Small Successes

It's hard to claim success sometimes in this first year. Even when grades go up, and student work improves, I'm not sure that I'm at a point where I feel that I can take credit. Not to be self-deprecating, but I think that in general I'm just too green to know the difference. I hope to figure that out one day so I can better understand what's been working, what hasn't.

As I turned in grades before spring break, my number of Fs had gone down drastically, and my numbers of Cs, Bs and As all went up. Part of this is me being more lax on my late work policy - no one got marked down for turning in their essays late (and many of them were quite late). Part of this is creating a project where the students got to pick their own poet, their own poems and write their own essay prompt. They like having some control over what they learn - I don't blame them. Part of this is me getting better about reminding students again and again what is due, when it's due, how much it's worth.

I can look at one student in first period who got 40% the first advisory (F), 60% the second advisory (F) and 81% this advisory (C). I told her that at this rate, I'm expecting a 100% for 4th advisory. With her, it seemed like not letting her give up when the first draft wasn't great helped. She has a "fuck it" (her words, not mine) mentality and as I tried to change that (though it's usually an uphill battle), it seemed like she did more work.

Another student who had the skills but never turned in the work first semester. Both advisories she got 64 or 65% - barely a D. Changed up the seating, put her with someone that was a great student, and suddenly she's turning in an A essay, doing good revisions, doing well on tests and gets a B overall in class.

It was nice to call some parents last Friday to let them know how much better their kids were doing. You could feel the relief coming through the phone.

Then again, all this came as I finalized the grades. Most of the advisory it was just too hard to tell how everyone was doing. All juniors at my school have to take AP English, and most days I feel like I'm boring the advanced kids and losing the kids who need some basics. I guess if I'm going to get one day where I feel like a difference is being made, it should be the last day of the advisory. One day is better than none, right?