The Hosing
So I got a phone call at 7:45 yesterday morning from my Assistant Principal, asking if I was "okay" with a schedule change they were making. Now, the schedule I got at the end of the year had me teaching three grade levels, three different preps (types of classes), seven groups of students. The start of the conversation told me the AP wanted to give me an honors sophomore section (one thing I didn't have on this first schedule) and I said sure.
Then he runs down the rest of my schedule.
A cycle I am teaching three classes: Honors English IV, English IV and Creative Writing.
B cycle I am teaching four classes: Honors English II, English II, Classic Literature on Film and English III.
If you look closely (or not), it will occur to you that of my seven classes I am teaching, five of them are different preps. Five! The honors/not honors thing isn't such a big deal; I just grade differently. What's worse is that they told me I wasn't teaching CW this year, so I haven't done ANY work to expand it into a year-long class, and I had shoved all my English III stuff into drawers because I was sure I wasn't teaching it. I HATE Junior English. American Lit (especially when you can only teach it through short stories) is hella boring.
So after kvetching to both my parents, I called my mentor and she at first wanted to know how I'd gotten an advance copy of my schedule and then said "You can't keep letting them do this to you." I'm fairly certain they can, however, because I'm the new kid. My one BIG fear is that I'll have to do my portfolio again (15 days 'til scores are posted) and that I'm going to be overwhelmed prepping...again. Like last year.
There is an upside to this. Despite having to make CW a year-long course, and not being sure if my students will have copies of the textbook for CLoF, there's only one class on this list that I haven't taught before with the new textbook: English IV. In a way, this is very good. I have LOTS of materials stacked up all over the place; I just have to pull them out, tweak as needed. Still, I'm going to be doing more work than ANYONE else in my department: at most, other people have three preps, not five.
So my roommate and I are both up in the air with our schedules. Hers is a good change though; she might get to teach AP Bio. Yay her.
Then he runs down the rest of my schedule.
A cycle I am teaching three classes: Honors English IV, English IV and Creative Writing.
B cycle I am teaching four classes: Honors English II, English II, Classic Literature on Film and English III.
If you look closely (or not), it will occur to you that of my seven classes I am teaching, five of them are different preps. Five! The honors/not honors thing isn't such a big deal; I just grade differently. What's worse is that they told me I wasn't teaching CW this year, so I haven't done ANY work to expand it into a year-long class, and I had shoved all my English III stuff into drawers because I was sure I wasn't teaching it. I HATE Junior English. American Lit (especially when you can only teach it through short stories) is hella boring.
So after kvetching to both my parents, I called my mentor and she at first wanted to know how I'd gotten an advance copy of my schedule and then said "You can't keep letting them do this to you." I'm fairly certain they can, however, because I'm the new kid. My one BIG fear is that I'll have to do my portfolio again (15 days 'til scores are posted) and that I'm going to be overwhelmed prepping...again. Like last year.
There is an upside to this. Despite having to make CW a year-long course, and not being sure if my students will have copies of the textbook for CLoF, there's only one class on this list that I haven't taught before with the new textbook: English IV. In a way, this is very good. I have LOTS of materials stacked up all over the place; I just have to pull them out, tweak as needed. Still, I'm going to be doing more work than ANYONE else in my department: at most, other people have three preps, not five.
So my roommate and I are both up in the air with our schedules. Hers is a good change though; she might get to teach AP Bio. Yay her.
posted by LadyVader @ 7:38 AM
3 Comments:
At 8:01 AM ,
Anathema said...
Yes teaching AP Bio is big and exciting yada yada yada...it also means I have a different prep for every class, have an incredibly weird schedule, am teaching 2 brand new classes every semester and will be judged on how the kids do on hte AP exam, despite not having any notice. I'm sorry, I have a week-and-a-half notice on the fact that it is a possibility...
Oy.
At 9:40 AM ,
Likestrek said...
Why do you have to stick to short stories with Am. Lit? Yes, Huck Finn which I think was the book I had to read that year is always on someone's banned book list but there must be something.
Maybe you'll have students in your CW class that is actually interested in it this year. I still wish I had that in high school...
When do you stop being the newbie? When they hire someone else?
At 11:35 AM ,
LadyVader said...
Well, for one thing, we don't have a lot of novels for American Lit. I refuse to teach Mark Twain, and furthermore, the kids don't understand it.
I'm the newb until I get tenured and/or someone newer comes in.
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