https://padlet.com/mikedonovan40/7wfaqfaritxm en-us 2017-04-15 22:14:09 UTC 2023-04-09 01:46:34 UTC hello@padlet.com mikedonovan40 https://padlet.com/mikedonovan40/7wfaqfaritxm/wish/166444303 I recently had a milkshake moment while teaching Elegy Written in a Church Courtyard, a 130 line poem written in 1750. Needless to say, many of my seniors were having a difficult time relating to the poem and it was becoming a bit of a struggle to keep the students engaged. I was taking too much of a straight-forward approach of simply analyzing the poem almost line by line. ]]> 2017-04-15 22:15:57 UTC https://padlet.com/mikedonovan40/7wfaqfaritxm/wish/166444303 mikedonovan40 https://padlet.com/mikedonovan40/7wfaqfaritxm/wish/166444467 I decided I needed to inject something more relevant for students to relate to in order to salvage the lesson and get my points across. I decided to focus more on just a couple of the major themes of the poem and how it related to their current lives. One of the themes is Remembrance and not wanting to be forgotten. I took a song that reminded me of this poem and we looked at the connections. Then students could take out their phones (yay!) and find a song that they thought related to the poem and explain why with examples of lyrics. It all tied into their upcoming graduation and
 the major life event they were about to face of moving on from high school. ]]> 2017-04-15 22:26:19 UTC https://padlet.com/mikedonovan40/7wfaqfaritxm/wish/166444467 mikedonovan40 https://padlet.com/mikedonovan40/7wfaqfaritxm/wish/166444638 I think the biggest job as a teacher that we have with our students is being flexible and adaptable. If something is not working, fix it! I know I need to separate myself from the lesson. If a lesson is not resonating with a certain class, it is not a reflection of me as a teacher, it is just a sign that that particular lesson is not working with that particular group and needs to be adjusted accordingly. ]]> 2017-04-15 22:36:36 UTC https://padlet.com/mikedonovan40/7wfaqfaritxm/wish/166444638