The Sunny Side of the Day

 It is incredibly tempting to do a six-word memoir because I have all "six" words playing in my head "Spring Break. Spring Break! Spring! Break!". However, I have more to say (lucky you!) 😂

In a change from yesterday's marvelous to grumpy timeline, today has been quite consistently fantastic. The same lesson plan was used: Introduction to Sojourner Truth, quick SOL prep, and then Book Club discussions and a group assignment. There were also more than a few "new" challenges today: the building was obnoxiously hot and humid everywhere, the amount of students who were absent to start Spring Break early, more students had not read and/or had not completed the pre-work, more students were confused on the difference between an internal and external conflict, and new "guests" joined my classroom which changed the vibe of the class. However, students were participatory and meaningfully engaged! Peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys (oh! Another "six"-word phrase!).

It was so neat to see students engage with the material and each other in new ways. Students led their own discussions using the pre-work and most were able to participate meaningfully for at least part of the discussion. At the end of the discussions, I did narrow in on one aspect of the pre-work: abstract vs. concrete nouns. This may have been my favorite, repeated exchange of the day. 

When I asked what an abstract noun was, the crickets could not have been louder. Changing the idea, I asked what concrete nouns were and I'm telling you, the buzzing of the lights was BOOMING. To break it down a little further, I started with "If concrete is something we can touch, abstract is ..." which led to students excitedly replying "we can't touch!". Excellent start. "What are some nouns or things we can't touch?" and I kid you not, here are some of the responses: air, water, each other (Dr. Hudson hates when we do that), and you know there's always one "Technically, we can't touch anything because two objects can't occupy the same space". Okay there, Sir Newton. Always though, there was a crack in the proverbial door and someone would say something like "Wait. An idea is a noun. We can't touch love/courage/loneliness/etc". This would also get their classmates excited, and a little confused. One student would say an abstract noun like "death" and then a peer would invariably respond with something like "you can touch a dead person". Before I could them identify the difference between death and dead,  someone else would say another abstract noun like "bravery" and everyone would "oooooh" with understanding. Sometimes, a third peer would try with a vague location/word like "space" ..." and we'd have to start all over again 😅. 

When we switched to the second assignment, students were excited before they even knew what it was. Some of that excitement came from the discussions, some from the fact the paper was blue, and others were excited their peers had to put away their iPads, so I'm not sure there's a connecting thread for anything the day before Spring Break.

The Pressure Map presented its own challenges. We reviewed the instructions and I had them posted on the board. The instructions included the note that "pressure = conflict" and that is where the questions started. "What do you mean by conflict?", Good question! What are the two types of conflict in literature? Students answered and then we dove into more specifics: "What do you mean by nature?", as we were discussing the specific types of external conflict, so we talked about that word having a few meanings. After breaking it down and drawing a few diagrams, there was nodding and paper on pencil. When I walked around however, we were still struggling in some areas: "Is [main character] having internal or external conflicts?", well, you have to identify four internal and four external, so hopefully both! "Is loneliness internal or external, because you feel it inside, but if it's caused by someone else ...", good! There's a difference between loneliness and isolation though, so which do we think is internal and which do we think is external? Walking around and engaging with groups also pushed them to think farther. When I asked them to explain what the super short word or phrase they provided for a conflict meant and how it was a conflict in the story sometimes they ended up merging two separate conflicts together as they were too similar to be truly separated. Other times, it led to them discovering the other type of conflict that may have stemmed from the one they chose. FASCINATING!

This activity also gave me an opportunity to explicitly teach about finding "good" quotes. Before my brief explanation, I gave an example and only one class tried to reason their way into it. When I asked what makes something a good, clear example or explanation, I was met with so many ideas and experiences and an interesting quantity of "not ..." statements. I am going to jot some notes about these moments down in my teacher notebook to remember for next year when we start working with explaining and elaborating.

When the bell rang at 2:35, I was almost sad to see them go, knowing they'd be gone for a week. Then, I remembered I still had a student conference standing between me and my own Spring Break, so I hurried on to that. Now, as I sit on my couch with my feet up: Spring Break has sprung!