Professional Documents
Culture Documents
My first week of classes would not only attempt to set the tone and standards for my course, but
would work to familiarize my students with my personality, my expectations, and the general
function and goal of our year. I would work to promote positive student-teacher relationships as
well as create a community of respect amongst peers. I would work to learn not only my
students’ names, but to learn about their way of life, their family, and their values. The first week
of school will be the foundation of a positive year of growth for all people involved.
This specific outline is geared toward my future seventh grade English classroom with a 50-
minute period. The students would have one year of middle school under their belt, but will now
take a step up as they become more involved in extra-curricular activities beyond their regular
school day.
Day IV:
(2 minutes) Have a quick bell ringer of fist-to-five assessment of how prepared for class
they were that day. (Did they have the right materials, were they in their seats, etc.)
(8-15 minutes) I’ll give the students the pre-test. It will be very short.
(5-10 minutes) I’ll take the students to the library to allow everyone time to check out
their first AR book. This will ensure that they have no excuse toward not getting started
on achieving their points.
(30 minutes-can be adjusted depending on length of pre-test) We’ll start the descriptive
language unit via PowerPoint. After the introduction of the information, we’ll dive into a
creative activity involving descriptive words. I’ll split the class into small groups, and
we’ll play a game called Chinese Pictionary. Here is a brief explanation of how the game
works. Everyone writes a very precise, descriptive sentence about something. The groups
pass to the left. The next person reads the sentence, flips the paper over, and draws an
image to represent what they read. Pass to the left again. The person looks at the image,
and writes another descriptive sentence based on what they think they are seeing. The
process repeats itself. In the end, the students can look at how they’re story progressed to,
potentially, an entire different story. This activity has many meanings. It can be applied
as a way to get the kids actively using descriptive language. It can also serve as a way to
touch on how people’s perceptions of things can be very different, which could be tied
into a reminder to be respectful of all interpretations and opinions in future class
discussions.
(5 minutes) As a wrap up, I will pass out small pieces of paper, each with a single
sentence on it. The assignment will be for the students to take the sentence and write a
paragraph of a story. It must incorporate the sentence somewhere.
Day V:
(5 minutes) Have the students write down a different rule that they remember as a bell
ringer. I will take attendance and lunch count.
(5-7 minutes) I will assign the students their official table partner. This will be the person
they go to quickly whenever I say turn to your table partner. I will briefly walk them
through this procedure to ensure they know my expectations. For this class session, I will
have them share their paragraph with their partner. At the end of these few minutes, I will
ask for volunteers to share.
(30 minutes) Next we’ll go into today’s lesson. It will be a continuation of the previous
lesson, but go further in depth. I’ll use this lesson to incorporate the student’s own lives
in order to learn more about them. Their task will be to write a brief summary of their life
that touches on a few very specific details about them that others might find interesting.
They are to write it from a third person perspective. I’ll give them time in class to get
started brainstorming potential fun facts about themselves to incorporate into the
narrative. They must have a written assignment, but the format of presenting is pretty
open. (As in bringing props, playing a song, etc)
(10 minutes) I will remind the students of their assignment to finish this short narrative of
themselves by the following Monday. I will wrap up our first week with some sort of
relax time or game time, and give them time to ask any questions they may have about
how this class is going to run in the future. I will end by sharing a short narrative of
myself to hopefully peak their interest in how this might be done.