The House of Dies Drear: Day 4 Reflection

Yesterday was a pretty rough day for my last class before lunch. We are running a 45 minute morning rotation with five rotations before lunch. As you might expect, the class before lunch is pretty rough. I also happen to have "that class" at that time. They are extremely restless, unfocused, and chattie.

After struggling through the morning class I decided something needed to change. That afternoon (30 minute rotations with the same schedule as the morning) I talked to the class about ways we could improve their attention. I floated an idea, I asked them if they would like to take a 20 minute outside break at the beginning of the morning class and finish the morning lesson in the afternoon. We would skip the afternoon elective class. They decided to try it out.

Today, after the 20 minute break the students came in and were more focused than they had been so far. Obviously we have a long row to hoe still, but I am very encouraged by the results so far. We will continue this until it quits working or we end the summer school period.

On a personal note, I am really hating the rotation. The main reason I chose to move from jr high to 6th grade was so that I could spend more class time with one set of students. While I am appreciative for the ability to teach reading, which I haven't been able to do for years, I wish I had a self-contained classroom now. I am happy that I am able to use my money from summer school to buy some things for my class, I just need a bit more patience.

The House of Dies Drear: Day 2 Reflection

Friday we read chapters two and three of The House of Dies Drear. Although I had a lot of great ideas given to me from the last post, I decided to stay the course. The students really had no time to do much of anything other than sit down and read, the timing was very tight.

One thing I did change seemed to make a real difference though. My second class, after the trip down the hallway and getting prepared to read didn't have enough time to finish the third chapter. They were about five minutes short of finishing. Because I was using my iPhone with the Audible app to play the book aloud, I used a handy tweak to the reading. The app allows for books to be sped up so I chose for it to read the story at 1.5 times the normal speed. Fortunately it doesn't make the reader sound like The Chipmunks :)

Interestingly enough it seems that by speeding up the reading of the story, the students were better able to maintain their attention. I guess that since they weren't having to decode the words as they read, they could follow along faster than they normally would if they were reading it themselves. Whatever the reason, I was pleasantly surprised by how they reacted. I think we are through the slowest parts of the book and am looking forward to seeing how they continue to respond to reading the story.

That doesn't mean I won't keep the advice in mind, there is still a about two weeks worth of reading ahead.

The House of Dies Drear: Day 1 Reflection

Today we read chapter one. The first two classes seemed very engaged in the story. I saw no students looking around or seeming to be off task. After those two classes though I started to notice the last three being less engaged. The later in the morning it became, the less engaged they seemed to be.

When I noticed one particular class having trouble, I decided to talk to them about it and see if they had suggestions to make the time work better for them. I had a couple suggestions. The first suggestion was to allow them to bring comfort items like blankets. I think this is a great idea, but because of the way summer school is set up (I have 5 different classes twice a day) I don't see where I could have them store (or keep track of) the things. This is a real problem in classrooms where specific subjects are taught and students rotate in and out. The students have very little opportunity to make those rooms feel comfortable.

The second suggestion was allow them to eat. This is interesting on a couple levels. First, the students are receiving free breakfast and lunch during summer school. Second, I never told them they couldn't bring food in and eat it, they apparently made the assumption it wasn't allowed. Again, it is very hard for them to bring things to eat because they have no place to store it (no lockers during summer school.)

Do you have any suggestions that could help me make the students more comfortable and more engaged with reading the book? 

The House of Dies Drear

I am teaching the novel The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton in summer school this year with sixth through eighth grade students. Originally, I had planned to teach the book like I have taught others in the past. I would read aloud a couple chapters and the students would do some skill work based on whatever I wanted them to work on. In fact, the first lesson was going to be a simple friendly letter.

When I came home tonight I was reflecting on getting the students to write tomorrow when I realized that what I really want my students to get out of this month is to have a fun time reading a story. I think that teaching a novel by breaking it up and working with skills takes away from the "flow" of the story. To a certain extent I think we lose the author's voice when we continually pull the students out of the prose.

I decided tonight that we are going to read the book aloud from beginning to end without stopping for skills work. I won't ask directed question, point out figurative language, or even talk about character development. I will simply share the words as the author has written them. (I will answer any questions students ask about the story, just like I would do if I were reading it to my daughters at bedtime.)

So here is the first written lesson plan for summer school:

Background: None

Objective: TSW enjoy reading the first couple chapters of The House of Dies Drear.

Activity: The student will listen to me read the first couple chapters of The House of Dies Drear.

Guided Practice: None

Independent Practice: None