Whether we begin our first day with a story or with the CWB cards doesn’t matter. And it is possible to take just one card and work with one student exclusively for the first two or three days to create a story from the card by asking the questions where and with whom.
It’s not so much what we do in this work, but how we do it. Here are some first day notes that I think are important to keep in mind as we get ready to start our years next year:
1. Simplicity and SLOW and repetition and cheerfulness are the key things to keep in mind.
2. We don’t need to explain the rules. We can explain them as we need them in that first week. There will be no shortage of kids to model incorrect behavior in that first week. We need to learn how to stop each infraction in the moment and that is how we teach the rules, with the laser pointer and this formula:
1. Stop teaching.
2. Look at the student and smile.
3. Turn to the poster and laser point to the rule he just broke.
4. Read the rule out.
5. Explain in English what the rule means to the class in general, not directly to the student.
6. Look back at the student and smile.
If we explain the rules in English at every infraction for a week we won’t have to explain them, or only minimally, for the rest of the year. The rules are strong and powerful. Of course, there are no rules about explaining the rules on the first day and if you want to explain them all at once by all means do so. There is no one right way to do this work.
3. Whether you use the CWB cards or start with a story, or something else (please share other things that you do in the comment fields below), what counts is latching on to whatever structure you are using and staying on it in everything you say. In this work we are always teaching one structure at a time, but it sounds like PQA or a story, but all it is is just repetition of a structure camouflaged in some CI. So make your mind up now in the spring to constantly repeat the structure(s) you have targeted for that class in the fall in everything you say, each sentence, each question. If you do this slowly and with a smile and good humor, it will go well. Slow, constantly repeated (circling is no more than repetition in context), humorous, lighthearted single structures with judicious use of the laser to point to posters in those first days to start getting reps on the question words is the way to do it.
4. Which posters? The key posters to have up on that first day are obviously the question words and the rules and the jGR/ISR poster, if you plan on assessing according to the standards. They will get the CI airship off the ground. No sweat after that. If you are doing word associations to start class, have those posters up. If you want to do some verb slamming, or TPR, it might be nice to have some empty butcher block up in the second tier higher part of your classroom walls to add each new “conquered” verb up on with a big sharpie. Just make sure that the blank poster space is plentiful and way high up near the ceilings, out of the way of the other posters. You will need a lot of room and I guarantee that the kids will use them. I have observed in DPS enough times over the years to see that when kids did writing their eyes frequently looked up to those posters, trying to locate a verb. It’s really cool to see that. (The verbs are not translated up there due to not enough space and if you have to write the translation it means that they don’t know them anyway, haven’t been conquered via TPR, verb slamming, etc.)
5. If you use a story, make sure it is a super mini story. We spent about a month talking about those little starter stories here in December, and those are useful little stories to start a year or, for newer people, maybe a little later in the year as they get their feet under them with CWB and OWI.
6. Quiz early, after maybe two classes. If you are on a block schedule, quiz twice in one class maybe. Get the grade book loaded up with grades in that first week because it forces confrontation with students who are either too afraid to interact with us in the TL as per the jGR/ISR poster or just don’t know how, were never taught. (It seems such an odd thing to say that some kids have never been trained in interpersonal communication with a teacher, having been in schools since they were just little tykes, but it’s true. Chances are high that the kid’s family is under stress, not enjoying dinner together, all those things that happen in poverty brought on by greed in a failing society.)
7. My idea is to give maybe one or two weeks and set a date maybe two weeks into the year, in that first month certainly, for English explanations, but then when that date comes, third Monday in August or whatever, to lower the boom, maybe getting out my little high tech light that Keri (or who was that?) brilliantly (get it, brilliantly?) thought of, and start having that little light lit 98% of the time after that date. The reason for this is simple, I need English in those first weeks to train the kids up to the point where I don’t need English after those first few weeks of animal training.
If others have points to add to the above, I’m sure some of the newer people would like to read them, because this topic of how and what we do in the first few days of class is a super big deal and sets the tone in no uncertain terms for the entire year. If we blow it in the first week, we’ve blown it for the year. This statement particularly affects the topic of letting certain kids have license to blurt, which actually happens. Stop those little fiends now, in May, as we look forward to the 2015-2016 year.