It's Clicking...

Hello, my name is Cali, and I'm addicted to mental light bulbs - those few seconds when eyes widen, mouths open, and a soothing "Ohhh...I get it!" fills the space. It's thrilling. It's earth-shattering. It's the greatest moment of my day.

So today, when I saw lightbulbs blinking on above the heads of my students, I felt like a teaching-junkie. Give me more. Must have more.  

My lesson wasn't earth-shattering at all. It wasn't even on the Richter scale. It was a repeat of what we had done the day before (the says/does chart) just with a different genre: OP-ED. Most of my students had no idea what OP-ED was and some of them even guffawed at the question, "Do any of you read the newspaper?" Yeah - I probably should have thought that one through. 

But it was an OP-ED story on football and head injuries. Hello, eighth grade boys. It's nice to see you that you are interested in class today. 

I'm serious. It was magic. 

All of a sudden they got it - they understood that we can read something like this article not just for the information it offers, but also to analyze what makes good writing. It was like pulling teeth at first, but then they were the ones saying, "Oh, and the writer used facts! Like stats and stuff!" Yes, dear student. Awesome. 

What was really fun was how everything seemed to be contextualized - I mean it. If there was a skill I could brag about as a first year teacher (which I can't, but for the sake of my weekend, I need a confidence pick-me-up), it would be my completely unconscious ability to contextualize things on the fly.  

The journal prompt for today was, "Write something to persuade me to never give you homework again! What genre would work best? A song? A letter? An essay? Choose a genre and write! Good luck!" Honestly, the prompt came out of that ugly place where I was still angry that so many of them aren't doing my super easy just-read-at-home homework. However, the purpose of the article was to persuade and I was able to turn back to that prompt several times over the course of the lesson as students were discovering things that the writer was DOING (writing choices) and ask them if they had done that with their journal response. Some were like, "Yeah! I totally used real life examples to persuade!" or "Yeah. I wrote about the things that homework was good for too, just so that you could see that I understood the purpose for homework even though I don't like it." Say what? Are you already aware of opposing-viewpoints?

Sweet Victory. 

And, of course, the principal came for his 5 minute visit today. 

His comments: 

Keepers: Good activity and engaging article to utilize on concussions. T columns in journals to write what the article says and does is a great task to keep students engaged. 

Polishers: How would posting your I can statement help keep students focused and assist you in planning?

So that I-Can statement will probably get posted before parent-teacher conferences next week, but for today, I'm just going to do a little victory dance while sitting here in my swirly chair feeling like I just lit up the world with tiny little light bulbs. 

Yes, my friends, teaching is the ultimate adventure.