GGGGOOOOAAAAALLLLLL

Progress toward my goal..I have found that I am doing a much better job after creating goals, to actually focus on achieveing them. Amazing, isn't it? I tend to be someone who sets golas in my mind but does not put them down on paper. Once they are written though, it makes me follow through and complete them. So far, I am doing a good job. My seniors actually decided with a little guidance how they wanted to complete their last novel. They decided rather than fishbowl they actually wanted to teach one another. This brought a whole new set of problems (umm, challenges) to deal with since we had to talk about what it means to teach. Group one already went and did a fantastic job. They had a multitude of acitvities during the class period and not one activity went on too long; we wrote, discussed, visualized and presented our findings. It really was impressive to see the thought and effort put into their lesson plan. I have also been trying to encourage my freshman both regular and honors to have more say in due dates and assessing their work. This is more difficult with my regular class because they aren't accustomed to having a say and now I am allowing them to help determine their grades. The biggest struggle with this is to get them to actually read and interpret the rubric I give them for a project. My sophomores did well with determining their grades so I am hoping I can encourage my freshman to do the same. We will get there eventually; I just need a little patience!