Again... I don't quite know how it worked but... it did. Perhaps it was the scaffolding or the flexibility or the one on one group work, checking up on everyone and getting everyone involved.
Was really really easy to see the two students disruptinf their own learning... and actually - none of the other kids were put off because they were all in their own little poetry ecosystems. So so cool.
Really need to figure out how to recreate this. I feel like it's a mixture of the 'right kinda kids' and also perseverance.
To have kids choose to write their own poems over beginning the decorating side or for those who want to start the decorating side and think while they're doing it. Or having one student working on Minecraft creating billboard signs with poetry on them or another creating a PowerPoint on my laptop and looking up Hone Tuwhare poems for more inspiration. Or the student who has consistently been on point, choosing poems by Coleridge and Wordsworth for his selection. Or the student reading out of the poetry book I lent her last week to the disruptive students beside her - trying to help them get on task - but then ignoring them while still sitting beside them - doing her work. Or the students at the back immersed in their music, using it to create a collaborative song. Or the student so immersed in his own poetry that he was finding it hard to get it out "right".
Somehow... I helped create this.
And it's simply wonderful.
After last year and being so incredibly drained by the immature behaviour and consistent setbacks with changing class dynamics and constant stops during the lessons - it is so so nice to finally see them involved, participating and getting into it.
At one point I stopped them for a bit to talk about a Class Dojo point goal - 50 points by the end of the term. And one student said, "Miss, this is not helping. I'm in the zone." Or something to that effect. He just wanted to get back into his poetry and honestly... that is the coolest thing hearing that from him.
Of course... it could also be the cupcakes that I gave out at the start of the lesson in recognition of two boys' birthdays over the weekend, promised rewards from last year that I owed and just because they've really been working so damn well.
Stoked.
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