The morning was greeted with the teacher in charge of group pictures for the yearbook coming in and letting us know they would be taking pictures in the media center shortly. Half of the media center was taken up by the 8th grade LA class working on the poetry lesson we made last week. The announcement was made for all students in 6 or 7 clubs to come to the media center. They weren't stagger, or told where to go or what to do. The photographer (who was a teacher in the school) had no directions at all. It was mayhem. Finally, after all the groups had their pictures taken most of the students left. One group with their adviser, decided to have an impromptu meeting in the middle of class. All of these students were missing part of their lesson for the morning, I didn't understand how this was a positive event.
Moving forward. The poetry stations were interesting. For the most part the students were self sufficient. There were two stations that one of us talked to the students about because the instructions on one table did not explain what simile, metaphor, personification, onomatopoeia and hyperbole are so we made sure they understood the definitions. The other station discussed Harlem renaissance poetry; the table instructions directions said that it took place 40 years after the end of the Civil War, but we wanted to clarify that this was one of the first times that the stories of slavery and strife of African Americans was written down and distributed to the masses. I think that these clarifications helped the students with these stations, perhaps we could modify the instructions to include these in the future. The other modification I would make is the amount of time at each station. They were given 20 minutes, which seemed very long for most of the tables. They really only needed 10 to 15 minutes. I would watch this for all classes, poll the students and teachers, and then make a decision.
I also had a chance to see some housekeeping issues. They received a few items in that were ordered, and I watched what they do and how they are processed. I also had a chance to watch while they learned what to do when a teacher damages and loses materials (technology items that are class items, but over all watched by the media specialist because she is also the technology coordinator). These were both important to experience because I am sure they will come up in the future and it is good to see examples of how they are handled.
As exhausting as it is to spend a 6th day of my week working, I enjoy going in so much more! The collaboration with teachers is amazing, and the media center overall is very inspiring.
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