I'm the substitute!

Thursday was my first day to be in charge of every class. My coop had to attend a professional development day on curriculum mapping so I subbed for all of the classes. Naturally, I was nervous to work with the sixth period sophomores but after I had spent time delivering the same instructions to first period, working with the seventh, eighth and senior AVID classes, sixth period had lost some of their intimidation.

I actually had more problems with the first period sophomore class. They were supposed to fill out a reflective survey on their writing process quietly and individually but many raced through the worksheet and talked to their neighbor anyway. I struggled to keep them quiet. (I feel like this is my biggest struggle in general!) Keeping them from talking while I'm trying to give instructions or while they should be working individually. Because many of them finished before the bell, I told them to work on other homework or read. No one did this. Instead they kept talking. (I find this really frustrating!)

Because first period talked so much, I decided to rearrange their desks into rows instead of pods, where their desks face each other. I hoped that would minimize talking. It worked. Also, I more or less bribed sixth period. Because most students were done with the reflection before the bell during first period and talked most of the period despite my repeated directions, I promised sixth period I would allow them to talk at a reasonable level for the last five minutes of class if they were quiet and worked the rest of the period. I am not an advocate for bribing students, nor am I a proponent of letting them have talk time during class but I felt somewhat trapped. I thought they would talk anyway and hoped this would keep it to a minimum. I wished I could think of something else to get them to work. I also wanted to use a type of reward, time to talk, rather than a punishment, threatening grades or phone calls home, especially because this wasn't my class yet. I don't know these students as well as my middle school students because I haven't worked with them as much. Looking back, I wish I would have found another way to get them to work quietly.