Contextual Factors #4: Students

I will teach a regular 8th grade English class with about 30 students. I perceive about 10 of them to be students of color. I know from conversations with them that many take advantage of the breakfast program in the morning, but I don't know how many of them are eligible for free or reduced lunches. I haven't been given access to IEPs and 504s because my supervising teacher has had a substitute for the last three days of observation. I will get that information as soon as possible and include it in my final work sample paper.

There is a decent split of male and female students, most of whom appear to conform to a traditional gender binary. I have had success getting all of the students to participate, simply by asking them questions during discussion or encouraging them to share writing samples and ideas during individual work time. Right now, there is a row of students that all participate in leadership and leave early every so often to meet with their peer mentee. If I had to identify a clique in the class, it would be these students. They talk almost exclusively to each other and always opt to work together during group tasks. There are other pockets of students that chat a lot, but it seems to be mostly an issue of proximity. These students have been moved with a new seating chart and will chat with anybody near them rather than work on writing assignments or questions from the book.

From reading student rough drafts and watching their presentations about mythology, there is a lot of room for growth between the students who struggle the most and students who could probably already succeed in a high school classroom. Developmentally these students are very different as well--I have not identified a "norm" as far as progress, unless I consider the norm to be the mid-level learners. There are students who write pages and pages before others have an idea down on paper. I took an informal poll of those students last week to check in about their interest and three out of four expressed extreme boredom. I will have to be creative about what I ask them to do, and find ways to keep them thinking and engaging at deeper levels. For the students with empty papers, I have tried to identify reasons for their struggle. For several, it stems from disinterest and every attempt to avoid the assignment. There is no problem understanding the expectations or the process. For several others, there appears to be a real block and I will need to help them get from generating ideas to expressing thoughts in complete sentences.

There is one student who identified himself as autistic, saying that he struggles a lot in this class because of the amount of noise and rowdiness that ensues whenever students are released to complete an assignment. He is keeping up with the work and does a great job of studying and performing on tests. He also seems to have a lot of reading and writing ability, and benefits greatly from pre-writing and revising activities. But almost every day he comes to me after class to say how frustrated he is and how difficult it is becoming to focus when his neighbors are so talkative and off-task. I will encourage him to move to a quiet seat in the back of the room whenever he needs to, and I will try to pay closer attention to what is going on around him throughout the class period. I want there to be times when students are interacting with each other and having conversations, and I also recognize how counter-productive that can be for those who need quiet and order to concentrate. I offered to work with him on strategies for tuning out his neighbors and approaching them with his concerns.

One of my biggest efforts will be to re-arrange the group system. As it stands, students always choose their partners. I want this to change, as I see a lot of opportunity for growth and learning if I can break up the leadership students and create some new ties. I will ask for student preferences and try to work as many of those in as possible, while still keeping my own agenda for group work and collaboration in mind.