Very Tiny Victory

Okay, I'm the last to post. Oh well. My victory is small and so this will be short and sweet. I had 21 of my 24 students in class on Thursday!!! It's pretty impressive. I've never had that many before. And one of the ones missing was a girl who has never showed up, so I consider there were only two people missing. I wanted to do a little dance.

My other victory of the day? It all just felt really relaxed. I have one student who I think is growing to hate me and he just sat and stared at everyone while we drafted, but everyone else was really engaged. They were writing, asking questions, coming up with ideas. I talked to everyone and they were willing to share what they had come up with. We told stories as I walked around and talked to them about their reading and their assignments. It was a lot of fun. I felt like I connected to them finally.

I asked one of my students if I could put his paper on the overhead today so we'll see how that goes. If his goes well I'll ask for volunteers afterwards. I'm a little nervous that he'll hate me for doing it, but I thought he would have a good draft because he is the only one who really gets what we're trying to do.

Oh, another small victory? I got one of my students to promise he'll turn in some of his reading responses. We talked about the fact that almost everyone is missing at least one so I decided to give them a bit more time (I know I talk all bad, but I'm nice at heart), and he actually came up to me after class and talked to me about them. Victory!

We'll see how today goes. They always have a way of making you feel like progress is being made and then you show up the next day and they destroy all your hopes.

I'll keep you posted.....