Thursday, August 10, 2006

First Day of School

The first thing I did to commemorate the first day of school is I pulled out my "Have coffee, will grade papers" mug out of the back of the cabinet where it has been on "vacation" for the summer. Today it was time for us both to get back to work.

The first day was good, but long. We're trying this thing now where we have advisement every day for ten minutes; today, tomorrow, and on special days like "progress report day," we meet with our advisees for thirty minutes. It seriously felt like another class added to the day, and we already have seven periods! Maybe the ten-minute segment won't seem too bad.

All of my classes were pretty good; one (4th period) has me a little concerned because they were a bit...loud, but at least they weren't "bad"--just loud.

So it was a typical first day--new names, new faces. And I already have a stack of summer reading assignments and summer reading tests to grade for my Pre-AP class.

5 comments:

Jenny said...

I'm guessing you guys are on the 7 period, 50 minute plan? We are. That is a long day, for sure.

Love the mug.

Amy said...

Yep, that's the plan we're on. I don't like it. I just see TOO many students in one day. English teachers know what that means--too many students, too many papers to grade. :)

Jenny said...

Exactly!!! What do your class sizes look like?

Amy said...

I have "regular" seniors for 5 periods a day, and I have about 125 of them--give or take a few. (My largest class is 27, the smallest is in the low 20s.)

I have Pre-AP 10th grade for one period a day, and I have just 14 of them.

How about you?

(I laugh at the note in our school's "teacher handbook" that says all work should be graded and returned within five days. Whatever!)

Jenny said...

My biggest class so far is 23. Smallest is 19. Pretty awesome! We start on Monday, so I'll probably get more added as the week progresses. We'll see.