Monday, November 15, 2010

Keeping Track of the Readers

I finally knew about an assignment in advance.  7th grade core (that's the same group for two periods--one period of English and one period of world history).  I've subbed for this teacher before, so I knew what to expect--squirrelly, squirmy kids.  I was kind of dreading it. 

However, my phone rang this morning.  The sub caller wanted to switch me to the continuation high school (naturally).  I was saved!

The assignment for the world geography classes was to read a section out of the textbook together.  I was also instructed to take down names of readers as they got credit for reading aloud in class.   It was a pretty standard assignment, and things went smoothly. 

This made me think of another day when I had a similar assignment.  It was a home ec. class.  We were supposed to read out of the book, and students who read got credit for reading.  I took down the names of readers as instructed. 

I ran into the teacher a couple days after this.  What surprised me was how grateful she was that I took down the names of readers.  I was just following the lesson plan.  It made me wonder.  Were there other subs out there who didn't take down reader names?  Why would they not follow the lesson plan? 

What surprises me the most today is how many of the students' names I do know.  (If I'm not sure, I ask.) 

It's been a rather uneventful day so far.  That's good.  Although, I hear the next group is supposed to be the worst group. 

2 comments:

  1. I remember wondering why the subs wrote down our names in class (not all, though). So it was for class credit.

    Of course, I don't remember our regular teachers telling us we got credit for reading! Maybe some of them weren't good about following the lesson plans, either :)

    Also, I've used squirrelly many times. Obviously the spellcheck is quite flawed!

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  2. In these cases, the students knew they got credit for reading (that was primarily why I got volunteers to read). But yeah, I'm sure sometimes you got some credit for it.

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