Update

I know that it has been forever since I posted, so I feel like I should let you all know what is going on. And that is... not a whole lot. I have actually been staying pretty busy, but it is nothing exciting. In the middle of July, I spent a week at a training on ELD (English Language Development) instruction. Most of the information was just review to me. I did pick up a few strategies that I will use in the classroom, especially for teaching vocabulary. The next week, the Language Arts department from my school got together to get started on our pacing calendars for the year and to create benchmark tests. I would not call it fun or exciting, but we did get quite a lot done. The best part of all of this was that I am getting paid for it. Then, yesterday I went to a one day training on a program for teaching writing. Most of the teachers at my school already use it, so I just wanted the introduction to understand what it is about and to pick up the terminology, so that I can review with my students what they have learned in previous years and how it relates to current assignments.

The new year is coming up pretty quickly. We have two days of in-service on the seventeenth and eighteenth. Then the first day of school is on the nineteenth. The way the schedule stands now, I will have two, two-period classes of 8th grade ELA, then one of eighth-grade-only RI. My prep period is scheduled for the last period of the day (BOO!). But that could change anytime until about the first week of September.

I don't think I will have any exciting tales to relate for the next two weeks, but I will post after the first day of school to let all of you know how it goes.