I have a student who is going to compete at the state Poetry Out Loud competition on March 6th! www.poetryoutloud.org
I am his English 3 and Creative Writing teacher as well as his POL coach. I am really feeling the pressure of this responsibility. The first difficulty I faced was in helping him to select his three poems for memorization. I wanted him to not only meet the guidelines of the competition, but select poems that could serve him best.
Preparing for this event has lead me to reflect heavily on my relationship with this student. G is an amazing kid, but he has various issues to overcome. One, he has disgraphia. Luckily, we have a computer for every student in every classroom, so this is not a huge issue. Two, he is highly gifted in almost every academic area that I am aware of. Three, he is unarguably odd. This student reminds me a great deal of my younger brother who is a genius and also has disgraphia and is very odd. I believe there are mental health issue as well, but I am not privy to what they are. The world is not an easy place for kids like this.
But anyway, like I was saying, POL is helping me to reflect on my relationship with this student. I have taught him for English 1, 2 and now 3 and Creative Writing. I will have him for English 4 next year. Essentially, I will be his only English teacher for his entire high school career. I remember the first day I met G--it was the open house for the 2208-2009 school year and I had NO idea what I was doing yet. I was still reviewing other English teacher's pacing guides and trying to decide what I was doing. Around the second week of our time together in English 1, I began to notice that G did not use any punctuation. NONE! I asked other teachers about this and was told that he was LD etc. I read G's writing, studied his lack of punctuation and one day, decided to sit down and talk to him about it.
"I've noticed you don't use punctuation in your writing." That's all I said. He looked at me. "I know you don't think it's important, but you're going to have to use it." Ok, so I didn't really know why he didn't use punctuation, but I guess this was my instinct talking. "Yes," he said "I really don't see the point." And that was the beginning of G and I really working together. It's been quite an interesting 2 years.
I have really enjoyed watching this student grow. I will be working with him very intensively over the next 2 weeks to prepare for POL. It will be, I'm sure, something I will remember fondly. I'm so glad I'm past the crying part of being an English teacher!
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Christin,
ReplyDeleteWhat a privelege you have of seeing your students grow over a period of years. No other teacher is able to do that. I wonder if you find that by having students for more than just a year, your teaching becomes more effective with them because your relationships deepen. I'm sure it can be a curse as well as a blessing depending on the student, but surely the rewards outweight the difficulties!
Joan,
ReplyDeleteI believe you are right about my teaching possibly becoming more effective because I have each student again and again. It is most certainly a curse when a student doesn't like me or I cannot connect with that student. Then, it can truly feel like a chore.
So, I'm curious how G did...I hope that you tell us more in the rest of your reflections...I'll keep reading!
ReplyDeleteG does sound like an odd kid, and boy, is that refreshing! I understand the need for punctuation, but hey, ee cummings was a successful writer and didn't use much of it.
I always appreciate your fierce love for your students and your ability to think outside the box when it comes to providing differentiated instruction. Thanks for this. I look forward to reading more...