Last month, I wrote Part 1 of a blog titled "Deconstructing Text Structures." I fully intended to post Part 2 this month and even invited all of my dedicated readers to come along as I ventured "deeper down this rabbit hole." (I've been watching reruns of "Murder She Wrote" and I fancy myself a famous OMSD blog poster with countless fans anxiously awaiting my next post.) Yes, I had lofty goals. At the time, though, I had no way of knowing that I was going to find myself in a different rabbit hole, so to speak. I found myself in the throes of a mid-life crises of sorts. The kind of mid-life crises for teachers who are way past the mid-life crises age. It all started when I began "remodeling" my lessons to ensure I purposely taught text structure. That led me to rethink the way I make use of the limited amount of wall "real estate" available to me and my students so that my learning environment focuses on the skills and concepts (like being able to identify text structures) that truly move students forward.
I needed to allocate a considerable amount of space to my new "Text Structures" bulletin board. Every student needed to be able to see it, reference it and use it as a resource. Therefore, I needed to ensure that it could be seen from every vantage point in the room. So, I moved desks. I actually sat in students' chairs to see if I could see the board. I found myself asking: Could I read the words? Did they make sense to me? I didn't want to merely decorate my class with a new bulletin board; I wanted it to come alive.
I knew I wanted to rethink my space, but I honestly didn't know if I had the energy. When would I even have the time? Part of me (an admittedly big part) thought about waiting until August to make changes. But why? I still had a good chunk of the year to positively impact my current students. There is no better time than the present. So, for about a month straight, I worked sometimes a little at a time during lunches and recesses and sometimes a lot at a time after school.
I'm proud of the changes I've made to my physical environment because they truly do reflect the change and growth that is occurring in me professionally.
Next month. let's continue and expand on our conversation about text structures.
Starting anew,
Lola Jollie
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