Name: M.E. Palacio
Breakthrough Program: Sacramento
Subject Teaching: 7th Grade Writing, Social Studies elective, and Poetry enrichment
School attending/Year: American University, Rising Sophomore

I can't believe that the first week with the students is already done! I know there are still five amazing weeks left with them, but judging by how fast this past week went, these next weeks will go by too quickly.

At Breakthrough Sacramento, the eight days of training were intense, and the other teachers and I couldn't wait for the students to arrive. But I definitely needed those eight days of preparation before the students came. How else would I have learned so many Active Participation strategies (keeping the students engaged)? When else would I have watched my amazing Mentor Teacher teach one of the lesson plans that I would be using with the students? And how else would I have learned all of the Breakthrough Sacramento cheers?

This is the first year Breakthrough Sacramento is using lesson plans developed for us by Breakthrough. Teachers who have taught at Breakthrough in the past have mixed feelings about the lesson plans, and sometimes I find that it can be difficult to understand a lesson plan that was written by someone else. At the same time, I have no idea what I would be teaching if I didn't have these lesson plans for my 7th grade writing class. Where would I start? With grammar, with paragraphs, with summaries, with theis statements? These lesson plans ensure that I am teaching my students the skills they need to know. Since this is the first year of the lesson plans, all od us teaching interns are providing feedback on every lesson plan we teach so they can be better for next year. At the same time, I have the opportunity to plan my own lessons for the Social Studies elective and the enrichment classes, like poetry.

Right now my students are working on writing effective summaries. We've worked on opening sentences, creating simple outlines of details, and putting all these details and transitions into a paragraph. One of the good things about the lesson plans is that the lesson plans have Say/See/Do cycles built into them, meaning that after I explain something and model it to the class (e.g. adding transitions to a simple outline), the students then do a quick activity where they practice the skill I just explained (e.g. filling in the transitions on a sample simple outline). The SSD cycles help keep the students engaged and allow me to see what each student is or isn't picking up on. So far my favorite SSD cycle was the one that included a song about "Publishing" (formatting your final draft of your summary paragraph). First, I explained to students how to format their papers, and then I showed them a properly formatted paper. As part of the Do, the students made their own publishing template and sang a song about publishing. While the lesson plan gave me a publishing song to the tune of "Three Blind Mice," I altered the lesson plan by changing the song (but keeping all the same information) to "Poker Face." My students enjoyed the song, and while most SSD cycles do not involve singing, it was a fun way to learn and energize the class.