This is your time!

Vacation will definitely get you side tracked...hence why I haven't posted in quite some time. Very sorry about that. What I'm not sorry about is taking a great text/film like The Hunger Games and connecting it to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The week before vacation was a little crazy due to the snow day and large amount of students absent. I made the best of it though. I told the students at the beginning of the week that I knew they were anxious about vacation but we still needed to press on with our unit. Oddly enough they didn't fight me about it. I truly think I have the best seniors at Central High School. At the beginning of the week we began working on claims/thesis statements. The students were asked to generate their own thesis statement based on their homework/outside of class reading. They have been assigned multiple chapters from Walter Dean Myers, Autobiography of my Dead Brother. The connection to gangs and chivalry are the rope that tie Myers and Sir Gawain together. I wanted to give the students a baseline assignment for my SLO- write and support a claim. We used comic strips to generate a general claim (thesis statement) and the evidence (textual support) we would need to support that claim. The students did AMAZING! They were able to come up with the general theme of the comics (thesis statement)and used the actions in the pictures as their support for that theme (textual evidence). One of the first comics we looked at had a very happy theme. They were able to identify that theme immediately. I then asked them WHY they knew the pictures had a happy theme. They began shouting out their reasons while I wrote them on the board. We discussed why each of the actions in the picture support our theme (thesis statement). I then gave them another set of comic strips and told them we would do it together. Once they received the copy of the comic strip they were on fire. I was definitely not needed the second time around. We then put the practice to work with an actual text. I gave them a reading and asked for them to come up with a thesis statement based on the social group from Myers book. We worked on this for the rest of the week developing a thesis and finding the support one needs for their thesis. I gave them Thursday and part of Friday to develop essays around the Myers reading. I just asked that they do their best with the amount of instruction they had received. I would then look them over during vacation and give them feedback. My next step is allowing them to edit and revise based on my feedback. Although it was a shortened week and I was all about business, I still wanted to give the students a little fun. Friday we looked at The Hunger Games. I told them I wanted them to think about Sir Gawain and the connection her has to Katniss Everdeen. They are quite similar in a very unique way. They also have their differences. I gave the students an organizer to fill out while watching the fill. I remember high school films and how it really meant nap time. I couldn't believe the amount of focus and participation they gave me during our oral recall of the film. They were hooked. Unfortunately we weren't able to finish the film. They haven't stopped asking me about finishing it either. I only have 12 more days at Central High School and it is making me extremely sad. My students have been with me since the beginning of the second semester and every day they beg me to stay. I've received quite a few money offers this week. It is a bittersweet request because I don't want to leave them but I'm also not their teacher. I fear that they've become too attached and I hope they continue to do well even after I leave. Alas, right now and the next 12 days is what I consider MY TIME! I'm staying extremely humble and trying not to cry when they say things like, "Ms. Burns you can't leave us. You just wanted to tease us by being here." I love my students and I hope they know I'm always here for them. They are preparing for college and I like to think I have been helping them with that. They may not go to college and they may just go into the work field, however, I know they are going to be successful. As individuals, not as student, as individuals I could not be more proud than I am of them today.