moving through...

So today's post is still about school. Or at least learning. But it isn't about the heat. Yes, it is still warm in my classroom, but it isn't the opressive, pass-out-from-the-heat that it was yesterday. Yes, the administrators came and sampled for themselves. They are looking out for me, and my students.

So, what about learning??? Well, I am doing it. I had an ah-ha moment today. One of the learning strategies that we learned about for struggling students is sorting. I decided that sorting would be a good technique to use with the parts of speech, part of the 9th grade standards and benchmarks. Today my classes did the sorting activity, and wow, it really seemed to help them get a handle on nouns, and the different types of nouns. Pat on my back, lol.

The ah-ha moment was the realization that they were grabbing the handle, and climbing aboard the knowledge train, not using the handle to swing madly about the knowledge train they were already comfortable with. The revelation was that here is a beginning, there is the end. What am I gonna do to get them the rest of the way??? I think it has to do with use and construction, not deconstruction. I really want these students to get a handle on construction, so that they can use that construction knowledge to make sense of already constructed sentences. REALLY put the parts of speech to work for them over the next 9 weeks or so.

I'll let you know how it goes.