This year, I tackled the experience that is after-school tutoring. My school had been granted federal funds for the program, and we met twice a week for about 18 weeks. Last year, Ms. Ayer had fallen on the sword and taken on the challenge for sixth grade ELA. This year, it was my turn.
I ultimately loved the experience. It was not always easy to stay after school for two extra hours after already having a hard day, but the group of students that came to after school made it well worth it. The picture above shows the five young women that religiously stayed both days each week. I began after school with the plan of covering current events, which worked well for a while. But I began to discover something pretty awesome...these girls are feminists!
Once I made that realization I ran with it. I basically took what we needed to do and matched it with what we all wanted to talk about: women's history. We read about Susan B. Anthony, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and the Fearless Girl statue on Wall Street (thank you, NewsELA!). Every day consisted of reading an informational article together, having a discussion, and working our way through multiple-choice text-based questions together. As you can see in the picture as well, we went heavy on the sticky-notes! We would do several stop-and-writes as we read. My students loved using them and often kept them at the end of tutoring, explaining that they didn't want to forget what we had discussed!
The picture above showcases my favorite day of after-school. I had found a great introductory article to the harrowing experiences of Malala Yousafazi. My students had never heard of her, and they were horrified by what had happened to her. We looked at the world map and identified Pakistan, we Google-searched to find out how many miles away it was from Como, and then had the best discussion. The next day, two of the students requested to borrow my copy of Malala's memoir for young readers.
After-school was an amazing opportunity for me to spend quality time with a small group of students. Every girl that attended is such a rockstar, and I genuinely loved my time with them. Taking on the added responsibility was certainly time-consuming, but it never felt in vain. I have seen growth in my relationships with all of these students. One of them is even going out for the school football team, and she is the only girl in the whole school to take that on! #womanwarrior
I ultimately loved the experience. It was not always easy to stay after school for two extra hours after already having a hard day, but the group of students that came to after school made it well worth it. The picture above shows the five young women that religiously stayed both days each week. I began after school with the plan of covering current events, which worked well for a while. But I began to discover something pretty awesome...these girls are feminists!
Once I made that realization I ran with it. I basically took what we needed to do and matched it with what we all wanted to talk about: women's history. We read about Susan B. Anthony, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and the Fearless Girl statue on Wall Street (thank you, NewsELA!). Every day consisted of reading an informational article together, having a discussion, and working our way through multiple-choice text-based questions together. As you can see in the picture as well, we went heavy on the sticky-notes! We would do several stop-and-writes as we read. My students loved using them and often kept them at the end of tutoring, explaining that they didn't want to forget what we had discussed!
The picture above showcases my favorite day of after-school. I had found a great introductory article to the harrowing experiences of Malala Yousafazi. My students had never heard of her, and they were horrified by what had happened to her. We looked at the world map and identified Pakistan, we Google-searched to find out how many miles away it was from Como, and then had the best discussion. The next day, two of the students requested to borrow my copy of Malala's memoir for young readers.
After-school was an amazing opportunity for me to spend quality time with a small group of students. Every girl that attended is such a rockstar, and I genuinely loved my time with them. Taking on the added responsibility was certainly time-consuming, but it never felt in vain. I have seen growth in my relationships with all of these students. One of them is even going out for the school football team, and she is the only girl in the whole school to take that on! #womanwarrior