Redkudu

"Comfortable" no. What I attempt to do is spend more time up front on concepts which are known to be more difficult, like irony and theme, so that there's a firm foundation to work with, then spend reinforcement time on things that can be studied in every piece of literature, such as diction, imagery, language, syntax, tone, etc.

My daily lessons are structured so that we begin with a warm up, generally a journal type warm up, or some review questions from the last lesson, every now and then a "fun" logical thinking problem, about 5-10 minutes. I always try to pick something which somehow coincides with the day's lesson. Then I give whatever info they'll need for the lesson in the form of notes. I think it's important for students to learn to take notes, especially if they're college bound. We review the notes, underlining or highlighting key terms. About 5-10 minutes for that. Then I present the first activity and go through guided practice (modeling) with student input, showing how the info they received is relevant to the activity. Then there's a guided practice for students to complete as I monitor. Usually 10-20 minutes for the whole thing. Then we check for understanding. Then the students work on an independent activity, which may either be completely independent, or in groups. 30-40 minutes for that. We come back for a final check, discussion, or grading together (re-emphasizing key concepts and terms), they turn in the work or put it in their binders (depending on if I'm taking it for a grade, or if it's a preparatory activity for a future assignment), we go over homework (which I'm going to attempt again this year) and maybe begin a few problems on the homework if time.

This schedule changes slightly under two conditions: 1) if there's a test or exam, which are timed, and then there's a shorter lesson afterward, and 2) if it's a writing or revision/editing day and we do side-by-side consults at my desk.

I post the daily schedule on the board, so a normal schedule would look something like this to students:

1. Warm up: journal on overhead (Name some "tricksters" from books, movies, TV)
2. Notes: Nat. American tricksters
3. Practice: "Coyote and Wishpoosh" read and discuss
4. Independent: story analysis
5. Activity: tone descriptions
6. Homework: Vocab in Context handout, "Native American Folklore"

In this lesson students would identify tricksters and pranksters from popular culture and discuss their characteristics (warm up). They would then learn the characteristics and importance of tricksters in Native American foklore (notes). They then read the story of Coyote and Wishpoosh, and "discuss" by highlighting examples of characteristics which coincide with the notes (practice). They then complete a close reading activity which asks for them to identify and interpret certain details of the story (independent). Finally, they complete a chart in which they are asked to identify particular passages which have certain tone descriptions (they've already learned about tone previously), such as brutal ("If they refused to leave, Wishpoosh would kill the animal people by dragging them deep into the lake so that they drowned."), and then are given passages and asked to describe their tone (activity). The homework is a handout about interpreting vocabulary using context clues, which is preparatory for the short story they read the next class day, which has some vocab I anticipate may be new to them. This is my fourth day activity for the year.

How about you?