My First Day of 8th Grade

This morning was my first day at my PDS, Taylor Middle School. All week I've been a flutter with worries and anxiety about how it would go. My carpool group was leaving a little earlier than I needed so I had about an hour to myself in the teachers' lounge before the school day began. As I nervously sat with one of my text books, trying to busy myself, I was greeted over and over by the  friendly new faces of different teachers. After not too long I began to calm down and ready myself for my first meeting of my assigned teacher and her students.

Ms. Morral had a warm welcoming demeanor as I walked in and she began to introduce herself. I was relieved that she seemed so nice and excited to have me. We started right away by going over a social and study skills lesson that was for the first forty minutes of class. She had me read through it to familiarize myself with the time management assignment. The students were to create a calendar of their own school events, deadlines, and socials for the month of September. The students quickly began talking aloud and arguing over whether football was more important than cheerleading or if the high school games should count on their schedules. After some broad discussion the class brought it back down and completed their own calendars.

The next class was West Virginia history. I was really happy to be in this class because it's one of my favorite topics; I happened to take WV history myself last semester and decided to add a WV forestry class to my schedule this year. The students worked on brochures or pamphlets for any of the numerous fairs and festivals in West Virginia. Ms. Morral had a student write the assignment rubric on the board for everyone to see. There was a total of 40 points, 10 for data, 10 for color, 10 for a slogan, and 10 for creativity. This helped them to understand exactly what aspects to focus on. I spent the remainder of the class helping students pick out important facts and look up information.