In the end, things didn't turn out as badly as I had feared at the end of my first field experience - although of course the creative writing unit I taught was nowhere near as groundbreaking for the students as I had initially hoped.
More than half the class submitted drafts of their writing, and one third of the entire class had done at least two drafts. There were six scores of 100; scores were based on the number of drafts (three including the final copy), the length of the story (most were more than the required 450 words), the relatively low number of syntactical and spelling errors and the neatness of presentation. Four other students received 90s, mostly because of the errors in the final draft.
Only one student completed a story of more than 700 words AND handed in her parental permission slip to submit the story to the online writing contest. I submitted her story over Winter Recess (the only change I made, after asking her first, was to break up the story into paragraphs), but she didn't win the contest and I think she never even checked to see if I had submitted her work. Still, I think she felt much more confident about her writing ability at the end of the unit, because when I had her read the whole story aloud the entire class broke out in cheers at the end. I'm pretty sure I achieved my main goal with several students, which was to give them the experience of rewriting what they have already written, constructively critiquing the work of others, and to make them feel more positively about writing in general.
Now I'm doing what's called the Practicum. It's four hours with my mentor teacher four times a week instead of three hours three times a week, which was what I had last semester. My new placement school is in what's considered an "urban" district by my teacher training program, "urban" being a euphemism for what was called "inner-city" when I was growing up, which in turn was a euphemism for "the ghetto" when my parents were growing up. But there is no comparison with last semester's placement.
The building is newer, sunnier and more relaxed. There is no X-ray machine at the entrance, no cops standing around or cop cars out front. There is no hallway lockout. The students come into my mentor teacher's classroom, sit down and quietly wait for her to hand out worksheets. There is almost no conversation until close to the end of the period, when most of the kids are done with their worksheets. The relationship among the staff is collegial and professional, and the administration seems to genuinely care about how things are going.
My mentor for this semester, Ms. F, is a second-career teacher. She spent most of her professional life in Human Resources, and has been teaching high school English for six years. She is a trim, fit, stylish woman who seems to enjoy her students. Ms. F recently received her administration certification, so she is occasionally called to substitute for one of the assistant principals.
Unlike my former mentor, she immediately expressed interest in my blog and said she would subscribe to it. So now maybe I'll have three or four regular readers, including this semester's supervisor!
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