September 11th - 15th

Things are starting to settle in over here. I'm awaiting paperwork from a few more mentees, which means we had to postpone our first Mentor/Mentee Monday. Although I'm a little disappointed, I'm confident that we'll begin this important component of YESS next week!

Now for the good stuff. The students completed the Mentoring in the Community lesson on Monday. During this assignment, they work with their cooperative learning groups to develop a fictional community that utilizes mentoring.

Tuesday, we implemented Tutoring Tuesday procedures and many students are learning the importance of reaching out to others for help.

In order to prepare for our Mentor/Mentee Interviews on Thursday, we took a whole day on Wednesday to draft effective questions and prepare our data notebooks. The learning target that most-closely associated with this vital lesson is from the high school level and I was delighted to see the students' responses when I informed them. They seemed to take the lesson even more seriously due to this fact. On Thursday, each mentor had an opportunity to interview each mentee and vice versa. I loved walking around and listening in on their conversations, which were equal parts hilarious (many students value a sense of humor, so they asked their interviewee to tell a joke) and insightful (they were asked to dig deep and communicate their needs). Now, I have the difficult job of pairing them up based on two factors: 1. Finding compatible matches that will complement their strengths and 2. Their requests. They will know who they're partnered with this Thursday, so I've got some work to do!

Sixth Period Interviews

Friday, I challenged the scholars to write persuasive PEAL paragraphs regarding which mentor/mentee they would like to work with. PEAL is the format the school uses to ensure students fully answer an extended response question and, being the beginning of the year, the students struggle. After some scaffolding, nearly all the scholars were able to find success, which means I'll be working with a few kids one-on-one during Tutoring Tuesday tomorrow (we aim for a 100% success rate!). Afterward, we all went to the gym to play Four Corners, a perennial favorite!