During my English department meeting yesterday, one of our regular subs came and pulled me out. My boss sent him. He is going to be subbing long-term for another English teacher, and I was asked to make lesson plans for this class during her absence for this particular sub.
Not a problem, except that: one, I was scheduled to be out Wednesday for a TELPAS testing coordinator meeting (that's our ELL state test for those of you outside Tejas); two, I have no idea what her classes have been working on (we all do our own thing); and three, it was the very end of the school day. I emailed my boss and let her know that I would be putting together some day-to-day lessons until I could talk to students from this teacher's classes upon my return Thursday.
At our staff meeting after school, I made a list of possible online resources to use (and yes, I was still paying attention; multi-tasker extraordinaire). My colleague recommended Wonderopolis. I am familiar with the site, and I have heard many others talk about it, but I have never used it myself. I had looked at it before, but not in-depth.
My class has been working on "Flowers for Algernon," and I know the other teacher taught at least part of the story. So, when I got home, I looked up mouse on the site, and found an article about mice and cheese. A bit of a stretch, but the kids need to be able to make intertextual connections. So I threw together a step-by-step lesson for the sub, using the article "Why do mice love cheese?" and information from the site. And then I tweeted about it.
This morning, I woke up to a tweet back from Wonderopolis:
My first thought: "Well, I cannot say no, but man, are they going to be disappointed. It's just a quick lesson for a sub." Then I got all sorts of confused about DM, but that's another story.
The response to my lesson was much different than I expected:
Seriously? Who am I to turn down a well-known website from using my lesson based on their information?
I appreciate this moment and the response from Wonderopolis. It is nice to know that the work I do is appreciated, especially by (what I now know is) a wonderful and resourceful group.
Thank you, Wonderopolis.
