Student Practice Reflection - Lesson #5

     March 24th was the last day of my student practice. I cannot believe how quickly this experience has gone by, but I will be sharing my overall thoughts and feeling about my growth in a later post. For now I wanted to reflect on my last lesson, which I actually got to do with two different groups. It was definitely a bittersweet moment, as I've grown quite close to the students, but I am also very happy to be able to say that I successfully finished my student practice journey.

    The last lesson I did was an English class about poetry analysis. This group of students have done a lot of lessons with poems, different kinds of them, figures of speech, etc., so I wanted to revise all that knowledge, but also focus on a new aspect - searching for meaning. While they've done this as well, I wanted us to look at the works even closer than ever before and understand exactly what every single line means. I also chose a poem on the topic of climate change and global warming to tie it into the unit. The first part of the lesson was revision. I asked the students to remind me of all the types of poems, as well as poetic devices they've learned this far. I then proceeded with showing them the title of the poem ("Warned") and asked for their ideas on what this poem could be about. Next, we analyzed the first stanza together. We went line by line, explained all the new words or phrases, and thoroughly discussed the hidden meaning of the individual lines, as well as the stanza as a whole. I wanted to make sure they understood how to thoroughly inspect a text and the level of detail I expected in the lesson. Finally, I divided them into 4 groups and gave each team a different stanza to work on. They had to search for any unknown vocabulary in the dictionary, discuss the meanings of the lines and stanza together, and prepare to present their findings to the rest of the class. This part took a while, especially since some groups had difficulty with teamwork, but after a while all the groups presented their analyses one-by-one and we finished the lesson.

    As I previously mentioned, I conducted this lesson twice. The first time was with a slightly more advanced and larger group of students. They had amazing ideas whenever I would ask them for their input, but in general I could tell they were not very energetic that day. It had to do with the heat, but also some tension in the class. I am not sure what happened, but a lot of students seemed in a bad mood and that became even more apparent when I asked them to work in groups. To save time, as my mentor usually does, I asked them to work with their desk mates. 3 out of the 4 groups had tension between some of the members, but by coming up to them often and giving suggestions how to improve their teamwork they were able to achieve their goals in the end. Despite the odd mood, I think the lesson went well and the kids did not seem bored, even though they were not initially excited about the topic. With the other group, which was smaller and slightly less advanced, I made sure to modify the lesson. We went much slower and spent a lot of time on each step to make sure they understand. Also, instead of the final group work task, we all worked together on stanzas 2 and 3, but I made sure to allow the students to be more independent. This group felt much more lively and joyful, which would sometimes turn chaotic, but I think I still managed to keep the lesson organized. In general, I think the students enjoyed being able to come up with their own interpretations of the text and step-by-step get to the message the author wanted to convey. 

    In conclusion, my last lessons finished successfully despite some difficulties along the way. It was fascinating conducting the exact same lesson twice and seeing the different ideas, interpretations, working styles, levels, and moods. I made sure to adapt to the students as I went, which I think helped a lot, especially in the second group. It's sad to be leaving these incredibly smart and friendly students, but I am also happy that I have finally arrived at the finish line of my student practice.