No, not the latest John Gresham to while away the class period.
Whether it’s for field trips, ceremony practice, or just a widespread illness, sometimes I have a class where many of the students are gone. Inevitably this leads to the same request: a free day. For some reason, my students think that because their classmates aren’t there, there’s nothing productive that can get done in the class time. (Is this attitude communicated by many teachers?)
I’ll grant you that sometimes it would be nice to sit back and let those students study for another class or something while I catch up on grading, and yes, I have actually done that before, but we have a general policy in my class that there is no such thing as a “free day.” I don’t give them useless homework to do outside of class, but in return, the time they’re in my class is my time and we don’t waste it on purpose.
An easy way not to waste a day with low attendance without leaving your absentees behind is to do some exploratory reading. Keep a stack/shelf of reading materials – high-interest magazines, children’s stories, easy novels, printouts of articles that have caught your eye (and might catch a student’s), local newspapers, even authentic resource apps on the iPad.
A few tips:
- Decide whether you’re all reading the same thing or all reading something different. (I lean toward the former but sometimes do things differently too.)
- Keep the pace fast – time students to find the answer to a comprehension question, identify the main idea, or locate a few important details.
- Take advantage of opportunities to teach reading strategies. What does the title tell you? What does the picture tell you? How do transition words make connections for you? What do we need to be careful about with word order variations? What words give us the emotional tone?
- Let students choose the reading material. Reading for pleasure is the single best way to increase vocabulary – for everyone.
Pick up a book, and enjoy!
Foto credit: Martin P. Szymczak