Surprises and Makeovers!

As of yesterday, my period four class is midway through the poetry portion of our unit. Yesterday was probably one of the best days that I have had with my students for a couple different reasons. My CT had to be at a data team meeting all day yesterday and thus he was out of the classroom (and the school) all day. This was my first time teaching the class without him being in the back of the classroom, observing me. I was not nervous about teaching the students on my own, because I have a good rapport with them and classroom management is not an issue with this class. The students completely blew me away. It started with one of my more challenging students walking into the classroom and declaring "This is going to be a good day! We're going to have a good class today!" after which I praised him for starting the class with such a positive attitude! I had the students working in groups to find different literary techniques (metaphors, similes, personification, repetition, and allusions) in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. We read the poem as a class the day before and had a class discussion after each section of the poem (I had broken the poem up into sections) to help aid in comprehension. This is NOT an easy poem, and I let the students know that when we started it. It's more difficult than The Red Wheelbarrow and I felt confident in telling the students this, because I followed it up with "even though this is more difficult than the poems we have been reading, I have complete confidence in every single one of you, you're all intelligent people and I have broken this poem up so that it is less overwhelming" and the students appreciated my honesty. 

As I monitored the groups, I was impressed with what I was hearing. Students were making amazing connections with the text and using the literary techniques to determine how they were important in the poem. Another challenging student was making amazing connections with the literary techniques and I had to praise him by declaring "Wow ***! You brought your a-game today!" The students were all on task, and they weren't afraid to ask me questions. They were completely comfortable with me and although this has not been an issue, I feel that I was finally accepted as their teacher! I think that my CT not being in the classroom had a big part in how the students were behaving! I did not have to reprimand anybody and the class period could not have gone smoother! After we discuss the literary techniques in the poem, I am going to have the students give Prufrock a makeover! As a class we decided that his life is a mess and it needs some professional help! They are going to work in groups and use magazines to make a collage and then present it to the class on how their chosen images will help Prufrock. I am excited to see what they come up with! I feel like they like this poem more than the ones we have been reading, because they are able to make connections with their own lives. Who knew that Prufrock would be the key to surprising me and cementing my teacher role in the classroom?