Having been in my classroom for 2 full weeks, I feel that I have already developed a good rapport with the 11th graders who I have been teaching full-time. I have three 11th grade classes, two of which are collaborative (with an aid), and I have implemented the use of journals, student interest surveys, and various writing assignments to better get to know my students. Several of my students remind me a lot of my kids back home at my Boys and Girls Club job which is very refreshing considering how different most of the students in Morgantown are from my kids in Charleston. The common theme between most of the students in my collaborative classes and my kids from BGC back home are their backgrounds. Most of them do not come from homes that are very supportive and who strongly encourage academics. That is not to say that all of the families are like this, but it is an all too common theme amongst many of these students, and that along makes these students ones with whom I can easily build a strong rapport.
The interest surveys and writing assignments that I have implemented thus far have been fairly simple and easy for the students to fill out when determining things like their goals, favorite things, responsibilities inside and outside of school and home, learning styles, what they enjoy about school and what they dislike about school, who they admire, what makes them unique, a motto for their lives, and finally, a self portrait for how they see themselves. They were allowed to decorate some of these activities because I wanted to get an idea of who they were as students and individuals. They were also asked to do a "reading autobiography" so I could get a sense of who they were as readers, and how they have seen their past experiences with reading and English classes. Finally, I have been having them complete "free writes" for completion grades in their journals, and as a free write suggests, they can write about whatever they want and can even illustrate instead if that's how they need to express themselves. Even after the first week of doing free writes, I have learned so much about my students, their hopes and dreams, their lives, and some of their fears and worries. They have a choice for whether or not they want me to read their entries, and they can put their journal on the shelf where it says "READ" or the shelf that says "DO NOT READ" and all of them have placed them on the 'READ' shelf. This tells me that they want me to know them. Developing this trust with my students has really helped in teaching, as well, because they are respectful and have thus far enjoyed doing their work. The rapport that I've been building and will continue to build is great and I'm excited for the rest of the semester because these students can relate to me and yet still see me as a teacher.
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