am doing.
Monday - My goal for today is to learn my students, for them to become comfortable, and for them to understand my class. I am a tough teacher and they already know that coming in, so I like to alleviate some of their anxiety by showing that I am a human, not just a homework giving machine. We will have a fun bellringer to discuss, we will talk about the syllabus and class expectations, and we will be doing a BreakoutEdu game. In this breakout game, the students are applying for college and have to beat the game in order to unlock their reference letters to finish their application. The breakout game is designed for them to get comfortable with each other and build a class community.
Tuesday - We will be talking about reading, annotating, and analyzing a document. First, we will take some notes on how to analyze a document, then they will practice annotating the Gettysburg address. Then they will get their DBQ for the week. We will use the DBQ to continue practice, reading, analyzing, and annotating, and then we will use it to learn about writing skills. My Civics students are doing a DBQ on the Syrian War and my American History I students are doing a DBQ on Exploration. I'm giving it to them today so that they can practice annotating the documents for homework.
Wednesday - We will learn what a DBQ is, how to write a DBQ, and what our particular DBQ is about. This will be all of my students' first time seeing a DBQ so I imagine they will be pretty confused as to what to do. It is an essay that they will write answering a question that is based on the documents that I have given them. So today they will learn how to sort the documents, how to formulate their thesis, and what the parameters of the DBQ assignment are.
Thursday - We will learn how to write an introduction and conclusion paragraph. We will also go over the outline of a typical DBQ essay and how to properly cite documents in the essay. This is important because most of them have not written an essay up to this point in high school, so they need to build these skills to help them not only in my class but in their other classes. My goal for this day is that they have an understanding of how to write and complete the DBQ so that they can have a writer's workshop tomorrow.
Friday - This is Writers Workshop day! We will listen to some soothing music, they can feel free to bring a little snack, and they will spend the day writing their DBQ. This way I am available to them if they have any questions or want me to proofread a part of their essay. We are handwriting this essay because I wanted to stay away from technology this week - it's only 5-6 paragraphs so it won't be too strenuous to handwrite.
That's the week! I really hope that that teaching these skills in depth during the first week will help make the rest of the semester run smoothly. We read and write every day, so it's important that they know how to do this the right way.
Normally, I would jump right into the curriculum and just treat it like any other week but I decided that I needed to work more on general skills that my students will need to be successful in my class and beyond. Therefore, this week we are working on reading, annotating, analyzing documents, and writing. These four skills are essential to get through my class, but also will help them in their other classes, college, and life. I am going to go through each day of next week so you can get a peek into what I am doing.
Monday - My goal for today is to learn my students, for them to become comfortable, and for them to understand my class. I am a tough teacher and they already know that coming in, so I like to alleviate some of their anxiety by showing that I am a human, not just a homework giving machine. We will have a fun bellringer to discuss, we will talk about the syllabus and class expectations, and we will be doing a BreakoutEdu game. In this breakout game, the students are applying for college and have to beat the game in order to unlock their reference letters to finish their application. The breakout game is designed for them to get comfortable with each other and build a class community.
Tuesday - We will be talking about reading, annotating, and analyzing a document. First, we will take some notes on how to analyze a document, then they will practice annotating the Gettysburg address. Then they will get their DBQ for the week. We will use the DBQ to continue practice, reading, analyzing, and annotating, and then we will use it to learn about writing skills. My Civics students are doing a DBQ on the Syrian War and my American History I students are doing a DBQ on Exploration. I'm giving it to them today so that they can practice annotating the documents for homework.
Wednesday - We will learn what a DBQ is, how to write a DBQ, and what our particular DBQ is about. This will be all of my students' first time seeing a DBQ so I imagine they will be pretty confused as to what to do. It is an essay that they will write answering a question that is based on the documents that I have given them. So today they will learn how to sort the documents, how to formulate their thesis, and what the parameters of the DBQ assignment are.
Thursday - We will learn how to write an introduction and conclusion paragraph. We will also go over the outline of a typical DBQ essay and how to properly cite documents in the essay. This is important because most of them have not written an essay up to this point in high school, so they need to build these skills to help them not only in my class but in their other classes. My goal for this day is that they have an understanding of how to write and complete the DBQ so that they can have a writer's workshop tomorrow.
Friday - This is Writers Workshop day! We will listen to some soothing music, they can feel free to bring a little snack, and they will spend the day writing their DBQ. This way I am available to them if they have any questions or want me to proofread a part of their essay. We are handwriting this essay because I wanted to stay away from technology this week - it's only 5-6 paragraphs so it won't be too strenuous to handwrite.
That's the week! I really hope that that teaching these skills in depth during the first week will help make the rest of the semester run smoothly. We read and write every day, so it's important that they know how to do this the right way.
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