I integrated bell ringers this trimester, which has been worth the extra time. However, I tried using my colleague's model, which includes the word of the day on the actual bell ringer. I always did my word of the day at the beginning, my students had their word of the day sheets, and it was something they regarded as an instrumental part of class. Combining the two has been an epic disaster. Thankfully, I picked up on it before too much damage was done. We have returned to beginning class with the word of the day and THEN beginning the bell ringer. They are much less confused, overwhelmed, and on task.
My student teacher also brought up the ingenious idea of noting whether students were doing the bell ringer by using a clipboard. Why I didn't think of that, I'll never know. Needless to say, I'm much more comfortable with keeping track of them that way. The piles that were forming were freaking me out! Now, if I could only find a way to do this digitally, life would be amazing. And after the past week's fiasco with the copy machine (obvious abuse has been duly noted), the repairman, nasty notes, and people who should never ever touch a copy machine, I'd like to use it even less than I do already. If anyone has any ideas let me know! (No, I do not have a smartboard).
Lately, I've also felt like the weakest link on the English 9 team, because my students are simply eons behind where many of my colleague's are in terms of writing. It bothers me. A lot. I'm also frustrated, because I feel like I should be able to have my students craft a paragraph free from run on sentences, fragments, and that actually made sense. Granted, probably a 1/3 of that group has not been with me since day one and arrived from different schools, I still feel responsible. I'm still trying to figure out how to address these issues, and I'm hoping that this week's assignment for school will help, since it's all about creating writing lessons :)
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