1) I saw progress in my religion class! Not only are the vast majority of the students turning in the vast majority of their work, but they are starting to pick up on how to do things! It doesn't hurt that I have figured out the type of work that goes over best with this group. However, I will not stop insisting upon not using the exact words in the book. As recently as December, this novelty threw them off, so that they could not complete simple, fill-in-the-blank worksheets if I did not take sentences directly from the chapter. Thursday I handed them another fill-in-the-blank that did not even go in the same order as the information on the page. And no one missed more than two questions!
2) During lunch, one of my bright boys came up to me and asked, "Ms. Z, what's that thing where you use 'ain't' and 'y'all' and it's okay because people talk like that?" Reaching back through several conversations I've had with him about "ain't" and "y'all," I remembered : "Dialect." One of my students remembered something I talked about in a class that isn't reinforced or graded!
3) Ana and I had a good chat with one of the most emotionally mature 8th graders. Sometimes she does not fit in because of this, and we talked to her about being at this school. The idea of her meeting new people next year gives me great hope.
Please send me one of these moments I could use one about now!
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