Remember during a story to periodically recycle information. I always do that whenever somebody comes into my room with a note or some other interruption, so common in our buildings, which slightly derail our stories.
Recycling means summarizing what has happened so far in the story up to the point of interruption. It is like a mini-retell during the story. Recycling need not last more than a minute or so, but it gives the students a chance to comprehend multiple sentences. It allows everyone to regroup and refocus. Right after a recycling is a good time for a brain break.
A good recycling requires only a few seconds. It is always surprising when a story that required thirty or forty minutes to build can be recycled in less than a minute. When this happens, the students and the instructor are reminded of how much they have accomplished by working together in class to create a story. Recycling is also great for the everyone in Hub A because it gives them a chance to get caught up on their drawing, story or quiz.
Do not confuse recycling with a retell. Retells only occur once the story is completely finished, and are usually done by superstars. Sometimes you will want to run out of the room and shed tears of joy when you hear some normally quiet kid crank out two or three minutes of comprehensible language with hardly any help from you.
If there is a visitor in the Hub C armchair, such retells usually win you a friend for live on the administrative staff. If a parent is there, it will be all over the community in a few days. Those conversations between parents about what you are accomplishing in your classroom will be the real source of change, and not anything you do on the level of re-educating people. The parents will eventually take it to the admins, who tend to only change things in their buildings under parent pressure.
You don’t need to worry about the change. They have time and for some odd reason you don’t. We have talked a lot here about who the ones are going to be the change. I have finally decided it’s not us. We are too busy.
The parents will do it. If it is a high poverty school the change will happen slower. But eventually it will all change. Don’t burn yourself out doing anything more than good teaching, is my advice. Trust that everything will be o.k. and that our kids will soon be ushered into a new period in American education because of the back breaking work we are doing now.