I explained what inspired me to become a teacher, and then I included the little detail that not everyone knows about me: I actually stayed in college an extra year and a half to complete my teaching degree. I was two semesters away from graduating, ready to ride out with the bare minimum of credits - 12 per semester - and enjoy being an almost adult. But when I decided to pursue elementary education and a k-9 certificate, I threw myself all-in.
And here is the perk of a small school - when you ask to meet with the dean and explain to him that you want his permission to take extra credits .... as in, DOUBLE the amount of credits a typical student takes ... and a class at the community college, too ... the dean simply says, "OK, Karisa, let's do that." See, at a small school like Eureka College, it's pretty easy to form a relationship with most of the people there, and that connection helps you get things that you normally wouldn't be allowed at a different, larger institution.
So, long story short, I completed two rigorous semesters of double the class load, took mini-mester courses at ICC to finish a few requirements, and graduated from Eureka College as the first ever triple major. (Writing, Theatre, Elementary Ed)
Why does this matter?
None of that would have been possible if I didn't know how to balance my time and manage my work load. And THAT wouldn't have been possible without two things that I know most kids hate:
due dates and consequences.
I won't regale you with anymore tales from my youth, but instead, I want to explain a new expectation in Mrs. Yeagle's 7th Grade ELA class:
No more late Writer's Notebook Entries will be accepted.
Why?!!!
Simply put, accepting late WNBs doesn't help me or the students. I assign this little writing tasks as quick checks - the content varies from entry to entry, but each assignment either covers an important standard that needs reviewing or helps students establish goals or pre-write some ideas for future projects. The underlying work, of course, is just those grammatical basics: capitals, periods, comma placement. We've been working on complex sentences lately, so as I read these WNBs I'm able to assess quickly if the students are internalizing and applying the concepts we've been working on. Grading these WNB entries with the students right there allows me to have quick conversations with them about what's working and what isn't, and I'm able to do some punctuation triage as needed.
These WNB entries are important and serve a good use for the development of your students as readers and writers. But, doing them late doesn't have the same effect. Grading 17 late entries right before the quarter ends doesn't give me the change to conference about small details that we could fix, and it doesn't allow me the change to review and reteach things that the class as a whole seems to be struggling with. (Case in point, we spent first quarter working on how setting impacts plot - the most recent WNB about that topic showed that nearly all of the students reverted back to just describing the setting with no attention to how the setting creates conflict, traps characters, limits their choices, etc. So we did a mini-lesson review and tried again!) But, the students that didn't complete the first WNB entry didn't have the chance to reflect on it and improve their thinking with the second....because there was nothing to reflect on.
My job is to make your students (MY students, because they're all my kids now, too) into strong readers and writers, and not because the state expects them to perform well on the IAR this spring. I need our kids to become better readers and writers they'll need these skills in their every day lives - writing letters to insurance companies, defending themselves from a traffic ticket, applying for jobs and grants and understanding housing contracts... This is my job. And in order to do MY job, the kids have to do THEIR jobs....which means writing these WNB entries and bringing them to class on the day they are due.
My job isn't just about getting our kids to become better readers and writers, though. It's much bigger than that. It's my job to help them become good people, strong citizens, and effective leaders. You trust me with your kids for 8 hours a day, and I need to be sure that the time they're spending with me is educational and helping them become the kind of people I want running my country one day. (And fun....the time they spend with me should be fun, too. ALWAYS fun!) And if I'm going to help them become successful members of the world, then I have to start helping them realize the importance of due dates and the consequences of not following through.
Is there a time and place for leniency, understanding, and flexibility? Of course! But in order to afford those opportunities, there have to be some due dates and consequences to be flexible with. You have to have the structure in order to allow leniency and flexibility!
By learning these things now, maybe our kids will be able to walk into the Dean of Student's office at their college one day and ask to take on an extra course or two to graduate early or with a second major or with an independent study...and the Dean will agree because he knows that our kids can handle it.
So, starting today, 3/3/21....no more late WNB entries. It's completed on time, or it's a zero, as per the student handbook. I'm excited to see the improvement our kids can make when we start writing every day, having consistent chances to mini-conference, and conversing about the style and structure of our writing in these quick entries.
Good, good things are coming! Thank you for your support!