January 26

I can't believe how fast this week has gone by! I got a chance to do a lot of observing and helping out in classrooms. It was nice because I was able to see different teaching styles and techniques, but also just being in a different level and seeing the type of things that are done in each of these levels. On Wednesday Kim and I took a tour of the high school. I really enjoyed it. It was nice for me because the level I'm working with now will be going to high school next year and I was able to get a feeling for what they needed to know and how it will be like for them. In our classroom, we have continued to do a little bit of Shakespeare, however, we've begun to put more emphasis on Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales. Yesterday I taught a lesson on the Canterbury Tales. It was quite the challenge for me because I had never read them before. I enjoyed it, however, and I think the kids enjoyed it as well. Last week I had read them one story from Canterbury Tales so they could get a little bit of exposure to it. Yesterday I then reviewed why Chaucer wrote the Tales and the story that I had read last week. We then talked about modernizing stories and how directors or authors do this. Because they've been working a lot with Shakespeare I gave the example of A Midsummer Night's Dream and how the modern version of that was done in the movie Ten Things I Hate About You. The students were also able to come up with many more examples. We came to the conclusion that many of Shakespeare and Chaucer's writings and story lines have carried on in modern movies and books. I then let the students choose a group they wanted to work with and gave them one of Chaucer's stories from the Canterbury Tales. They were to read the stories with their groups and then try to modernize it. They haven't finished them yet but a lot of them have come up with great ideas. Many of the groups are using famous people as their present day characters. I'm excited to read them when they are done. Yesterday afternoon I joined the P4 and 5's for a Burns Dinner. Because it was Robert Burns Day these classes celebrated by putting on a traditional Burns dinner, complete with haggis and turnips. I tried a little bit of the haggis. It wasn't too bad but it definitely won't become one of my favorite foods. Today we continued writing our stories, had math, and this afternoon the students are watching the movie A Midsummer Night's Dream. The students were given an assignment last week to write out 10 questions and answers on Wisconsin and then we play a game with it. However, even though they were given it last week and they've been reminded throughout the week about this assignment more than half of them forgot to do it or just didn't do it. This really bothered me because at this age they need to start taking some responsibility for their homework. Because of this, we are not going to play the game today and instead the ones that didn't finish or didn't do it won't be able to watch the movie. Instead during this time they will have to come up with their questions and answers. I talked this over with my cooperating teacher, Mrs. Higson, and she completely agreed with me. She said that many of them always refuse to do homework and they need to start growing up a bit. The students may be mad at me for this, but it is their responsibility.

Last night, Kim and I joined many of the teachers and went to a movie. It was a lot of fun and it was great getting to know many of them better. This weekend is going to be pretty laid back. Tomorrow we will be travelling to Kelso to go to the castle and go shopping and then Sunday we may head to Edinburgh for a while and then just work on lessons and relax the rest of the day.