Chicago TFA Days 3-4

On our third day in Chicago , there were elections going on so there was no class that day. Some students showed up to set up the mock elections. Meanwhile, lianna and I were there to level books for one of the other teach for America teachers. There was definitely no lack of work for us because it appeared as though most of the teachers there had work for us to do. His library was more organized than our original teacher since he had all the books labeled already on the spine with lexile numbers. We helped him organize them even further by adding guided reading letters on the spine as well.
I also helped one of the other teach for America teachers make a jeopardy game for the students on the constitution. We made sure the students received the proper amount of stickers for improving their scores on the standarized tests they take every quarter. The average improvement consisted of about 8% but one student had an astounding 50% jump in only a matter of months so that was incredible!

On our fourth day in Chicago, the students came back and I helped the English and social studies teacher. She assigned me to work with a group that tended to need more attention and help so that she could help the rest of the class. The class was given a reading assignment and I helped the group read outloud and made sure to pepper them with questions to ensure that they were truly understanding what they were reading rather than just skimming through and not comprehending what was going on.
The class was then assigned to read a poem that was written in the perspective of the shooters of the Virginia tech and northern Illinois university massacres. The writer of the poem wasn't trying to endorse or say that the shooting was good. The writer was mainly trying to empathize with the shooter and understand why he did the shootings.
The teacher stressed the same points and had a worksheet for the students to do that allowed them to start on a poem. She gave them the opportunity to write about anyone they wanted. This included relatives, friends, and celebrities. I went around helping students who were struggling with coming up with any people or having trouble starting the poems. Most of the students chose people who had bad histories or events happen to them like child abusers, racists, and criminals. I thought this was interesting, because they probably chose those people for their presence in their own home lives.