Fun with Fonts

Yesterday was the deadline for my students to hand in their Young Authors books. Young Authors is a writing competition for which students have to compose an original informational, narrative, or poetry book, "bind" it, and hand it in. I then read all of them (from my class only, thank god), pick the best one, and enter it into the schoolwide competition. Then 3 are chosen from there and sent on to the citywide competition, and so on.

While we worked on the books in class, I assigned the bulk of the work to be completed over winter break. We simply do not have enough time to devote to such a big writing project in school. (I feel very sad writing that). About 3 weeks before winter break, I assembled a packet explaining exactly what had to be done, how the book was to be bound, how it was going to be judged, etc. The only thing I failed to mention in the packet was...

the font that was to be used if one was going to type their book.

Big mistake. If you don't tell a nine-year old to use Times New Roman or something plain like that, you end up with a paper written in fonts that blogger won't even let me cut and paste into here, like the one that looks like old English or the one that looks "scary," like there's blood dripping from it. While those are fun to use, have you ever tried to read an 8-page paper written in fancy script with all its loopty-loops? It's not fun. One of my kids got smart and chose a font that uses all caps so he didn't have to worry about capitalizing proper nouns or the beginnings of sentences. (Extra credit for cleverness?).

So another lesson learned. Fonts will from now on be limited to what my kids call "the boring ones."

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Today is parent-teacher conferences, which means I didn't have to come in until noon. It is SO nice to sleep in on a random day (Thursday). Of course I have to be here til 6:00, but that's okay. I like report card day. It gives me a chance to reflect on each child individually. Parents usually ask really good questions, too, which challenge me to really know what I'm talking about. And you know what? After 2 degrees and 10 years of doing this, I actually DO! Go figure!

Some parents, though, are clueless. Like I'll be in the middle of a conference and a parent will just walk in, right past the sign that says "Please sign in and take a seat outside. I will be with you shortly." Then they'll just stand there waiting for me to acknowledge them. Uh, hello! You've gone through the parent-teacher conference process for 5 years now. Try to catch on to how waiting your turn works.

Another annoyance is when a parent is surprised when their child is not doing well. I have developed a system in which EVERY graded paper goes home on a specified day of the week for the parents' review. The parents are made aware of this system the first week of school and I constantly remind them of this on my class "website." If a parent goes through the packet of graded work, they should know exactly how s/he is doing. Plus, they can always contact me just to "check in." I just had a parent who was surprised to see her daughter got a D in reading. She even said to me, "Her midterm progress report said she was getting a C, how can she be getting a D now?" Uhhh, easily. Do people not realize that the difference between a C and a D can be just 1 percentage point?

Oh, and parents, can you please turn off your cell phones when you are conferencing with me? And if you forget, which happens, don't answer your cell phone when it rings while we're speaking. I mean, come on!

Well, now I'm on "lunch," which I think is hilarious. We started a noon, we have lunch from 3-4, and we leave at 6:15. Could we make it more inconvenient for parents to have a conference with their child's teacher? Gotta love union jobs!

Testing, Schmesting

Friday we had no school. Teachers still had to work, but a day without students is like a day off. Most of the teachers at my school spent the day at the first in a series of workshops about Extended Response. For you civilians, Extended Response (ER) is a section of the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) in which students from 3-8 grades have to read a 3-4 page passage and then respond to a prompt about it. ER is the bane of every teacher's existence. We spend so much friggin' time talking about, learning about, complaining about, and teaching ER that I could explode. (I'm not sure why I could explode...that's just what came out).

Anyway, for all the time spent on it, we have very little understanding of it. Our kids don't do well on it. And as I learned yesterday, hardly any kids do well on it! The highest score you can get is a 4. Only 4-7% of all kids in the ENTIRE state of Illinois got a 4.

The ER is graded by an independent third party who uses a rubric that is supposed to eliminate as much subjectivity as possible. Everyone has access to the rubric so that we all know how the kids will be assessed. But, I'm sorry, there's NO WAY you can take subjectivity out of grading, unless you are grading something that's either right or wrong (like true/false or multiple choice). Yesterday we were given a passage to read and four samples of student ER from last year's test. Our task was to work with the people at our table and score each sample. It was a disaster. Responses that some of us scored a 1 (using the rubric, mind you) were actually scored a 4 and vice-versa. Granted we aren't trained graders, but we are the people teaching the students how to write these stupid things! And like I said, we've spent dozens and dozens of hours analyzing student ERs, talking about how to improve, etc., and we still don't know what we're doing. In fact, after the 3-hour seminar yesterday, I felt more confused than ever.

OH, and then we found out that the ER accounts for only 10% of the total reading score! Grrrrrr! For years They've been making it out like it was worth a hell of a lot more than that! Talk about time wasted in the classroom.

I'm so glad I'm not a kid today. These tests that they have to take are so stressful and LOOOONG. I understand that they're necessary as assessment tools, but the stakes resulting from their scores are so high. They determine the promotion or retention. They determine if your school meets federal standards (No Child Left Behind Act). And I found out yesterday, ISAT scores are factored into the Area Instructional Officers pay!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Area Instructional Officers are the people directly above the principals of a group of schools). Uh, talk about a conflict of interest! That totally left a bad taste in my mouth.

In conclusion, I would like to say that I will spend much less time teaching my kids how to organize their thoughts into an bullshit extended response format this year and spend more time providing them with actual literacy experiences that I know will improve their reading (instead of extinguishing their passion for learning).

Going Green

I gave my students a science test last week. We've been learning about plants and fungi. The test was 25 multiple choice questions and 3 short essay questions. Most of my kids bombed the essay part of the test, so I decided not to count it. I counted the multiple choice questions and told them I was going to let them retake the essay questions.

One of the essay questions was: "Name three ways a dandelion and mushroom are alike and three ways they are different." This question was worth 6 points. Some of my kids gave good answers such as, "A dandelion has seeds and a mushroom has spores," or "Dandelions make their own food through photosynthesis while mushrooms take their energy from other living or dead things," or "Dandelions are plants and mushrooms are fungi..." y'know...stuff we actually LEARNED in class! A lot of the kids left the question blank, and some put dumb stuff like, "They look different."

They got their papers back and we went over possible correct answers together. When we got to that question, I asked the class what was so hard about this question, and I got an answer I never expected. Many of my kids do not know what a dandelion is. THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT A DANDELION IS!!!! And worse, no one asked during the test! Uh, hello?!?!

Once I described one, they knew what I was talking about, which was somewhat of a relief. I just can't imagine not knowing, at age 9, what a dandelion was. When I think about it, though, it shouldn't surprise me. Many of these kids have spent their entire lives in an urban setting. While the south side of the city has many beautiful parks and open expanses of green, their homes aren't exactly overlooking these areas. Most of the places they go to play are crammed between two concrete buildings and contain no grass.

My biggest concern is that no one asked about the question while they were taking the test. I know it's a test and that they're supposed to get help, but this isn't a standardized state test or anything. I've got a lot of work to do with these kids. First on the list, bring them somewhere nice and green!

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?

Hooray for Columbus Day! Having a day off allows me to have a day just like I had during summer vacation, except that today I woke up early and I graded papers. In fact, now that I think about it, today was more like a work day than a day off! I went to Starbucks to grade papers, but aside from the good coffee and the Bob Dylan playing, the freezing temperature of the room and the work piled in front of me was akin to being at work. (Did I mention they turned on the AC again? Grrrrrr.) The only thing that made today reminiscent of summer was the heat outside: 90 degrees.

I should be grading the rest of my papers, but allow me to procrastinate just a little bit more...

All the compliments I got last Thursday were to boost me up for the major blow I received on Saturday. A woman at the grocery store asked me if I had two daughters that went to a particular high school. Do I really look old enough to have high school-aged daughters???? My poor husband and best friend had to spend much time consoling and convincing me that the woman must've been high or insane. Whatever. All I know is that ever since then, I've been feeling fat, ugly, and, of course, old.

Okay, back to grading. After I check my email...and the regular mail...and get some water...