Where the bison roam....

In my last blog entry, I wrote that the WMS students had just written the DWW, a YK1 district wide writing assessment for students in grades 1 through 8. Friday afternoon was a SIP (School Improvement Planning) professional development day for teachers and this time was allotted to evaluate all of the WMS DWWs. I was a part of this process, working with an EA to assess the work of a grade 6 class - a great opportunity given my interest in research and assessment and as I've never had the opportunity to work on any sort of school wide or district wide assessment.

Although I did have a chance to read through the class writing before the Friday afternoon marking session, we still took the time to read each personal narrative out loud and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each piece before filling out the rubric. For the DWW rubric, we would mark students with a 1, 2, 3 or 4 (with 3 being at grade level) only. In my practicums, I'd been been marking with a + or -, and I found it challenging not to have this option. I like the process of moderated marking and it was valuable for me to see how the rubric was filled out in terms of being able to track student progress from September to January to May.

In my J/I English class at OISE, we (the teacher candidates) spent a lot of time discussing how to best assess student writing. What came out of these conversations with my classmates - who all love reading and writing and want to pass this love along to their students - was the challenges of evaluating writing, particularly creative writing. Is it possible to accurately assess writing with a rubric? Is it better to give descriptive feedback? Perhaps a little of both? If writing is about taking risks (which we all agreed it is) and a student takes a risk and does not succeed, should that student be penalized? My professor for that course once said that if we were unsure about what mark or grade to give (if we were struggling with whether to give a student a 2+ or a 3-, for example), we should give the student the benefit of the doubt. This really resonated with me and I think it is good advice for assessment (and other teacherly things as well). I love reading and talking about student writing. Although I think I can read a piece and quickly sumise its strengths and weaknesses, I find it difficult to mark with a rubric. I wonder if, with more experience and / or more exposure to student writing, I'll struggle less with this kind of assessment.

Speaking of writing, there were still more tests at WMS. Early this week, grade six teachers were busy preparing students to write the AATs - Alberta Achievement Tests (the Northwest Territories use the Alberta provincial tests). French immersion students wrote two versions of the AATs - one in English and one in French. I assisted with the English Language Arts portion of the test, in which students wrote two pieces - a fictional story and a functional (newspaper) article. I think there will be a team that assesses these tests, but I'm not sure if this will take place during my internship.

In between classes.

Some other highlights and thoughts:

• Music concert at Sir John Franklin High School. This year I've only been in elementary or middle schools, so it was great to be able to visit a high school - the students seem so grown up! One of the things that struck me during the concert was that one music teacher led all three bands that performed that day (the concert band, the rock band and the jazz band). Each band practices for 90 minutes each week and this drove home the point of how much time and dedication it takes for teachers to run extra-curricular activities or groups, but also how essential and valuable these are to students and the student experience. 
• I had set up a couple of math and science classes to observe, but the teacher was sick and with the AATs things got switched around a bit. I'll try again this week.
• My morning runs and afternoon practices continued for the track and field team despite a week of  wind and rain (it actually snowed one day)!

WMS hours this week:
Monday and Friday: 8:15 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Tuesday: 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Wednesday: 8:15 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Thursday: 8:15 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Around town: armed with advice from the WMS Social Studies teacher and the front page of the Yellowknifer, the Victoria Day weekend included several outings / activities:

First, it was over to Fred Henne Territorial Park, one of the amazing territorial parks in the Yellowknife region, to cheer on the brave folks taking part in the Polar Plunge - an annual event that raises funds in support of the Special Olympics NWT. While Claudine and I were safely and dryly ensconced on the dock, teams of people dove and swam into the icy waters (and when I say icy I mean it - most of the lake was still covered in ice). Below a video... and please excuse my sniffling throughout - it was cold out there!

Taking the plunge!

Claudine takes photos of the Polar Plunge... and yes, that's ice covering the lake.

Then, it was on to search for bison. Despite all of the promising road signs along Highway 3....

we had to get close to Behchoko before...

Beautiful and amazing.

I finally had dinner at Bullock's Bistro in Old Town. This "fish shack" is famous for its generous portions, laid back atmosphere (people write their names on the walls) and terrible service (although the service was pretty good the night we went... must have been an off night). I had the arctic char. Grilled. So very very delicious.

I'm not one to take pictures of my meals, but just look at this!

I made another visit to the amazing Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, this time for a lesson in beadwork, where I learned that I need to take more lessons in beadwork. Some people were really fast at beading... me, not at all. Such challenging and intricate work!

I also checked out the Sapsucker Birch Syrup Sugar Shack Open House and partook in birch butter, birch syrup, birch tea, bannock and apple fritters.

The trail to the Sapsucker Birch Syrup Sugar Shack.

Enjoying the Sugar Shack!

Collecting birch sap.

Bannock on a stick: baking bannock over an open fire and then smothering it in birch butter is the bomb.

Finished off the long weekend hiking the Cameron Falls Trail in Hidden Lake Territorial Park. The trail takes you over rocks of the Canadian Shield that were shaped by glaciers around 10,000 years ago.

It doesn't look like it here, but this part of the trail is quite steep.

Inukshuk on the trail to Cameron Falls.

Beautiful Cameron Falls.

In other news, I can now make my way around town quite easily and have been able to get to the Co-op grocery store without assistance. Regarding the issue of sleep or lack thereof, my newest strategy is making myself as physically tired as possible (this usually involves the Morning Wake Up run, a run with the track and field team after school and then off to the gym to jump rope, take a class or run on some sort of gym machine) so I fall asleep in spite of what I consider to be a daytime sky at night.