Resuming writing a teaching journal/class log

Which is why I’m writing this book. To think. To understand….I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.             Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood.

Early in my teaching career I decided to keep a journal of my thinking after each day of teaching. No matter how exhausted I was at the end of the day, no matter how well or badly the day went, I sat down and considered the following: What worked in that lesson? What didn’t work in that lesson? Did my students take what I wanted them to take from that lesson? More than any suggestion from a master teacher, more than any conference or workshop I attended, more than any professional book I have read this reflective log advanced my teaching more than anything else I have done in my career. It taught me the value of reflection.             Kelly Gallagher, Write Like This.

I thought of these two quotes this week because I began keeping a dedicated teaching journal again. I’ve kept one before, but around two years ago, I began including thoughts on teaching in my regular journal. It seemed simpler at the time; having one comprehensive journal instead of separate ones for different topics. That thinking has changed now. When I arrived at my new school this week, I saw a brand new black journal lying on the desk and thought, “This is will be the teaching journal.”

I’m glad I did it. My previous entries about teaching were usually short and general things like “Good class. Lots of participation.” They didn’t say much because I’d usually be eager to write about other things. But with a dedicated book for teaching, there’s no need to cut observations or riffs short.

And like Gallagher writes above, I’ve been keeping track of classes and how they've gone. What was good, what was bad, who said something particularly interesting, who might need extra attention…it all goes in there. Maybe it’s overkill to write a half page or more for every class, but doing so has forced me to remember what happened and what I might do the same or differently in the future. The extra time means extra care goes into the lessons. I suppose that writing has cut into planning time, but then again, I find it difficult to plan for the future if I don’t understand the past or present. Like Toru the narrator writes in Norwegian Wood, writing’s something I have to do. It helped when teaching high school in America and it’s helping now in Korea.

Rock on, everyone. More posts are on the way.

*Keeping a journal helps satisfy one of Wisconsin’s 10 standards for teachers, which is that of being a reflective practititioner.

An unintended absence, some tunes, and a big piece of news

Taking over a month off from blogging here was never part of the plan. It simply happened because the activities of the day precluded writing anything. Not that I didn't want to write anything, or that there wasn't anything to write about, there was no time to write it. Or there wasn't time enough to write it well. So it goes.

As I type this, it's the evening of Easter Sunday. Sanulrim's (산울림 ) rocking  3rd LP has concluded and I'm wondering which song of theirs to play again. I played all their first three albums today and have been deliberating on which of them is the best. But I digress--Sanulrim and other K-rock will grace a future post. I brought them up because every post here should have something of use to the world, and goodness knows that my saying "Yeah, life's busy" is too prosaic to go up here by itself. So there's that.

Sanulrim's grooving music also keeps me from thinking too much about the recent Jeju ferry disaster and the high school students who drowned. Those kids are in my thoughts. The poor souls, they were undoubtedly on their way to great things.

New York Times: Divers Begin Bringing Bodies Out of Capsized Ferry

CNN: As anger grows, prosecutor says captain not at helm when South Korea ferry sank

End of the 2013 school year / Updates for 14 Feb 2014

Today's post will be short, but I've plenty more on the way. Now that the school year's over and two weeks of deskwarming await me after the weekend, I've a burst of inspiration for writing...

Like yesterday, today was a shortened day for the students here. They attended school for the first half of the day, received their textbooks for next year, and moved their things into their new classrooms. That's about all that happened today from what I've discerned. My dear second graders are moving up the academic boot camp that is third grade. I'll miss them because I don't teach HS third grade. The kids will survive, but they'll have to work for it. The third grade is a grueling slog of 12 hour days and interminable memorization..

  

Fall 2013 Week 1 - Class rules and acrostic poems in high school

Class rules / Acrostic poems

The first week is done. Unlike other EPIK teachers, girls middle school and regular high school's semester began on Tuesday. I taught two classes on Tuesday, four on Thursday,* and four on Friday.** The schedule hasn't been set yet, so we'll see what happens next week. Typically, schedules don't get written until after the semester begins. Every semester has begun with a provisional schedule that becomes a regular one. The first few days are often exciting as a result.

The high school classes went well. Despite the lack of time off, it did feel as if we're in a new semester instead of a continuation of the old one. It felt good to be back in class and getting the 2nd semester going. The students have shaken off the restlessness of the last days and have begun anew. They're paying more attention now. 

For the first week, I kept it simple and limited the lesson to reviewing the class's rules and showing the students how to write an acrostic poem about themselves. I did so because it took little prep work and was easy to add to my already-written intro lesson about rules and procedures. Classes went like this:

Intro/Saying hello

This is typically the first two minutes where everyone's getting settled in. I'll say hello and check to make sure everyone has their materials. Sometimes we'll talk about the weather or school events. I'm going to do more during this time by implementing so short "Do now" tasks because the 10 minutes they have between classes is time enough to mentally prepare and move to the classroom.

Rules/Overview of new semester

My rules are simple. They abbreviate to STABS:

S peak at appropriate times [in English]

T reat others with respect
A rrive on time
B ring materials
S tay on task

When I wrote the list, I looked for the smallest amount of words and the words that were easiest to understand in isolation and in the full sentence. I also phrased them positively to avoid putting anyone on edge with a series of "Don't" expressions.

Poem definition and demonstration

I used this image from Read Write Think, an excellent resource site, to explain and demonstrate an acrostic poem:

I also showed them an acrostic poems about Korea. And to show how they could write poems about themselves, I showed them what Benjamin would look like as an acrostic.

"Korea"

K nowledge industry

O ceans, rivers, and streams of clear water

R olling hills and mountains of luscious green

E ating delicious barbecue and kimchi!

A lways changing

The beginning line was blank until the 3rd class because I couldn't think of a good line that began with a K-word. Luckily, Michael, a 2nd grader, came by after class finished and said, "How about 'knowledge industry'? Korea has much knowledge and many industries. We are smart!" I liked his line, so I wrote it in and added his name to the credits.

The idea was for the students to describe themselves in the space of the poem.

Poem drafting

Writing takes time. I make sure to give the students plenty of time to write anything and circulate the room with the co-teacher to offer help and direction anyone who needs it.

Poem final draft/decorating

I'm planning on decorating some of the room with the students' writings and thought this acrostic poems would be a good place to start. Rewriting the poem also helps spelling practice and word choice. I've found that rewriting things leads to a better draft because in rewriting something, I'll inevitably think of better ways to phrase things. For the students' purposes, it gave them a chance to draw their words larger and add some pertinent decorations.

I'd planned on doing a poetry slam at the end, wherein the students would take turns reading their work and the audience would rate the best one, but we ran short of time in every class but one. Maybe next time we can do it. If I run through the introduction and rules quicker, we can probably squeeze in a reading. The one class that did feature a reading went well. That class has four girls in it who have gotten better and better as of late. They used to go off-task and distract each other, but thanks to some joking and positive attention via questions in class, they've been paying more attention and speaking more. All four of them turned in good work. 

The poetry went well. The students have now written a poem in a foreign language. The sense of accomplishment from having done an English poem was palpable. While poetry's not an "everyday" skill like, say, booking a hotel room, it is a literary skill. It focuses on word choice because every word counts in a poem. Above all, it allows the students to express themselves and learn something new at the same time.

* High school

** Girls middle school

What I'm teaching this semester:

High school grades 1-2

High school night class (Grades TBA)

Boys middle school grades 1-3

Girls middle school grades 1-2

Getting back to the groove: What Gangwon Dispatches focuses on

According to Blogger's statistics:

• Gangwon Dispatches has garnered 1,000 hits for the second month in a row
• It has surpassed 10,000 hits since I started it in August of 2011.

Thank you to everyone who's been reading. I began writing these Dispatches to focus on two topics: Teaching and my travels in Korea. Both topics cover plenty of ground and have provided plenty to write about. Teaching's brought about posts on methods/strategies as well as spurred reflections on the US and Korea. Traveling around the country's brought forth posts on various cities, foods, and celebrations. Living here's also sparked my always-high interest in music, so I've written plenty on Korean music, too.

As of late I've been veering away from the blog's original focus and have thus diluted its content with extraneous posts. Those posts have taken away from what I want Dispatches to be. There will be no more like them. In time, I may write of other topics, but they won't be on this blog.

Since arriving in Korea, I've endeavored to keep positive and enjoy every day over here. Coming here represented a huge opportunity to work with help the community and to bring the best of Korea home to family and friends in the US and elsewhere. As I'm just one guy, I can't possibly cover everything Korea has to offer, but I can write about some of the interesting and positive things I see over here. Despite being on person, I and my fellow teachers serve important functions in the community.

In keeping with being a schoolteacher and amateur travelogue writer, I'm going back to Dispatches' original two focuses of teaching (and strategies thereof) and of highlighting my travels around the country. As the blog's readership has grown, so has my responsibility to write things worth reading and learning from. Stay tuned for more articles about teaching, language, and travels.

Teaching tip: Write alongside the students

English teacher extraordinaire Kelly Gallagher’s written about doing so, and for good reason. As he states in Teaching Adolescent Writers, “the teacher is the best writer in the room.” It’s the teacher’s job to demystify writing and make it accessible for the students. One way to make it accessible is for the teacher to write alongside the students. It can also work well in co-teaching situations because one teacher can write and the other can monitor students.

By letting the students see the teacher write, they can see the mistakes, pauses, and corrections that come along with writing. It shows students that writing is difficult and that it is rarely “right” the first time. As I’ve said to the students, native speakers have plenty of trouble with writing as well. Writing alongside the students gives them a firsthand look at how an expert—the teacher—does it. They can see the starts, the stops, and the revisions that come along the way. The writing process works like stop and go traffic, for it has plenty of speedbumps and can stop at any time. Many of the students think writing's like turning on a tap, but it's not the case, especially with writing in a foreign language.

 In the past, I’ve used overhead projectors, which for all their crudity, worked wonders for showcasing how messy some my drafts could look; I type on a computer that’s connected to a big screen or Smart Board. Typing is cleaner, but handwriting is more illuminating. At any rate, the students can get to see that even smart adults can struggle with writing.

Though Gallagher talks about using this method for complex essays, I've found it works well for shorter pieces as well. Even seeing a few sentences has helped hesitant students put pen to paper. Even seeing a few sentences has helped hesitant students put pen to paper. During the 2^nd semester of last year, I and Ms. J taught a series of lessons based on NEAT practice prompts.* We’d introduce the prompt, go over some key expressions or explain a grammar/writing point like how to write complex sentences, and get the students writing. They’d write on their papers, I’d type on the computer, and she’d circulate around the classroom. The prompts would be about things like cities to live in, pros and cons of public transportation, good and bad habits, and fears. Most all of them were 1-2 paragraphs long. The series of lessons worked so well that I've chosen to do them again come 2^nd semester of this year.

Writing alongside them also allowed me to better understand the prompt. After all, there’s no better way to understand something than to actually do it. I did the same prompt as the students so uncover any potential difficulties or snags. It was then possible to fine-tune our lesson introduction so the students would better understand the task.

On a final note, using Gallagher's method made me realize how well it worked with a co-teacher in the room, for she could field questions and assist students while I wrote. Her being available to the students eliminated the problem of keeping the students focused while I was doing something. It can be difficult to keep students focused on a writing task, especially the teacher's busy with doing something too. A co-teacher solves this problem and as such we were better able to serve our students. I’m looking forward to using this method more in the future because it’s effective and helpful. 

*NEAT = National English Ability Test. It's a part of Korea's efforts to reform their English curriculum and college entrance examinations.

Amazon: Kelly Gallagher - Teaching Adolescent Writers. An excellent book filled with strategies for teaching middle and high school age students develop as writers.

Amazon: William Strong - Coaching Writing. Another good one.

A year on the frontier, pt. 1

It's been a year since I've started this blog and it's been one hell of a time. The new school year's first week ends on Friday and the year's already off to a great start. My birthday's tomorrow and life's lovely. Thanks to everyone for being here. Cheers.

Here's some year end statistics:

Number of posts: 65

Pageviews today

26

Pageviews yesterday

39

Pageviews last month

516

Pageviews all time history

2,934

Here's the top 5 most viewed posts:

Seoul Trip #5 / Hyehwa shopping action Dec 6, 2011	100
Wasu-ri, my sweet home near the DMZ Sep 9, 2011	94
The first two days in Wasu Aug 27, 2011, 1 comment	64
Seoul Day Trip / Seoul Journey #6 Nov 12, 2011	43
Seoul Trip #7 / Happy Thanksgiving! Nov 24, 2011	42

Thank you, everyone. Standby for more updates this week. Cheers.

A couple goals for this next year:

Write something new here once a week or more.
More links to Korean news article
Write more about teaching and ESL/EFL