22 Days of Summer Left...

That's right, 22 days. It will be here before we know it and I can't help being a little excited. Of course, I naturally dread having to give up my summer days of pajamas, coffee on the couch and no makeup, but I really am excited to start this school year. A new year (teaching 9th and 12th grade) means new faces and new challenges. Since I spent the majority of our beach vacation cooped up in a condo room while a monsoon persisted outside, I slowly became crazy and began writing  units for the upcoming year. Although I will be teaching the same grade levels as last year, it was our first year implementing Common Core into the curriculum and there were a lot of changes I wanted to make after the first year of trial and error.

With the help of Pinterest, coffee and the inability to soak up the sun, I begin filling out our school's Unit Planning Worksheet.
Now, keep in mind that I teach resource classes. That's why I'm short two literary pieces and I have Daily Oral Language (DOL) embedded in every lesson. Since we will move at a much slower pace than other classes, I wanted to provide plenty of time for remediation as needed. I've set the bar high for my ninth grade students who typically read at a 3-5 grade level when they enter high school. Either way, I'm optimistic about the upcoming year. Obviously each text will incorporate as much scaffolding as needed.

NOW! My favorite part :)

The way my DOL is set up, we will use it as an opener each day. Two sentences that should take no more than 10 minutes to correct and review. A DOL test will be administered every two weeks to measure student progress (which they will graph in their notebooks!). On these Fridays, we will READ!

• Reward Jar- At the beginning of the year each student will develop reasonable rewards for maintaining their behavior over the two week period (I will save my behavior management plan for a later post). This may include drawing, computer time, iPad time, etc. 
• Enjoyable Reading - Students will select a book of choice from the classroom library, school library or from home (with teacher approval) and will independently read with no strings attached. This is a modified version of Silent Sustained Reading which was introduced to me by a dear colleague (Lisa Wilson). 
• Apply To Real Life- In this group, kids will use the tweets, statuses and other "real life" texts of famous people to correct the grammar, punctuation and wording as practiced during DOL time. 
• Develop Our Skills - Of course this could entail a variety of things, but I plan to use it for remediation, make-up work, and specific skill development as needed. 

Labels for Bulletin Board

Now, whether or not the kids go to one group a day (taking almost two months to complete the rotation) or rotate among groups throughout one period (allowing only 15 minutes per group) I have not decided. I'm strongly against only having 15 minutes per sessions, yet two months without receiving a "reward" for good behavior is ineffective. I'm still trying to tweek this. Any suggestions?