Learning to Teach: Observation

March 14th & 18th

This week I finally made it on a Monday....but I didn't go Wednesday... Anyway Monday Mrs. Hooker's class was still Watching Frankenstien. They finished it that day. After watching the movie they had a discussion about the differences between the book and the movie, and why they think the director might have made the changes. It's an interesting movie, but I find that I'm tired of it. I went to Dr. Eps' class again for 3rd block and they were starting Frankenstien (the book, not the movie). First they got some information on Mary Shelly and took notes as a class. Then they got some definitions. After this they paired up and created their own monster. They had to specify what body parts it would or wouldn't have, a description, how it would communicate, it's personality, and give it a name. Afterwards they presented their monsters to the class. It was an interesting activity and you could tell the students really liked it.

On Friday the class watched a couple of Viking News clips then Mrs. Hooker did a lesson on Keats' Ode to a Grecian Urn. They read the background information on Keats first then listened to the poem on tape. I understand the reasoning behind using tapes, but they tend to be so emotionless. I think it's better to just have it read aloud either by the teacher or the students. After listening to the recording they went through the poem stanza by stanza discussing the metaphors and figurative lianguage. In second block half the class was missing but they still managed to have a good discussion.
Once again I went to Dr. Eps' class for 3rd block. After a warm up activity and a quiz they read Frankenstien out loud and discussed what was happening between passages. Then they broke up into groups to read. I have to say that when I'm doing my student teaching I have a class as good as this one. And that I have the same repretoire with the students that Mrs. Stevenson has. Not to mention her confidence.