Monday, Monday!

I've definitely got a case of the "Monday." Despite going to bed early, I woke up at six and decided to forgo (and yes, that is the correct spelling) the work out for an extra hour of sleep. 

When I finally did wake up I struggled to get ready for the day; I was determined to start this week off right and I was excited for the days activities.

For British Literature we played a "Would You Rather" icebreaker activity, reviewed material from last Wednesday, took a Vocabulary pre-test, and did a Spy/Research Activity. The students "became spies" and had to answer 12 questions individually, in pairs, or in a group of three in regards to background knowledge of WWII. They then had to come up with a creative idea to get this information to headquarters without it being intercepted by the enemy. I was only planning on giving them a day to do it, but they worked really hard (very little talking!) and only got through half of the questions. I told them that tomorrow I'd give them twenty minutes to work and then we'd present material. I was very pleased with how they worked and treated me. They were still expressionless - but I think the fun "Would you rather" activity lightened the mood a bit.

As for speech, this went just as well. I handed back everything I had graded and told the students that they would be doing a quick 60 second introduction speech in a half an hour.

They were not happy.

I gave them a note card and told them the basics: don't read directly from the card, pick a topic (I gave 12 samples), outline...etc. I then told them that after the speeches we would be doing something fun. They, of course, asked "what?" And (with a little bit of excitement) I said, "We'll be watching "'A Knight's Tale.'" I'm excited because this is a modern movie that really relates to giving introduction speeches. To my surprise, only one student claimed to have seen the movie before!

I didn't want to show a movie purposelessly and this movie definitely has purpose in this class - even more than I had thought. After listening to the 60 second speeches it was apparent no one used the note card I gave them, no one practiced, and no one really followed directions. I let them suffer through their sixty seconds and at the end I asked them what they thought they would differently. They all agreed that next time they'll practice their speech and not just "wing" it. I also brought up all the "ums," "uhs," "sos," and "ands." I told them that while I too need to work on this while teaching, now that they are aware of it hopefully they can reduce these "filler" words.

After the sweating - we watched the movie. I told them prior to going into the theater that I will be asking them what the character Chaucer did well when presenting Elrich before the joust. I warned that if I don't get any discussion at the end of the movie we won't be watching anymore films. I really hope they participate because I think there are a lot of fun things I could do with them.


So overall - I think today went really well! We will see how tomorrow goes! And the picture is just because he's so nice to look at. :-)