Inspiration...

Today at yet another observation (still not done, but getting closer), I spent some time with the teacher I was observing during her planning period. Earlier in the morning, she had just introduced Sandra Cisneros' collection of vignettes The House on Mango Street to her freshmen English class. Now, she was looking through one of her friend/coworker's unit plan on the book. When she was done looking through the binder for ideas, she passed it over to me and let me peruse it. As the thick 3" binder thudded on the table in front of me she said, "This is her bible."

I flipped through the pages and was flabergasted. After recently finishing my first complete unit plan for my content area class, I was like a kid in a candy store with these lesson plans. She was so detailed, so meticulous, so engulfed in the book. I was inspired. Now, I'm not sure I will place each page of each lesson plan into a plastic page cover, but looking through this binder, I realized how "easy" this binder must make the unit for her to teach. She had almost become the book. There was a rainbow of post-its with her reflections and changes after every time of going through each lesson. Things that worked well. Things she could have done better. Although it seems time consuming, this is the teacher I aspire to be. Constantly changing, revising, reminding myself of ways to improve. And to do this even when other people are flabergasted by my work.

I was also very inspired by these two teachers' willingness to give and take their ideas. I am sure that both of them are better teachers due to this openness to share.

Vocabulary

A few days ago, I talked to a middle school language arts teacher and she gave me a great piece of advice. She said the most important thing a middle school teacher can do, no matter her subject area, is help students develop their vocabulary. She continued to say that this is primarily the responsibility of the language arts teacher. She said that the language arts teacher should help all the other teachers on her team to help incorporate the teaching of vocabulary into every curriculum.

The next day, I did an observation. In one classroom I observed, the teacher spent roughly one-third of the class period talking about one vocabulary word. She said she begins every single class period that way and also showed me a curriculum piece that she had developed fully on her own to make vocabulary a strong focus in her classroom, as well as the other classrooms in her school.

After these two experiences, I intend to search for a variety of ways to help make vocabulary a main component of my language arts classroom.