Learning from Personal Narratives

I am down to the last two weeks of the first quarter. Students submitted their Spanish and English personal narratives, and I have been able to give all students feedback on their Spanish narratives via email. I had them email their published copies as a Google Docs attachment. It was so convenient. That coupled with having a web based gradebook this year made the whole process so much more feasible.

Being able to sit and really look at their writing as a group has been beneficial in many ways. First, it is a great feeling to see how my 7th and 8th grade students continually grow, remembering back to where they were as 6th graders. With my 6th graders, I am constantly trying to remind myself to slow down and remember the natural evolving process of where they are now and where they will typically be at the end of the year, next year, and the year after... It is easy to forget how the process evolves at times - almost like watching my own children grow. Since I am with them all the time, the daily changes build continually but since I watch the different steps along the way I sometimes lose sight of the drastic changes they have made over time.

This is my first year having 6th-8th, and it is a great opportunity to really focus and reflect on this process and how to best scaffold student growth. On the flip side, seeing where the 6th graders are at right now reminds me more of how much there is to celebrate about my older students' growth. Certain students across grade levels remind me of each other, so not only do I love to think about their own personal growth, but it also helps me to be mindful of the different components that led to that growth.

Teaching is such a journey.