Student Teaching Weekly Log ! Name:!Katie Kalmes ! Week 2: !02/10 - 02/14! ! 1.!

How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have? This week I did a lot of mirror teaching and solo teaching. Beginning on our block days (tuesday and wednesday) I mirror taught a lesson on ballad poetry. Sandra taught one period, I did her last two and then Rob taught one and I taught his other creative writing period. It was nice modeling both of them because they both had different ways of talking about the assignment. Each used the same prompt but they had different background stories and tips for the students. On Thursday, I taught a lesson I created on reverso poems. Reverso poems are when the lines of the rst poem make up the second poem but the lines are reversed (the rst line of poem #1 is the last of #2, and the second is the second to last etc.). I had the students brainstorm a class list of fairy tales and nursery rhymes then from there we went over examples and I showed them the reverso poem that I wrote. I think showing them an example of what I did was very helpful for them - gave them the feeling that even though these poems are difcult, its possible.! ! 2.! What were your most satisfying and challenging experiences? I think one of the most satisfying experiences this week was the reverso poem lesson. First off, I was very proud of the poem I wrote. I am not a creative writing person, I have never taken a creative writing class so attempting these projects and lesson plans have been very eye-opening for me. I like how this placement pushes me to learn something new. I think it also gives me an advantage when teaching the kids - I can think about what I needed to learn to understand a type of poetry then apply it to my lesson for them. The most challenging experience has been starting to write my unit for next month when I will be teaching short stories in creative writing. I know what I need to do but coming up with exciting and new ways to teach the content has been time-consuming and a little difcult.! 3.! What are the plans for the upcoming week? This week !I will be teaching an entire lesson that I created (in creative writing) on

sonnets. I have planned a gradual release of responsibility lesson in which I model a think-aloud, we complete an analysis of a poem together, they try their hand at analyzing two modern examples in pairs then they have to write a sonnet on their own (which is due next week).

Student Teaching Weekly Log ! Name:!Katie Kalmes ! Week 3: !02/17 - 02/21! ! 1.! How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have? This week was a short week due to a snow day and no school on friday but I taught a lesson I created on sonnets Tuesday and Wednesday (block days) in Creative Writing. I think the lesson went very well. There were denitely things I could have changed or thought out more but I think overall it was successful. We will see how well the students understood the lesson when they turn in their sonnets later this week. I also introduced the days activity in one period of Creative Writing. ! 2.! What were your most satisfying and challenging experiences? I think one of the most satisfying experiences this past week was teaching my own lesson. I taught the lesson in 4 periods of Creative Writing. I was really happy with how it turned out. I think I was well prepared as far as planning goes. My lesson would have been perfect (timing) for a skinny day but due to the snow day, our plans had to change. I would also say that teaching on a block day and (almost) all of my mentor teachers creative writing periods was the most challenging. It was nerve-wracking the rst two times I taught it for multiple reasons. One, I had the jitters in general. It was the rst time I was teaching the period completely on my own without mirroring my mentors. And two, I taught my lesson in a period that I am not teaching for my student teaching. Because I have two mentor teachers, I split my time with the two of them and take only certain periods of theirs. It was like I was a substitute, I came in not knowing any of the students and had to get up

there and teach. It was challenging as well as satisfying.! !! 3.! What are the plans for the upcoming week? This week, our creative writing periods are nishing up the poetry unit so they are creating a booklet, of sorts, of different examples of poetry that speak to the same theme. I will start bell to bell teaching in creative writing starting next week so most of my time will be spent planning my unit.

Student Teaching Weekly Log ! Name:!Katie Kalmes ! Week 8: !03/24 - 03/28 ! 1.! How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have? In Modern British Literature this week, I started my unit and bell to bell teaching. Monday, Mr. Schebel nished his unit on Frankenstein then on Tuesday I took over. I begin with an introduction of the history of the time period, I introduced their!literature circle assignment and then we started going over poetry, specically!Dover Beach and!Tears, Idle Tears. In Creative Writing we focused on characterization and building characters. On Monday I went through a powerpoint on the different kinds of characterization and a prezi on the different types of characters in a story. On Tuesday, they continued creating their character that they started on Monday then we did Fiction Character Speed Dating and I introduced their character sketch assignment. The rest of the week, we watched and analyzed an episode of!Twilight Zone and I gave them lab time to work on their sketches that are!due Monday night.! 2.! What were your most satisfying and challenging experiences? I would say that the most satisfying experience was the Fictional Character Speed Dating Activity. I think the students responded really well to the activity. It was a fun way to get them talking and interacting with each other while at the same time seeing if the character they created was a round character (i.e. did they generate

enough information about their character for him/her to drive a story, a ! plot line ! to have relationship with other characters etc.) I would say the most challenging experience has proven to be grading. I assigned them a ! preliminary ! short story to write right before spring break and getting all of those graded has been difcult. Mostly because I dont have time. When I do have!free time Im planning or Im completing required homework for my night class etc. I think I am slightly going insane with everything that student teaching entails. I ! love it, dont get me wrong its just a big change from ! the rest of my college career and its a lot to take on when you have other responsibilities. I just keep focusing on what I can do that day and try and get as!much done as possible. I understand now why it always took my teachers so long to grade stuff. !! 3.! What are the plans for the upcoming week? Next week in Modern British Literature, we will continue analyzing poetry, they will take a quiz on Tuesday. I will then assign them their !novel for lit circles and we will go over the requirements for that. Then we will continue with poetry and I think I am going to have them complete a jigsaw activity where they analyze different works of poetry and teach each other about it. In Creative Writing, I am going to be giving them extra time to work on their character sketches then we will be moving into our study of point of view. We will be doing different writing activities in class where we practice manipulating point of view and then we will be looking at different childrens stories and how they employ point of view. The assessment for the week will be a manipulation of a point of view as evidenced in a childrens story.

Student Teaching Weekly Log ! Name:!Katie Kalmes ! Week 10: !04/07- 04/11 ! 1.! How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have? In Modern British Literature this week, we went over our!quizzes, and continued to go over poetry. On Tuesday, students met with their literature circle for the rst

time and it went really well. We then worked on going through two more short poems. On Thursday we read our rst short story and discussed it on Friday. In Creative Writing we learned about setting and how it affects different elements of a story. Earlier in the week we nished our practice with point of view in which students were in groups and had to rewrite a fairytale so it was told by an unreliable rst person narrator. On Thursday and Friday we went over!The Adventure of the German Student which is a short story by Washington Irving. 2.! What were your most satisfying and challenging experiences? I would say the most satisfying experience was watching the fairytale presentations. Many of the student groups got really creative with the project and performed very entertaining renditions of classic stories. The ! most challenging experience was getting students to participate in MBL discussions. Most of the time my students are really good about ! participating but rst period a few times this week was rough - it was like pulling teeth.! !! 3.! What are the plans for the upcoming week? Next week in MBL we will be!starting our mini-unit on Sherlock in which we read an original short story then watch a lm adaptation. In Creative Writing we will nish setting and mood with a short exercise. Then we will turn to a discussion of dialogue and how to properly punctuate it.!