doingmybestinaclassroom

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

writers:

break up your paragraphs. big paragraphs are scary, your readers will get scared

fuuuuck epithets. “the other man got up” “the taller woman sat down” “the blonde walked away” nahhh. call them by their names or rework the sentence. you can do so much better than this (exception: if the reader doesn’t know the character(s) you’re referring to yet, it’s a-okay to refer to them by an identifying trait)

blunette is not a thing

new speaker, new paragraph. please.

“said” is such a great word. use it. make sweet love to it. but don’t kill it

use “said” more than you use synonyms for it. that way the use of synonyms gets more exciting. getting a sudden description of how a character is saying something (screaming, mumbling, sighing) is more interesting that way.

if your summary says “I suck at summaries” or “story better than summary” you’re turning off the reader, my dude. your summary is supposed to be your hook. you gotta own it, just like you’re gonna own the story they’re about to read

follow long sentences w short ones and short ones w long ones. same goes for paragraphs

your writing is always better than you think it is. you just think it’s bad because the story’s always gonna be predicable to the one who’s writing it

i love u guys keep on trucking

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

Today I learned

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

FAMOUS AUTHORS

Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.

The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.

Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online.

Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.

Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.

Classic Reader: Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.

Read Print: From George Orwell to Alexandre Dumas to George Eliot to Charles Darwin, this online library is stocked with the best classics.

Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.

The Spectator Project: Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.

Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books.

Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.

Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.

Fiction.us: Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.

Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.

TEXTBOOKS

Textbook Revolution: Find biology, business, engineering, mathematics and world history textbooks here.

Wikibooks: From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.

KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Get directed to stats textbooks and more.

Online Medical Textbooks: Find books about plastic surgery, anatomy and more here.

Online Science and Math Textbooks: Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.

MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.

Flat World Knowledge: This innovative site has created an open college textbooks platform that will launch in January 2009.

Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.

Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.

eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.

MATH AND SCIENCE

FullBooks.com: This site has “thousands of full-text free books,” including a large amount of scientific essays and books.

Free online textbooks, lecture notes, tutorials and videos on mathematics: NYU links to several free resources for math students.

Online Mathematics Texts: Here you can find online textbooks likeElementary Linear Algebra and Complex Variables.

Science and Engineering Books for free download: These books range in topics from nanotechnology to compressible flow.

FreeScience.info: Find over 1800 math, engineering and science books here.

Free Tech Books: Computer programmers and computer science enthusiasts can find helpful books here.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

byGosh: Find free illustrated children’s books and stories here.

Munseys: Munseys has nearly 2,000 children’s titles, plus books about religion, biographies and more.

International Children’s Digital Library: Find award-winning books and search by categories like age group, make believe books, true books or picture books.

Lookybook: Access children’s picture books here.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

Bored.com: Bored.com has music ebooks, cooking ebooks, and over 150 philosophy titles and over 1,000 religion titles.

Ideology.us: Here you’ll find works by Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, David Hume and others.

Free Books on Yoga, Religion and Philosophy: Recent uploads to this site include Practical Lessons in Yoga and Philosophy of Dreams.

The Sociology of Religion: Read this book by Max Weber, here.

Religion eBooks: Read books about the Bible, Christian books, and more.

PLAYS

ReadBookOnline.net: Here you can read plays by Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and others.

Plays: Read Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya or The Playboy of the Western World here.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: MIT has made available all of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories.

Plays Online: This site catalogs “all the plays [they] know about that are available in full text versions online for free.”

ProPlay: This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.

MODERN FICTION, FANTASY AND ROMANCE

Public Bookshelf: Find romance novels, mysteries and more.

The Internet Book Database of Fiction: This forum features fantasy and graphic novels, anime, J.K. Rowling and more.

Free Online Novels: Here you can find Christian novels, fantasy and graphic novels, adventure books, horror books and more.

Foxglove: This British site has free novels, satire and short stories.

Baen Free Library: Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.

The Road to Romance: This website has books by Patricia Cornwell and other romance novelists.

Get Free Ebooks: This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.

John T. Cullen: Read short stories from John T. Cullen here.

SF and Fantasy Books Online: Books here include Arabian Nights,Aesop’s Fables and more.

Free Novels Online and Free Online Cyber-Books: This list contains mostly fantasy books.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Project Laurens Jz Coster: Find Dutch literature here.

ATHENA Textes Francais: Search by author’s name, French books, or books written by other authors but translated into French.

Liber Liber: Download Italian books here. Browse by author, title, or subject.

Biblioteca romaneasca: Find Romanian books on this site.

Bibliolteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: Look up authors to find a catalog of their available works on this Spanish site.

KEIMENA: This page is entirely in Greek, but if you’re looking for modern Greek literature, this is the place to access books online.

Proyecto Cervantes: Texas A&M’s Proyecto Cervantes has cataloged Cervantes’ work online.

Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum: Access many Latin texts here.

Project Runeberg: Find Scandinavian literature online here.

Italian Women Writers: This site provides information about Italian women authors and features full-text titles too.

Biblioteca Valenciana: Register to use this database of Catalan and Valencian books.

Ketab Farsi: Access literature and publications in Farsi from this site.

Afghanistan Digital Library: Powered by NYU, the Afghanistan Digital Library has works published between 1870 and 1930.

CELT: CELT stands for “the Corpus of Electronic Texts” features important historical literature and documents.

Projekt Gutenberg-DE: This easy-to-use database of German language texts lets you search by genres and author.

HISTORY AND CULTURE

LibriVox: LibriVox has a good selection of historical fiction.

The Perseus Project: Tufts’ Perseus Digital Library features titles from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in English and original languages.

Access Genealogy: Find literature about Native American history, the Scotch-Irish immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, and more.

Free History Books: This collection features U.S. history books, including works by Paul Jennings, Sarah Morgan Dawson, Josiah Quincy and others.

Most Popular History Books: Free titles include Seven Days and Seven Nights by Alexander Szegedy and Autobiography of a Female Slave by Martha G. Browne.

RARE BOOKS

Questia: Questia has 5,000 books available for free, including rare books and classics.

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Books-On-Line: This large collection includes movie scripts, newer works, cookbooks and more.

Chest of Books: This site has a wide range of free books, including gardening and cooking books, home improvement books, craft and hobby books, art books and more.

Free e-Books: Find titles related to beauty and fashion, games, health, drama and more.

2020ok: Categories here include art, graphic design, performing arts, ethnic and national, careers, business and a lot more.

Free Art Books: Find artist books and art books in PDF format here.

Free Web design books: OnlineComputerBooks.com directs you to free web design books.

Free Music Books: Find sheet music, lyrics and books about music here.

Free Fashion Books: Costume and fashion books are linked to the Google Books page.

MYSTERY

MysteryNet: Read free short mystery stories on this site.

TopMystery.com: Read books by Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, GK Chesterton and other mystery writers here.

Mystery Books: Read books by Sue Grafton and others.

POETRY

The Literature Network: This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.

Poetry: This list includes “The Raven,” “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”

Poem Hunter: Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.

Famous Poetry Online: Read limericks, love poetry, and poems by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Lord Byron and others.

Google Poetry: Google Books has a large selection of poetry, fromThe Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.

QuotesandPoem.com: Read poems by Maya Angelou, William Blake, Sylvia Plath and more.

CompleteClassics.com: Rudyard Kipling, Allen Ginsberg and Alfred Lord Tennyson are all featured here.

PinkPoem.com: On this site, you can download free poetry ebooks.

MISC

Banned Books: Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.

World eBook Library: This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.

DailyLit: DailyLit has everything from Moby Dick to the recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.

A Celebration of Women Writers: The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.

Free Online Novels: These novels are fully online and range from romance to religious fiction to historical fiction.

ManyBooks.net: Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.

Authorama: Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.

Prize-winning books online: Use this directory to connect to full-text copies of Newbery winners, Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer winners.

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

“Your only homework this weekend is to go home and decide to return to class on Monday as a person with integrity.”

— me to a kid lying so badly to my motherfucking face

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

Tips for school

With everyone starting the new school year again, I thought it’d be a good idea to give you some tips.

These are to do’s and to don'ts.

I hope they help :)

To do

Buy organizers. I use plastic shelves that are on my desk. I organised them by subject. They were super cheap, and boring, so I put some stickers on them.

Use highlighters for eeeverything. For history; dates are green, names are blue, places are orange, ect. For maths, facts are pink, formula are yellow, ect. It really helps study!

Use flashcards! They are super helpful. Even just writing down things helps you remember. I use them for everything. Tip: different colour highlighters add a bit of fun!

Take breaks. If you are stuck on something, don’t try to force yourself. Take a walk, watch some Youtube, clean your desk or draw a doodle. Even a 5 minute break of going to the toilet might help.

If you feel down, or just tired, make sure your basic health things are okay. Not brushing your teeth once isn’t the worst thing, but you’ll feel better if you do. Eat something, get 8 hours of sleep if you can, I promise it helps.

Get a haircut before school starts. Or get your ears pierced. Or buy a new shirt. Getting something new can be refreshing, and people can give you a compliment on it!

Don’t be scared to meet new people. They are probably just as scared as you, even if it doesn’t seem like it.

Plan ahead. You don’t even have to follow your plan, but at least you’ll know what’s coming.

To don’t

Don’t stress about school. You’ll get that test done, you’ll make friends, you’ll find your place. Instead, write everything that stresses you out down, and write down solutions for them.

Make a mess, you’ll lose your focus if your desk is a mess. Instead, keep everything organised, or at least off your desk.

Be fake. No one likes a fake. Instead, be honest if you don’t understand something, or don’t want to do something or whatever. Trust me, it’s hard. I know. But it can help you a lot if people don’t just walk over you.

Lose sleep over school. It’s not worth it. Sleep is important and missing a few hours isn’t the worst thing that can happen, but if it becomes a trend, it can have a bad effect. Instead, plan ahead. If you still mess up, don’t worry. Only do the things that are absolutely neccesary, or do it during breaks, before school, or during free periods.

Let me know if this helped you! I’d love to hear feedback. Also, feel free to ask more personal questions about school. I’ll try to answer them as best as I can.

All the love, Soph x

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

Questions to Derail a Meeting

Has this ever happened to you? Your phone or laptop makes a notification sound. You have a staff meeting after school about a new initiative. And you think “oh no, I forgot to prepare!” Never fear, if you need to stall until another meeting, here’s a handy list of derailing questions* to make you appear thoughtful, intentional, and committed.  

Simply ask…

For a shared vocabulary between teachers, departments, schools, you can get a mileage out of this question. You can’t start anything without a shared vocabulary.

“How is this horizontally or vertically aligned?” Don’t worry, they’ll never have both.

What is our standard of significance? How will we know when we have succeeded or failed?

What input have we had from our community and our stakeholders? How will we acquire those perspectives?

What are our norms and rules for feedback? Where is the standardization in how we respond to stakeholder feedback?

Does this align to our school’s cultural identity and goals?

What drag or resources will this have on our technology? Will we need to purchase or invest in additional technology?

What is the roll-out timeline of this initiative? Who is making the decision?

What role does every present person play in this new initiative? Let’s make a spreadsheet assigning roles!

Good luck! 

*Now, some of these questions can occasionally be helpful if asked with honesty and a true desire to help succeed, but most of the time they are asked just to kill time, typically by someone who just wants to appear brilliant or hear themselves speak. 

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

I can’t BELIEVE I haven’t plugged this yet, because it’s so legit.

@jstor just sealed itself in my heart as the coolest resource ever by combining my two greatest loves - Digital Humanities and Shakespeare - to create an AMAZING site called Understanding Shakespeare.

It works like this (hold on to your seats, this is so cool):

Say you reach a line in a Shakespeare play where there’s a reference or symbol you don’t understand and/or would like to know more about. Usually, it would take a substantial amount of time to figure out the meaning, find the key theme, search through research databases, and maybe hit something that references your line.

But no longer!

Because with Understanding Shakespeare, you can go to the line and look at all the scholarship published on JSTOR that features or references to it! Oh my god!!!

An example:

So I really love Richard II’s “graves, worms, and epitaphs” speech, it’s one of my very favorites, and I’d love to learn more about it and the symbols of death and historical references contained within it. So I go to the line in Richard II:

Click on the first line and voila! There’s a ton of articles that quote this line, and several of them look really interesting and relevant!

So whether you’re looking for more information on a line for research or performance understanding, or you just like being sucked down the addictive rabbit hole of reading JSTOR articles all afternoon (me), Understanding Shakespeare is AWESOME and a resource you should totally take advantage of.

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

Google Sheets; Game Changer

You can now add checkboxes to Google Sheet rows/columns. This feature had been announced, but it has officially started rolling out to accounts. You can find it under the Data Validation menu, like so:

Literally a MILLION USES! I’m so glad this is finally public. How do you plan on using it? 

Your Friendly Neighborhood Google for Education Certified Trainer,

-WCT

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

Hemingwayapp.com is a writing tool that lets you paste in your text and suggests edits for you. It highlights sentences that are hard to read, alerts you of phrases that are written in passive voice, keeps count of your adverbs, and tells you the grade reading level of your writing. Source

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

@windycityteacher

I haven’t used google slides much.  Can I still print it into pdf form from google drive?  Also, does google slides have good short cuts to make sure things are straight and allow you to put different graphics in? Can I use my own fonts with it?

…tip toes away to explore.

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

Dr. Seuss’s publisher once bet him that he couldn’t write a book using only 50 different words. He decided to prove him wrong, and ended up with Green Eggs and Ham. Source

The 50 words are: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, and you.

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

“Show, Don’t Tell!”: Using the Five Senses in Writing

This is an extended piece to my ‘Show, Don’t tell’ post. When writing the senses, I like to imagine the scene as if I were watching a movie. It’s the simplest way for me to picture and write when it comes to descriptions. You don’t want to overload the reader, but you do want to paint the picture instead of telling them. Staying aware of the five senses in your writing will dramatically improve your skill. It not only helps the reader be a part of the story but helps the writer set important scenes, without having to outright state what is happening. In this post, I will explain how I use the five senses in my writing. As always, my advice is subjective and only to show what I personally do. Whether you keep the senses in mind as you write, or you edit them in later, making sure you pay attention to keywords will help eliminate the stress of going back later to figure out what (maybe!) went wrong. 

SEE: On Sight

One of the easiest ways to go about elaborating sight is to eliminate words related to vision (look, saw, gazed, peek, etc). It also helps to stay aware of items, colors, sizes, etc. Do the same thing you’d do with words related to sight, eliminate them. Of course, don’t erase every word or phrase, but being proactive, keeping them in mind, and avoiding them will help you avoid overloading your reader with too much purple prose. (Granted, I would die for purple prose, but I understand that’s not everyone’s thing). 

Examples:

Jill saw Jack running. He carried a silver pail. He tripped and fell down the hill. 

 There are a lot of sight-words in this example. As the writer, it is your decision to choose what you want to elaborate on, whether it is one thing, or all of them. How much of the story you want to paint is up to you—

Jack’s feet blurred against the green grass as his toe caught his ankle. He rolled on his side, his silver pail flying into the air and reaching Jill first.

Jill craned her neck to find Jack staggering down the hill. Water sloshed from the sides of the bucket, swinging and glistening in the sunlight. He stumbled and grabbed for the handle with his second hand as the pail threatened to leave his grasp, and then he slipped, toppling down the hill.

In both of these scenarios, the reader can “see” that Jack is running and tripped without specifically stating that Jill saw it. They also “see” he had a silver pail and dropped it. 

Being more visually descriptive is also very important for facial expressions. It takes a simple mood and elevates it. Describing the expression also gives the reader the chance to “feel” that way too, almost like a mimic, which helps them visualize and empathize with the character.

Example:

Maxine made a disgusted face.

Think of what a disgusted reaction looks like; usually, it involves frowning, pinching your nose, sticking out your tongue, etc. Sometimes, it can help to look in a mirror and write what you’re seeing, too.

Maxine flared her nostrils and stuck out her tongue.

In the latter example, the reader is able to infer that Maxine is disgusted by how the writer described her reaction.

HEAR: On Sound

Describing sound can be tricky. It’s also hard to remember when to use it. We tend to think of sound in terms of music or voices—okay, okay, sometimes we sprinkle in animals howling or the wind blowing, too!—but sound can be incredibly important in setting a scene and is often under-utilized. Sounds let the reader know their surroundings without pulling from what is going on and adds intensity!

Examples:

Manuel sat nervously at the coffee table.

Again, as the writer, you can decide where to incorporate the use of sound. Here are a couple of suggestions, based on the above example:

Manuel’s fingers drummed against the table and drowned out the low whistle escaping from between his teeth as he exhaled. All around him, there was cheerful chatter, through which the barista’s loud voice occasionally sliced.

Manuel’s thoughts whirred and hummed, a dull grinding and the clinking of glass broke through the constant thump of his knee against the underside of the table.

In both of these examples, the reader was able to gather that Manuel was nervous (tapping knee, drumming fingers, low whistle). They are also able to gather he is in a coffee shop (or a restaurant of sorts) without explicitly saying so.

TOUCH: On Sensation

The best way to handle touch is by imagining whatever it is you are describing and what it feels like. If you don’t know how something feels, google it. Don’t describe a snake as slimy just because its scales are shiny and gives it a slime-like effect. That said, touch doesn’t just deal with what your character is physically touching. It can also deal with emotions and help to express them without saying outright how your character feels. 

Example:

Opal touched the silk blanket. She felt sleepy and closed her eyes.

Here we can elaborate on what the blanket feels like when Opal touches it and how she feels to indicate she is tired: 

The supple fabric slid between Opal’s fingers like water. Her tired muscles sagged and sharp, tiny pinpricks pressed against her heavy eyelids as she lay back.

The reader knows the blanket was very soft and also that she is tired without specifically stating she was sleepy. 

TASTE: On Flavor

Taste is a fun sense to mess with. It can show the reader so much more than how delicious the bread is (or how gross dirt is). I like to play around with taste in the weather/air, the taste of fear, the taste of cat hair in your mouth because there is always cat hair in your mouth… all right, maybe that’s a personal thing.

Example: 

The sun rose over the city.

What do you use for taste here? A city can’t taste, the sun doesn’t taste, but your character does!

Yellow light spilled over the streets, soaking the grit from the rainbow puddles into the air. The bitter grease lingered and settled in his mouth, strengthening every time he scraped his teeth against his tongue. 

Experiment with taste in your writing. Describe things you wouldn’t normally think to taste, like crude oil*. The internet is a good resource when it’s something you don’t want to try yourself, like crude oil**. Chances are, someone out there has already tried it and explained what it tastes like online.

SCENT: On Smell

Ahhh, smell. Smell lets the reader know so much: they can figure out where a character is, what they’re doing, where they are, etc., just from a few scent-related descriptors thrown around. Smell is also useful in triggering memories or past events.

Danny walked through the forest.

You can use so many of the five senses here! But since we’re focusing on scent, let’s zero in on that:

A crisp hint of pine lingered in the air and blended with the pungent decay of the brown needles underfoot.

Without stating anything about a forest, the reader has an idea of where Danny is. You can also use smell to show emotion! 

Danny was in love.

How do you smell love, K? Well, you’ve got me there: you can’t. But as a writer, you can think of what love means to you and of things you associate with love, and work from there. Personally, I imagine it would have a sweet smell, maybe too sweet.

A rush of flowery sweetness filled his nostrils as the handsome young man walked by.

There you have it. Of course, there’s a lot more to writing the five senses, as there is with anything, but this is to give you a basic idea of what I do when I’m writing. Being proactive and keeping the senses in mind while writing can be tough and exhausting, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes. And you don’t leave it all for editing! Remember: the most important thing is to keep practicing. 

Happy writing!

* Please do not taste crude oil. I can’t believe I have to type this, but some people want to eat Tide Pods, so here I am.

** Do not taste crude oil. You will die.

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

(https://twitter.com/mreichenser/status/982672759632420864?)

🙌🙌🙌

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

in this house we love, cherish, respect, and use the oxford comma

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

10 Things They Don’t Tell You about Finding Your First Teaching Position

Congratulations on graduating you teacher/educator! Wrapping up your student teaching and walking across that stage is a validation of four long years of work. Now all that’s left is to find your first teaching job.

1.) You will not have a job in May. Breathe.

Especially if you’re not math, science, or SPED expect not to have a job in May. This can be an incredibly scary and daunting position to be headed towards, but it is also completely normal. Schools do not even start thinking about the next school year until late June/early July. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t even start your search until then, but don’t panic until August 1st. Perhaps you’re a self-driven “go-getter” who just knows in your heart you’re going to be one of the few with a job. That’s great, be determined, but know that the system you’re headed towards does not really reward go-getters, and often you’ll feel like you’re constantly speeding up to a red light. The people who are graduating with a job are either: student teaching at a school that has an opening, their CT is head of the department, or they return to the high school they themselves attended. There is nothing wrong with using connections, but if you’re not in the one of the above three categories, it is a tough process to get your foot in the door. Thousands of teachers just like you go through this process every year. Breathe, and you will be fine.

2.) There will be peaks and valleys

There will be days that you are nailing it; there will be days where you are wallowing in self-pity on the carpet blubbering about how you’re un-hirable (and maybe un-lovable) and should crawl under a rock and die. As with any job search, the journey is a long one and is filled with peaks and valleys. This is something that your education prep courses notoriously under-prepared you for. To start with, they do not give you a real scope of just how much time the search itself is going to take you and the courses, (no matter how many resume building classes you attend) can’t prepare you for how personal it feels when you never get a call back, or a reply email. The valleys are so long and so deep and the peaks are so short that you may accidentally trip over one on the way to another valley. You present the best version of yourself for so long and seem to still face rejection at every corner. There will be days where you get that email or a principal will leave a voicemail and you will feel as if you have vanquished a monster every time. Those are glorious times in the kingdom. Know this: it is not personal, there is nothing wrong with you, keep up the good fight.

3.) Take Sundays for you

Obviously being determined is important and you want to start early and have your application materials (resume, letters of rec…etc) as soon as you can get them together. However, nothing ever gets accomplished on a Sunday. It’s rare for any principals to be in their office, district offices certainly aren’t open, and everything shuts down on a Sunday. In the mad, stressful search that is finding your first teaching position, take Sundays for you. Go to the movies, hang out with friends, go swimming. Whatever the case may be you will never get anything accomplished on a Sunday, so you might as well take the day to unwind and enjoy what little of a summer you have. A lot of your search is going to be about balance and not stressing yourself out into a panic. Taking one day a week is a very manageable way to organize your time and make sure you’re not going to get burned out too early.

4.) Everyone’s a critic

Teaching is a unique profession in the sense that everyone around you, teachers or not, will think they know how to do it and will give you advice on your job search. Random people will ask “well, did you call any principals yet?” and you’re supposed to act shocked at this revelation that is going to single-handedly turn your career around. Your friends and family will mean well, which it makes it very difficult to get upset with them when they turn to you in May wondering why you haven’t found work. You have done your research; you know when districts start hiring or when they have career fairs…etc, just hold your head up high. It’s difficult when you feel you’re doing every little thing you can to find a job and your family and friends are breathing down your neck and offering patronizing advice like “make sure you have extra copies of your resume.” Extra copies? WHAT? Slow down, let me get a pen, I want to get all of this written down! The best advice is to smile and nod and don’t let their ignorance of our profession get under your skin.

 5.) Learn to love the hoops

Contrary to what movies (and your family) will tell you, teaching is not a one “30-minute-interview-handshake” sort of thing anymore (see #2). A very plausible scenario: you to attend a career fair and give a 5-minute meet and greet, to which they will schedule another follow-up interview (usually lasting about 30-40 minutes) after that interview you would make it to the second round, which is a 20 minute teaching demonstration lesson, followed by an hour-long debrief on your lesson’s strengths and weaknesses. Finally they’d narrow it down to two candidates, and you would have to interview an additional time for the position, then wait a week and a half while the principal/admin team makes their decision for which you have a 50/50 shot at. That is roughly 4-5 hoops to jump through. Urban districts, rural districts, and every district in between have a lengthy screening process that, (unless you’re in one of the three categories mentioned in #1) will take some time to complete. There is no way around this process, and the only way to win the game is to play it. You will have to love the process, because if you don’t life will become a meaningless abyss and you’ll end up like one of those teaching majors who take some desk job somewhere and convince themselves they’re happier not being in a classroom. Stick with it! It is what everyone else is doing and you will make it out alive.

6.) There aren’t always right answers

So congrats, you landed the interview! That is a feat in and of itself because principals and assistant principals have to sort through so many different resumes and qualified applications that making the cut that first time is a success. When looking for your first teaching job out of college, it is hard to get out of that “right/wrong, black/white, yes/no” mentality. In your education classes there were right or wrong answers. However, in interviews with principals (especially the earlier ones) they are just looking for how you think or how you shape your ideas/philosophy over time. Answer the questions as succinctly and honestly as you can. Sometimes they may ask a question you know nothing about, such as a specific theory or score-reporting software. In these cases, just admit you’re unfamiliar with whatever concept they are asking you about, but are willing to do some independent research. Hundreds of applicants will be b.s.-ing answers all day to their faces, and most principals will thank you for your honesty. Get out of that “right/wrong” dichotomy because it’s going to put a lot more stress on you when speaking with the principal. There is, of course, the possibility that whomever is interviewing you will hate all your answers, and that’s fine (see #7) that just means it’s somewhere you don’t want to be, or wouldn’t “gel” well with the rest of the staff.

7.) Go to every interview

This sounds like common sense, and the angry skeptic might read this point as “oh yeah, let me turn down all the NOTHING I’m getting offered.” Hold tight. After working your way through May and June and maybe even early July you will finally start to get some traction. Schools will start calling you back slowly, but surely. Think of it as the first snowflake of an avalanche, or the first drop in a rainstorm, or whatever various “more will come” metaphor you’d prefer. You start to hack your way through the jungle of hoops and a few schools tell you you’re being “highly considered” or “you’re the favorite candidate for this position.” That is great news! However, be wary of ever assuming you’ve got a job in the bag. There may be a point where you’re so sure one school wants to hire you, and then you’ll get another call. Go to that interview. Until your signature is ink on paper, keep jumping through the hoops. Sometimes the best school will contact you later in the year and might be the best thing for you. The universe is a random and chaotic thing, so keep as many options open as possible and be careful about shutting doors too quickly.  

8.) Don’t kid yourself on where you want to be

In line with #6, be honest about what kind of environment, and what kind of student body you want to teach. Some of your peers will opt for the more rural areas where you have to drive 30 minutes to get to a Wal-Mart; the class sizes are smaller and the kids have a lot of parental involvement. However, some of your peers will opt for more urban areas, some of your peers will opt for a suburb area or a private school; they all have pros and cons. At any rate, make sure you know what kind of area you want to be in, and make those a top priority in your search for a job. Spending a year in an environment you hate will drive you nuts and, frankly, it will rub off on your students and will be a bad situation all around. When you feel like you’re drowning, you might be quick to accept “any port in a storm,” and this is entirely natural. However, fight this urge. Your students will sense it, your administration will sense it, and that’s bad news. You may be waiting a bit longer, and other jobs might pass you up in the meantime, but it is better to wait for a position you could really see yourself in rather than taking the first offer that comes along.

 9.) Your resume will never matter as much as your personality

Over the years you may have added many fellow education majors to Facebook (through classes, for projects, whatever.) You will have seen these peers teach in classes, and through four years you’ll have a rough idea of how these men and women are in a classroom. These peers will forget to turn on projectors, refuse to accept any criticisms of their lesson plans, or speak so softly they couldn’t command an army of ants let alone a classroom. Every other day you will see someone post a status announcing their new position of gainful employment. Some of these people you will remark “oh, good for them!” and for others your jaw will drop in disbelief that some district out there in the world gave that person a job. It’s rude, it’s petty, but you will think it. Bottom line: be prepared to see bad teachers get jobs before you. That’s because they met with a principal who, more than likely, just felt like that applicant would be a “good fit” for their building. Often they are correct. Your resume is incredibly important to getting your foot in the door, but at the end of the day that personality has to shine through because that is what’s going to clinch you the job.

10.) We are all on the same ship

There are some who believe that finding your first teaching job is a zero-sum game. (Your loss is their win.) These people will commonly say things like “I’m not sharing any of my resources!” or “Why would I tell people about openings I know about? Then someone else could get them!” Do not, under any circumstances, choose to be one of those people. Teaching is a profession built on collaboration and the people who respond to the stress of searching for a job by lashing out and treating everyone like the enemy make this process practically unbearable. Sometimes a friend will get a call from an urban school, and she’ll pass your name along to them instead because she’d prefer something more rural. Sometimes it is just that easy. We, as educators, have enough to deal with trying to find that first job without worrying about our peers stabbing us in the back.  We are all passengers on the same ship just trying to get into classrooms to inspire and foster students. Rest assured you will get into a classroom, and all the effort will be worth it. Once you finally secure that job, do you really want to turn around and see that no one’s behind you because you were more interested in stepping on necks than helping people out?

One day your grandkids will ask “what was the best day of your life?” and having kids and grandkids and winning the lottery and solving the world’s problems will pale in comparison to the day a principal calls you to offer you the position. That moment is coming; be prepared and try to relax.

[doingmybestinaclassroom]

A Slightly Different Peer Review

Heads up, there’s no pedagogy in this post, just technology and personal anecdotes.  

So, my issue with Peer Review™️ is that, often students are fearful to give true and honest feedback because they’re face to face. I know, I know, kids should be gaining these skills, whatever. HOWEVER, I wanted to have a successful peer review session, so I sought after a way to put a kind of “digital barrier” between the kids in the name of more open communication.

Enter Google Classroom, Google Forms, some sentence frames, and the add-on docAppender. Using Google Classroom, I shared the folder of rough drafts and set it to “anyone can view” and attached it to a Google Classroom announcement. 

Then, using docAppender, I set up the form to pull in from that same folder. Therefore, one of the questions created a drop-down question with each student’s name. Students enter their name, select another student’s name in the drop down, then respond to questions around “areas of celebration and concentration” for their peer’s drafts. Once they clicked “submit”, docAppender pasted their comments directly onto the bottom of the student’s draft they selected. You can see what it looks like from a student’s perspective here.

Students had every draft at their disposal and didn’t even have to get up or trade drafts. Students didn’t look up and watch people’s faces while reading their draft because there was virtually no way to know whose draft they were reading. Students didn’t edit each other’s drafts, so there was no accidental deletion or changes. It wasn’t anonymous (email collection and a spreadsheet of answers I could see) but it was SUPER low pressure on the kids.

The feedback was INCREDIBLE, and it went off without a hitch. They took their time and honestly engaged with the rough drafts instead of getting into groups of three and awkwardly shuffling papers. The room was SILENT every class, not one kid out of 110 messed around today. If you get a chance, please try this Google Form add-on and peer review workflow out for yourself!

Your Friendly, Neighborhood Google for Education Certified Trainer,

-WCT