Over my head, drowning in work!

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Literature Teachers Chatboard

Over my head, drowning in work!

by Meg

Jan 15, 2009

Hello out there.

I am a Languange Arts teacher who has been trying to keep her head above water! Can anyone help?

I teach multiple grades, 8 through 12th. I am in a small charter school and was just hired before the Christmas break. My principal came to me and said that the school's philosophy is that each grade level be reading a variety of novels at the same time, for example, I have a lot of split classes so the 9th graders would have to have material for 3 novels and they rotate which one they read, and so on.

Here is my problem: my head will explode. If I have to do three novels per gradelevel all at the same time. I don't know what to do about this, as this is unfamiliar territory and right now I have all the highschoolers reading a particular novel and the middle schoolers doing another. Did I mention that half of my upperclassmen are low level readers and that I just had to teach them capitalization? And on top of that, I haven't taught much high s...See More

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I recommend you adjust your scheduling if possible... What you may want to do is rotate your classes so that only one group is doing novel reading at the same time if that is currently the biggest stressor.

For example: 9th grade is reading their three novels for a month. 8th/10th are doing writing units. 11th/12th are doing units on their respective American Lit/British Lit time periods out ...See MoreWhat you may want to do is rotate your classes so that only one group is doing novel reading at the same time if that is currently the biggest stressor.

For example: 9th grade is reading their three novels for a month. 8th/10th are doing writing units. 11th/12th are doing units on their respective American Lit/British Lit time periods out of their textbooks. All groups get vocabulary/grammar/SSR time.

The next month, the groups rotate so that everyone is getting everything, just not at the same time. (I'd probably go on and plan my curriculum maps for each class from now until the end of the year to ensure that this is the case.)

I definitely wouldn't try to teach three novels for each grade at the same time (12 novels at once?) unless I set it up as more of an independent reading project.

On 1/15/09, Meg wrote: > Hello out there. > > I am a Languange Arts teacher who has been trying to keep > her head above water! Can anyone help? > > I teach multiple grades, 8 through 12th. I am in a small > charter school and was just hired before the Christmas > break. My principal came to me and said that the school's > philosophy is that each grade level be reading a variety > of novels at the same time, for example, I have a lot of > split classes so the 9th graders would have to have > material for 3 novels and they rotate which one they read, > and so on. > > Here is my problem: my head will explode. If I have to do > three novels per gradelevel all at the same time. I don't > know what to do about this, as this is unfamiliar > territory and right now I have all the highschoolers > reading a particular novel and the middle schoolers doing > another. Did I mention that half of my upperclassmen are > low level readers and that I just had to teach them > capitalization? And on top of that, I haven't taught much > high school since by student teaching days 5 years ago. I > have a lot more middle school experience. > > I guess I need to figure out how to differentiate > instruction between all of these different grades without > my head falling off. I feel like I have no personal life, > as I am always doing school work and trying to catch up! > > Any advice would be so appreciated from the bottom of my > heart. Today after my conversation with the principal, I > felt so overwhelmed and clueless...its an awful feeling! > > MC >

Jan 18, 2009

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