honeymoon

The honeymoon is short with a new class. It's established, i'm nice, but not too strict. What that does is students focus when i ask them to, but they don't focus until i ask them to.

things to note: for the do now i asked what values do you think people in the 1950s held based on the videos we watched. people said they didn't know what i meant. that blows my mind. are they playing with me?

conclusion: i will try creative writing prompts for the do nows. the topic oriented stuff is too dry and boring. if they're not engaged in the first couple of minutes it's a recipe for distater.

other observations: things as basic as a collage of the apartment Raisin in the Sun takes place in should be broken down into small steps and demonstrated. I am not clear enough in my instructions - plus I needed to show them an example of what i wanted.

i think i may resort to 2 seating schemes - focus scheme - with desks between all students and silence. collaboration scheme where students can sit near friends or work together on projects as long as they keep working.

I will demonstrate these in class and we can practice them. I need to be more methodical and it's just not my way -- i could use lessons in being a drill seargent.