Student Feedback

This week was a brief three day adventure with my classes. I had some great feedback, from the students, on what I was presenting to the class.

The first bit of feedback was from my 10 graders. I am introducing poetry to them; I am introducing more modern forms of poetry. Each day for the next two weeks, we will learn about new forms of poetry, some elements that can be found in them, and build each class until they have a steady knowledge of elements of poetry. They will use these elements to apply to hard works of poetry such as sonnets. When I leave, they will be starting a Shakespearian work. I hope they will be able to use the elements that I am teaching to help them understand and actually like Shakespeare.

Anyway, I started my class off with Slam poetry, which just happens to be my favorite. At the beginning of class, I asked the students what their thoughts were on poetry. The majority of comments were negative. After the lesson, as the students were leaving the classroom, I hear them remark how much they enjoyed Slam poetry. My hope is that this gets them excited for the days to come.

The second bit of feedback I received is from my beloved 11 graders. Since we have started Gatsby over, they have been reading and summarizing page after page. Well, I was sick of that. They were sick of that. So I changed it. We did a reader's theater. Basically, several people took different characters and they spoke the dialogue of those characters. I asked them afterward if they liked this method, and the response was very positive. I even had one student come up to me and say, "Miss Turley, I like the way we read today. I actually understood it." This student usually struggles with his comprehension of the novel and leans on other students. He volunteered to read Gatsby.

This week felt good. It felt good to received feedback. I am a fan of feedback, especially from my students. This is their class too. I hope in my future classroom I can utilize their opinions more.