Student Teaching

I'm getting excited and nervous to start my ten day unit...I start on Tuesday, November 9! Unfortunately, we had to push the date back a few times because my cooperating teacher wasn't able to get through things as quickly as he'd planned. The students just didn't know as much as he had hoped they would, but this is his first year teaching 10th graders. I guess that is just part of the teaching process, though. Not everything is going to go as planned, and often times you will have no control of what teachers are teaching students in prior years. Being able to alter plans is something that I will have to be prepared to do, and in this case, I am getting some practice at that. I had to revise my unit plan since the students don't know as much background information as my teacher and I would have liked. So, my unit on commas is going to be a bit more difficult than I'd originally planned. I am going to have to go over terms they don't all already know, like independent clause, appositive, nonessential subordinate clause, and so on. I think this will be a great learning experience, especially because I have never really taught anything before. I have sat and observed plenty of classes, but I've pretty much only taught two mini-lessons. Dr. Kist is coming to observe on the first day of my unit, and my advisor is coming for the second day. I think that I am especially nervous because my first two days of teaching are going to be spent with not only a classroom full of 10th graders and my cooperating teacher watching, but also my professor and student teaching advisor. All I can do is plan, prepare, and hope for the best!