-: My name is Lola Soria and I teach high school English.
It's so busy every minute,
so before first period, I'm setting up,
then I teach first and second,
then third I'm running to grab something to eat,
which is super early and weird,
but I know I won't have any other time in the day.
Then I'm grading,
or I have a random meeting I didn't know about.
Then I'm teaching five, six, seven,
then I have my last period free,
in which like today I was dead tired,
I had to put my head down,
which I've never done before.
But either that or I'm grading or a meeting.
So we're doing this new thing
where we're incorporating grammar
into rigorous
content.
So I've never taught grammar before exclusively,
and that's not working,
and that hasn't worked ever.
So we're doing subordinating conjunctions,
and we're reading The Lottery.
And then after that, which is really cool for tenth grade,
I do a flipped classroom model,
where the students, by unit,
they get to choose a book that I have available
in the classroom,
then they take it home and they're able to read,
so you find sometimes kids with their nose in books
that you would never see walking through the hallways,
which is really beautiful.
I've been building and tweaking that curriculum
and I'm in my fifth year now and
my lessons are so tight,
I'm so proud,
the kids are all like working because
every year I get just a little bit better,
I tweak just a little bit better,
and now that I've incorporated the grammar,
so they're reading The Lottery,
but they're working on subordinating conjunctions,
and then they have an activity on setting.
There's so much going on and it's well scoured,
that the kids are just like in it.
My school happens to do 45 minute periods,
and teachers get three periods a day.
Free.
One is supposed to be for lunch,
two is supposed to be for planning, prep,
making phone calls.
Phone calls almost are always done at home
'cause you don't have time.
And lunch tends to be kind of nonexistent,
you're like scarfing,
kids are always around,
can I make up things, can I do this,
and then you're trying to grade,
or staple whatever you've gotta staple,
or do all that,
so they kind of like meld in together.