8:15 -- The day begins with homeroom, the pledge of allegiance, and announcements.
8:20 -- This is the middle school where all classes rotate. Today's rotation starts with second period.
But there's something else going on today -- an assembly. Many secondary schools, including this school, have what is called an "assembly schedule." Instead of six periods, there are seven, with one of the classes duplicated. During the duplicated class, the school is divided in half, with one group attending the assembly while the other is in class. Then the two groups switch.
Since middle school in this district is Grades 7-8, dividing this school into two groups is trivial -- the first assembly is for seventh grade while the other is for eighth grade. Not every secondary school has the assembly periods at the start of the day, but this one does. And so at this point I take my seventh graders to the gym for their assembly.
The theme of this assembly is "Step It Up" -- the main school fundraiser of the year. Students ask their parents and other relatives (or "superfans") to donate to the school. The biggest donors earn "golden tickets" that can be redeemed for cash and prizes. The leader of the assembly even gives away some cash (two-dollar bills, with Jefferson's portrait) and other prizes (magic light-up thumbs and "octopod" selfie-sticks) to students who answer his "pop quiz" at the end of the assembly.
By the way, apparently another middle school in this district has already had this same "Step It Up" assembly weeks ago. When I subbed there, I saw some students with light-up thumbs and talking about golden tickets.
9:25 -- The assembly ends, and seventh graders return to class for the actual second period. The lesson plan begins with the students copying the agenda into their planners. Then the students are to read Chapter 2 of Ozymandias. Finally, they must answer some questions on Chromebooks.
But here's the problem -- the Chromebook cart is locked, and there's no way for me to open it. Thus I'm unable to follow the lesson plan for this period!
The lesson plan directs me to pass out Chromebooks at the start of class. Thus I decide to start with a song incentive as the students enter after the assembly -- I choose "Nine, Nine, Nine," as I associate it with this time of year (the ninth month, and also because I sang it at this time three years ago) -- and then tell them to take out the planners to copy the agenda. Only then do I realize that the Chromebook cart is locked.
So now it's impossible for the students to answer the questions on Chromebooks. I glance around the classroom quickly, looking not for a cart key (which the regular teacher probably has on her person), but a class set of Ozymandias books for the students to read. Not seeing such a stack, I reckon that the students are supposed to read Ozymandias on the Chromebooks as well. And so I figure that the entire day's lesson plan has been shot!
In the end, I have the students copy the agenda along with an extra sentence explaining that the sub is unable to unlock the Chromebook cart. Three students take out cell phones and actually answer some of the questions online, but they tell me that they can't read Chapter 2 of Ozymandias online. I write these three names on my good list for the teacher. Otherwise, I sing "Nine, Nine, Nine" for the class, since they all complete the required work (of writing two sentences in the agenda). In other words, it essentially becomes a free period.
10:15 -- Second period ends, and the students leave for snack. That's right -- due to the assembly, the students have only one class before snack and three classes before lunch. On the regular schedule, the students have two and four classes before snack and lunch, and on early day Wednesdays, they have three and five classes before snack and lunch respectively.
(By the way, earlier I implied that I didn't sub at this school on a Wednesday last year, and so I was unfamiliar with the Wednesday schedule. Double-checking some old blog posts from last year, I realize that actually, I did sub here on a Wednesday -- except that it was a rainy Wednesday, and so the schedule had been changed yet again to the rainy day schedule!)
10:25 -- Third period begins. This is the one class with a co-teacher. I explain to him my problems with the Chromebook cart, and so he borrows a cart from another classroom (in fact, it's the room I subbed in just last week).
Then he directs the students to take out their Ozymandias books and read Chapter 2. That's right -- the students actually have printed copies of the books all along! Yet earlier, not one student in second period bothers to tell me that they have books to read!
11:10 -- Third period leaves and fourth period arrives. There is no co-teacher, but of course by now I know that the students all have print books and Chromebooks to complete the lesson plan.
11:55 -- Fourth period leaves for lunch. The break extends into my fifth period conference.
1:25 -- Sixth period arrives. This is a different class for English learners. Actually, this class is double-blocked, covering both sixth and first period. So I have these students the rest of the day.
These students have a variety of short lessons. It begins with reading a short basic book on Exploring (and fortunately, I do find these on a "basic bookshelf" in the back corner) and ends with creating posters on a country that they want to visit (which includes how to get there and what they can see and hear there).
2:55 -- The English learner class ends, and so does my day.
Obviously, I'm less than satisfied about how my day begins today. There are issues here, starting with, is there anything I could have done about the locked Chromebook cart?
In some ways, it's the luck of the draw with the period rotation. If today had begun with third period, I would have had the co-teacher at the start of the day, and thus he would have been there to resolve the Chromebook issue at the start. On the other hand, if today had begun with fourth period, then I wouldn't have had the co-teacher until the end of the day. Then none of the other classes would have had Chromebooks, including the English learners (but at least there are obvious parts of their lesson that don't require computers).
The other issue is, what should I have done about not knowing whether the students have printed copies of the book or else need the Chromebooks to read the story? This problem occurred in some classes I subbed in years ago (before I created this blog) -- and in fact, it's related to the story of how I created the old Conjectures/"Who Am I?" game (which I mentioned in yesterday's post despite not having played it in class in some time).
A sub's common fear is to arrive in the classroom and the regular teacher has left no lesson plan. I'm glad that this doesn't happen much any more -- the office managers nowadays make extra effort to contact the teacher (perhaps by text/smartphone) and get a lesson plan. But years ago, I might arrive in a classroom without a plan at least once a week.
Sometimes it's suggested that subs simply ask students, "Where did you leave off in the book?" But while this might work in a second grade classroom, seventh graders and above will almost never cooperate in this situation. They realize that they can gain a much-coveted free period if they're as vague as possible.
Often, I'd arrive to sub on a Friday, and on the desk are lesson plans for Thursday only. This is because the teacher gets sick on a Thursday (or late Wednesday afternoon), thinks that she's only going to take Thursday off, then wakes up Friday and doesn't feel like coming in to work. (This also explains that while the two biggest subbing days are Monday and Friday -- most workers like to extend their weekends. Fridays are even more common than Mondays -- teachers who get sick on Thursday will take Friday off as well, but those who get sick on Tuesday can't go back in time and take Monday off.) Once again, the students in this situation will either be vague about the assignment or claim that they've completed every single part of Thursday's lesson plan (even if they didn't), just to get that free period.
One trick I once came up with is to let the first class of the day have a free period -- but then late in that period, ask the students what the assignment is. You can see why this works -- the students are now much more cooperative since they won't have to do that assignment! In other words, I'm sacrificing one period in order to gain four periods of solid work. (Of course, if the first class is a double-blocked class like today's ELD class, a two-hour free class may lead to problems.)
Later on, I developed the Conjectures/"Who Am I?" game. My original idea was to play it whenever I entered a classroom without a lesson plan left by the teacher. I could even ask the students on a Friday the same questions that they were asked on the Thursday assignment -- except this time it's part of a game to earn group points. I often played this game during the first two years of this blog, even though by then entering a math class without a lesson plan was by now rare. (Often I would just take problems from the worksheet and ask them in the game format.)
Today, of course, I'm indeed left with a lesson plan, as usual. But without access to Chromebooks, I'm in a similar situation to having no lesson plan at all. And indeed, I need to know the answer to a question -- do the students have printed reading books? -- which students are reluctant to answer since they're hoping for a free period. It doesn't help that second period comes right after an assembly (when they're already riled up). And I start the class with a song intro -- this is intended to whet their appetite for the full song, which they earn after doing the entire assignment. It doesn't work when I don't immediately have an assignment to give them (and once again, when they're already in a playful mood due to the assembly).
In second period, the students insist that they can't read the book online. Ironically, in fourth period, some students ask me whether they're allowed to read the book online (perhaps by finding a YouTube video of the audio book)! Of course, when we step back, we can see why this happens. In fourth period, the choice is between listening to an audio book and reading the print book -- listening to the audio book is clearly preferable for the students. But in second period, the choice is between listening to an audio book and having a free period -- so having a free period is what these students choose.
In this situation, not even the three good students who answer the questions on their phones want to tell me about their printed books. They don't want to be seen by the others as "snitches" -- even though "snitching" usually refers to behavior, a student who tells the teacher about an assignment when they're headed for a free period might also be seen as a snitch.
Of course, I want to make it so that second period will choose to read the print book. And so here's what I should have done -- immediately tell the students that their assignment is to do something that's not only undesirable, but that they probably don't even know how to do. Many have lamented that students don't know how to diagram sentences, and this is an English class.
So I give the students some sentences to diagram. At some point, a student will ask, "Why do we have to do this? The teacher doesn't normally make us do this." My response will be "Well, normally we would read Chapter 2, but we can't access the Chromebooks." At this point, the students will be leaping out of their skins to tell me that they have printed books to read Chapter 2 from! The student who tells me about the book isn't a snitch for costing the class a free period -- now she's a hero for saving the class from the sentence diagramming assignment. The choice is between diagramming sentences and reading the print book -- so reading the print book is what students will choose.
This is what I wrote last year about today's lesson:
Well for today, we intelligent humans are looking at our second day of the Chapter 2 review. I've decided that when we have these two-day reviews, I'll use the second day to post interesting activities that I find from other sources.
My usual go-to sites, Fawn Nguyen and Sarah Carter, are out for Geometry, since the former is a middle school teacher and the latter is an Algebra II teacher. But hey -- the most well-known Geometry site is probably now Shaun Carter, ever since he married Sarah. (That's right -- just as physics nerd Sheldon is married to a fellow nerd, Shaun Carter married a fellow math teacher.)
The following worksheet is all about the three undefined terms (point, line, plane). Recall that the first question on the test asks students to identify these undefined terms. The page didn't print well for me, so you might want to find this worksheet at the original source:
https://blog.primefactorisation.com/2017/09/09/undefined-terms-inb-pages/
My usual go-to sites, Fawn Nguyen and Sarah Carter, are out for Geometry, since the former is a middle school teacher and the latter is an Algebra II teacher. But hey -- the most well-known Geometry site is probably now Shaun Carter, ever since he married Sarah. (That's right -- just as physics nerd Sheldon is married to a fellow nerd, Shaun Carter married a fellow math teacher.)
The following worksheet is all about the three undefined terms (point, line, plane). Recall that the first question on the test asks students to identify these undefined terms. The page didn't print well for me, so you might want to find this worksheet at the original source:
https://blog.primefactorisation.com/2017/09/09/undefined-terms-inb-pages/
By the way, Shaun, like his wife Sarah, has left their old school. In this post, he explains that he is now pursuing a masters degree:
He says that he's been awarded a "teaching assistantship," which means that he'll likely be teaching undergrads, not high school students. Thus he's not currently teaching Geometry. Still, I post his worksheet from last year:
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