Overheard at GCTE

"My friend saw this at High Schools that Work and she's doing it with her 10th graders...." 

There were only about 175 people at this conference.  They offered 10 different presentations each section.  I had just over 30 at mine.  It went really well.  Four books (my new 3rd Edition!) and three mini-units were purchased.  What was most exciting was to be able to share student samples and talk about how my kids are actually doing (which is great by the way!).

However, I am now dying to know who this young lady's friend was.  I didn't know I had any tenth grade classes....  Anyone, anyone?

GCTE

Tomorrow morning I am presenting at the Georgia Council of Teachers of English.  This promises to be a smaller group than High Schools that work, but I am just as excited.  I have so much more to share this time.  Student samples, anecdotes, and actual results....  I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.

Assessment and Discussion

So, the kids had their first assessment last week.  I did it a little different.  There were three parts.  The first part was the night before.  The TOD.  The question was based on the episode 109: Home in regards to Dean's talk with his dad on the phone and did that play to our expectations and Dean's archetype.  Then on test day the students did a 25 question multiple choice test.  After that they got to watch the episode 110: Asylum, with out stopping except for prediction question and the graphic organizer was due at the end of the period as the third part of the test grade. 

I was nervous about what I would get without the stopping or the opportunity to go over the episode.  In terms of the TOD writing and the EGO, however, the kids were amazing.  The ideas, concepts and analysis were spot on and very advanced.  The multiple choice test was not as good, but I think some of the questions were as much my fault as theirs...  Lots to go through.

But I have lots of time.  We have the next two weeks off (through President's Day) for a Winter Break.  I will be attending the Georgia Thespians Conference this weekend with my drama students in Columbia, GA and then the following weekend I will be presenting at the Georgia Council of Teacher's of English Annual Conference at Callaway Gardens (Pine Mountain, GA).  Hopefully I can get changed made to update the book and I will have new editions to be available at the conference.