The year of a bore, and Barack Obama

I won't start off this post by apologizing for not posting since last year because, well, that's lame.

In fifth grade literature we started a dual book group project. Jo (my mentor/lead teacher) divided the class into half, by reading abilities, and she took the high readers to read "Dragonwings" and I'm working with the low reader reading "In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson" (an old favorite of mine). We finished two weeks of this. I think it's going well.

On one hand, it's really cool, because I get a group of ten kids all to myself for 4 periods a week. They read aloud, I read aloud, we do vocabulary worksheets, comprehension questions, talk about interesting passages, reflect upon our own experiences, etc: basically really exciting/fun stuff. And I'm in charge. I get to set the pace, the tone, the direction, the meaning, tell them what's important, what's not important, help them, keep them in line (it's a super tough group to keep focused), and basically be their full-on teacher.

On the other hand, I have no fucking clue what I'm doing. I'm flying by the seat of my pants, and haven't had the time to stop and breathe and think about a long term goal/objective/enduring understanding the kids should walk away with (and I'm being trained to do that, so I guess I need some more work on that). I also have a hard time keeping track of the various needs each student has. It is a pretty ow group, and the problem is they're all low in different areas. Some are smart, but super lazy. Others have serious comprehension problems. Others just can't make sense of the words and need help with the actual reading. Others have processing issues. Others can read and understand but can't demonstrate that. And I'm worried that I'm boring or the book is boring or they just don't care. They probably don't. And they're so needy. They don't listen when I talk and then ask the same questions over and over and over again. I think I'm getting better at dealing with them, but, why knows?

They are adorable though.

In other news, how disappointing is Hilary's win in Nevada yesterday? I totally thought Barack had that one in the bag. He really needs to win in South Carolina, or else Tsunami Tuesday is going to be a wash in the wrong direction.