On any given day someone could walk into my classroom and find a flurry of activity and discussion.  While I keep to a routine of student journaling the first 5 minutes of class and student socializing the last five minutes of class, the learning activities in the middle take a variety of forms daily.  The first five minute section of my class was set up for students to journal, to get out feelings, write down poems, and respond to their reading in a safe environment.  The last five minutes of “student time” was something I picked up in my first semester of student teaching; my cooperating teacher said his students were always much more responsive during class if he allowed them time to converse at the end.  I found, in my student teaching, this statement to be true.  If any of my classes ever started talking while we were having instructional time, I would just remind them that they have the last five minutes for themselves and chatter would stop.
            Some students seem to walk into English class with a predisposition of disliking the subject.  I knew this would be a battle I fought daily but did not really understand why.  After talking with many students, I began to formulate a new plan for my classroom.  Students said they felt like they were learning the same set of rules, the same literature, and of course, the same poetry every year.  My 10th and 11th graders found the subject boring because they felt like they had completed the same material for years.  I worked every day at finding a way to teach them similar material in a way they had never heard or viewed the material before.  I do not believe that you can teach the same set of material to different students and expect enthusiasm from all students.  During my student teaching I had three 11th grade College Bound sections; between 1st and 4th period students would have talked in the halls and my 4th period students would come in prepared for whatever activities I had in mind for them and by 8th period the class was running the routine for me.  After two weeks, I started to change lessons around for each class period.  I found that certain class periods could produce productive and thoughtful group work without much instruction and others needed to do partner work rather than small group work.  At the end of the day, the students were all getting the same material; however, they were digesting the content in different ways.  Students need differentiation even if they do not have a document mandating specialized education; all students need specialized education.
            The students responded well to the different set up of activities or the switching around of warm up activities; they liked being surprised.  What I found out next about teaching took me a while to digest.  Students know how they want to be taught and it is not always the way you start off teaching them.  I spent hours putting together a web quest so my students could explore the historical and religious background that the novel Siddhartha is set in.  My students attacked the assignment with vigor but soon lost steam.  I tried allowing them to work in partners, going over the information as a class, and even allowing group work on the assignment.  The class just did not respond.  I was disappointed when I asked my 10th graders to turn in a comparison of their culture and that of Siddhartha’s and all I received were skeletons of work.  Each piece of writing was an attempt at what I wanted but lacked any connection or detail.  I had failed to make a connection for my students.   I asked one student why she did not like the assignment and she told me that she felt I was “trying to make her Buddhist.”  Obviously the point of the activity had been missed.  With some many of my students responding poorly to the activity and not seeming to make any connection or representation of understanding, I revisited the plan and tried to think of more productive ways to get the students the needed information in a way that would bring meaning to them.  My students showed me that what I had in mind was not working.  The revision of the activity was hands on, it involved stations where students could view Indian art, listen to music, play games, taste food, and learn a little about the history.  Culture Day was a success; students were able to take the memory of the activities home with them and think about how their lives compare to those of students in India, in Siddhartha’s culture.  If you listen to the students, they will let you know if your lessons were a success.
             One of the first lessons I learned, but the last I learned how to implement, was that students want ownership in their education.  I started off my student teaching by telling students that I was new and would appreciate feedback on assignments, they were free to say that an assignment was terrible but they needed to tell me why and what could be done to fix it.  Some students used this opportunity to tell me that assignments were terrible and we should just sleep instead, not exactly what I was looking for.  Some students did take the feedback option seriously, which is how Culture Day came about during the Siddhartha novel.  What I found worked for the students was giving them options.  If they had grammar sheets to do, they were given options as to which sheet they had to complete; they could choose sports, gossip, or political articles to correct.  When it came time for final projects, students were given several options of projects they could complete.  By allowing students to choose projects or articles they wanted to complete, they felt like they had ownership in their education and choice in their work.  Students respond better to difficult assignments if they know they have choices and a voice in their education.