Video Tape Analysis

Video Analysis CP English 1^st Period

I wish I hadn’t put off looking at this video, because it shows pretty clearly what I usually do wrong in first period. This is the class I’ve been having problems with this semester, especially with people trying to sleep and not turn in homework. All of that is pretty clear in the tape.

This class would benefit from having something immediate to do after they walk in…instead I’ve decided to start this class with excerpts from the essay “How to Say Nothing in 500 Words” by Paul McHenry Roberts. I remember hearing this my freshman year at Swarthmore and thinking it was pretty funny, and thought it might be a nice way to yell at them about properly planning and spending adequate time on writing assignments.

I start off class by reading the introduction. I can now see three students in the back that have their heads down. A girl in the second row tries to put her head down but I tap on her desk while reading. I don’t get any farther back than that.

This was supposed to show off my ability to read slowly and clearly. I do alright in the beginning but seem to speed up as I realize that the parts I think are funny aren’t flying at 8:15 in the morning. This should have been their homework last night, and not the outlining exercise I gave them.

Based on how this went first period I wound up cutting the essay from the beginning of class and using it as a closer in the other two sections, which worked well. That would have helped me a lot here. It’s 8:17 and I’ve just finished reading to them. I ask them to take out their homework. Three different girls raise their hand. I walk around to talk to them individually. A boy sitting right in front of the video camera starts copying off his partner’s homework. He must have seen the thing. I wonder if he even cares…

The three girls were each explaining why they didn’t have their homework. I’m spending too much time trying to explain to them that it doesn’t matter if they do it later because they activity we’re about to do needs them to have done it for today.

It’s somewhere around 8:24 now, and those that have done the homework have already farmed it out to two or three different people for copying.

I go back to the front of the class and try to regain attention, if I ever had it to begin with… “I need someone to volunteer the subject of their first body paragraph.” The homework assignment was to post-outline an essay by Nicholas Meyer about Sherlock Holmes and Dupin (the detective created by Edgar Allen Poe, of whom Meyer says Holmes is a copy).

Nobody says anything.

I ask them about the evidence the author uses, without a response. Then I ask about the thesis, with similar results.

“How many people got a chance to do the reading?” I ask.

Only a few people raise their hands, so I give the next ten minutes for the class to read the essay and make notes on their outlines, or compile new outlines. I hate doing this, because amongst other things it implies both that the homework can be done in ten minutes and even then that I’ll let them do it in class, but in an effort to salvage the last twenty minutes of class I’m ready to sacrifice ten. I try to filter through the class to make sure they’re reading, and to get the kids up who have had their heads down in the back.

We get to the last ten minutes of class and just now agree on an outline for the body paragraphs of the Meyer essay. Class ends.

****

While this was a particularly poorly executed class, it did show what was my biggest failing this semester, which was my homework policy. I couldn’t bring myself to collect homework in the beginning of class, thinking that it was necessary for the classroom activity to somehow incorporate it, to lend it relevancy. That worked for just about every section except English General and this first period CP. While I immediately changed the way I handled homework with the General kids, I stuck to my guns with first period CP, thinking that what worked for the other two sections should work for them.

It was only in the last two CP classes that I taught where I changed the way I handled the first period class. I immediately collected homework and had some kind of work sheet for them to fill out as I spoke. It was an unnecessary step for the other sections, but one that I had to do for this class. I also finally started going to the back row while I spoke, in an effort to wake up the nappers.

This tape illustrates pretty well the trap I set up for myself, teaching CP 1 as if they were the other sections. I didn’t want to admit to myself that they were different or needed another lesson plan or order. Whether it was that particular make up of students in the class or the fact that it was first period, it was nearly impossible to get them going. I’m not as excited, or moving around as much as I usually did for other classes either, so I guess I’m feeling the effect of early morning as well.

Lessons learned from the video:

1- If the students aren’t moving it’s the job of the teacher to get them moving

2- Material that plays with one class (or two) won’t necessarily play with another

3- If it is an abandon ship/do homework in class situation, that should be ascertained as soon, so to have as much viable class time left as possible.