Week #3 in the Classroom

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 During my third week of being in the classroom, I was able to teach! On Monday I conducted a lesson about Essay Structure. That day I was feeling very nervous just because I hadn't taught since the end of April. I was able to engage students and I actually had a decent amount of students who wanted to participate and volunteer to make corrections when doing the bellringer. Student participation was something that I was concerned about because my mentor teacher's 5th-period class only has 9 students in it, all of which who are relatively quiet besides a boy or two. After I was finished teaching, students had independent reading time. During that independent reading time, my mentor teacher gave me feedback on my teaching. She assured me that I was doing just fine and that I was exactly where I needed to be, but there were some things that I needed to work on. I need to work on slowing down and engaging students by asking them more questions. I took those suggestions with me as I headed into my teaching for Tuesday. On Tuesday, we discussed Essay Outlines, and I used the fairytale "Cinderella" to talk about the main conflict, guiding questions, and writing a thesis statement. At times students were a little confused and I began scrambling in my head, trying to figure out what to do. Thankfully, I was able to guide students back on track and they began to connect the dots. After the lesson, my mentor teacher gave me more feedback and that feedback was the same as the day before. She did disclose to me that I did better at engaging them in conversation and provoking questions. 

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