And We’re Back!

Mean old Miss McMillan gave her students homework on the very first day of school! Seriously! I asked my new students to complete two Google Forms to share their opinions on two questions: What is a fair teacher? And what makes a great classmate? I took their responses to those two questions and created two separate Wordles. In case you don’t know, Wordle takes the words you enter and creates a word cloud with the words used most often being the largest. For example, in the first Wordle below, A Great Classmate, you can see that the most popular responses from my students were “helpful” and “kind”.

A Great Classmate

I really enjoyed their responses to “What is a fair teacher?” I think I can fulfill these requests. 🙂

What is a fair teacher?

 

Photo Captions Contest

Recently, my seventh graders were asked to write one caption for each of the seven photos in the Google Presentation below. I explained to my students that I would select five captions for each photo and then ask people to vote for their favorites. We hope you’ll take a moment and vote for your favorites in the Google Form located below the photos.

Thank you!

Questions, Questions, Questions

The first writing assignment my students received this year was called the Million-Word Essay. The challenge: in a million words (or less), tell me everything there is to know about you. I think next year I may want to emphasize “or less“!! Of course, when you ask students to write about their favorite subject, they have plenty to say.

At the end of their essay, I asked them to ask me three questions on any topic. Here are a few of their questions along with my answers:

Will we be doing a lot of grammar or vocab?

Absolutely! I love nothing better than torturing…oops, I mean…helping students gain a better understanding of this wacky English language of ours!

What was the year your favorite class graduated (or will graduate)?

Oh, so NOT answering that question! There’s just no way for a teacher to answer that question without hurting someone’s feelings.

When are we going to have our dances?

There are two dances scheduled; the first you already know about, October 28th. The second dance will be in February-ish.

Do you drink coffee?

Ick. No. I do, however, love coffee ice cream! Weird, eh?

How will you include technology in our classwork?

Oooohhhh…excellent question! I have many ideas on how we can use technology this year. We’ll have the laptops in our classroom frequently, and we’ll get a lot of use out of our Google Apps accounts. Do you have any suggestions? How would you like to use technology in your classwork?

Do you believe in public humiliation?

Only for people who ask questions about public humiliation.

Who is one of your heroes?

Another excellent question! One of my heroes is Dr. Jane Goodall, the British primatologist and anthropologist.

Why are you such a fun teacher?

Cool question! Thank you!! I think learning is fun and I want my students to feel the same way. Of course, if you’re asking me questions about public humiliation, our definition of “fun” may be a bit different.

I’m really enjoying reading my seventh graders’ essays. I think I may have a few questions of my own to ask when I’m done!

How to Describe Seventh Grade

Last week I asked my students to provide the three words that best describe each of them. Here, in this wordle, is my seventh grade class:

What a Group!

Pretty cool group of kids, wouldn’t you agree?

Seventh Grade Jokesters!

Not funny! That’s all I’m sayin’!

Well…maybe a little funny. 🙂

Aren’t We All Miracles?

The seventh grade had a rather lively discussion this morning about the following quote from Albert Einstein:

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

One of the comments that truly stood out for me came from Kate:

Everything in life is either a miracle or a step towards one.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with Einstein? Is there a third possibility, somewhere in the middle? How would you choose to live your life?