The first week certainly went better than expected. The first day began with loud cheers coming from the summerbridge teachers and tired and somewhat puzzled seventh, eighth and ninth graders trudging off the buses. As we finished breakfast for the first time together, we recited the daily summerbridge chant: “We are Summerbridge Pittsburgh. We are the young people who make a difference. We are striving for academic success and personal mastery. We come with open minds, willing hearts, caring souls and high expectations. We are Summerbridge Pittsburgh.” It was during this moment that I knew this would be an unforgettable summer.

The first day was honestly a blur. It was a combination between trying to remember every student’s name while trying to keep the class engaged and well-organized. We established a classroom routine together to make the transition into the classroom and out of the classroom more manageable. The students decided that it would be best to come in quietly, take out their homework and place it on their desk and then begin their “do now” before class started. In addition, we practiced our classroom chant:

“I know I can, be what I want to be. If I work hard at it, I’ll be where I want to be.”

Although the first day went pretty smoothly, I couldn’t help but notice just how quickly forty minutes passed. I realized that my lesson plans were probably way too long to be squeezed into a forty minute period. I also realized that I really only have three minutes or less to set up my classroom for my second group in the morning. Thus, as the week went on I figured out that I would need to put the preset name tags for the second class underneath the name tags from the first class. This way I wouldn’t be frantically running around the classroom trying to figure out a seating chart. It will also probably take me a week or so to figure out the best possible classroom arrangement!

What surprised me this week was realizing just how much work we are going to have to do this summer to try to get the students on grade level. Earlier in the week, my students were given a writing pretest where they were asked to choose one out of four writing prompts and then compose a five paragraph essay in a forty minute period. When I read their essays I was surprised for two reasons. The first thing that surprised me was their poor writing mechanics. Many of my students (though not all) were unable to write in complete sentences. In addition, I noticed that spelling was a common issue. I don’t think a lot of my students had ever been taught phonics and so spelling was a daily struggle. However, I was also surprised by the deeper content level I was seeing within their essays. No one wrote about surface level experiences. These experiences were chilling, real, intriguing, challenging and emotional. One of my students wrote about the three deaths that occurred in her family in a single year. Another student talked about how free she feels when she dances even though dance can sometimes be the one activity she does not feel like participating in. I have never met a group of rising eighth graders who are so poised, confident and filled with endless spunk and energy.

I ended my first week teaching my very first two lessons to a group of eighth graders. My first lesson I was observed by my supervisor for the first time and was somewhat apprehensive. The lesson plan went extremely well, but obviously there were flaws that I will hopefully begin to fix with more experience. My first lesson was introducing narrative vs. expository text and for a guided practice activity, the students passed around this giant colorful cube with a mix of narrative and expository texts I had gleaned from the internet or the newspaper. Although my idea was creative in theory, some of my paragraphs were definitely too long. I realized that many of my students take a long time to read a small paragraph and many of them are uncomfortable reading in a classroom setting. Thus, I will definitely take this into consideration when choosing future texts and paragraphs for my class to read!

Although I was nervous at the beginning of this week, I am starting to adjust to a middle-school teacher’s way of life. The lesson planning is endless and the week was incredibly exhausting, but seeing the kids laugh and smile is probably one of the most rewarding experiences ever. I am hoping to continue to work on my classroom management and adjust to each student’s learning styles.