Poems

In my classroom, for the past couple of weeks, the students have been learning about bullying. This is actually really good for them because they've had a lot of issues with this in the past. I tutor at School 5 and this is the only school in the district with a "break program" or a program that works one on one with students that have behavioral problems. This means that any students that get expelled from other schools end up at School 5. In fact, just today, there was an issue with one of my students bullying another in the bathroom. He has been doing so well lately, too, so this really hurt. Anyway, today they were writing poems and it went over really well!

At first, the students groaned when they heard they were writing poems, but they quickly realized how fun they could be. Some wrote acrostic poems, some wrote cinquains, and some wrote 5 senses poems. My personal favorite of the 5 senses poems was that a student wrote that bullying sounds like "zombies eating brains." They're so creative!

I have also started working individually with students on worksheets along with the oral clozes. In their folders are sheets that describe their benchmark. It then explains what issues the students need help on. I find worksheets that coincide with their trouble areas and work with them one on one. So far it seems to be working, but I'm excited to see how much farther they can get on their benchmarks!