10/18

Today was a shortened day for Katie and I.  Katie ended up getting a skin infection that caused her to spike a fever Thursday morning, but our plan was to go to school and teach our two lessons and then maybe leave a little early so she could rest.  When we arrived at school Enoch, our supervisor was there, and when we told him our plan, he insisted we teach one lesson and then head back to Kasese with him afterwards.  So Katie and I taught our English lesson together.  We wanted to follow up with the students from their writing that they did on Monday, and we wanted them to extend their creative writing.  So this time, we gave each pair of students their very own book that we put together.  Once again the students had a picture on their first page, and we wanted the students to work towards writing a story about the animal-the first time we did it, the kids wrote facts about the animal and gave it an identity rather than develop an entire story.  Katie and I once again demonstrated how the students should work with their partners.  We showed the brainstorming process of what we wanted our story to be about.  Then we demonstrated again the writing process of taking turns writing, helping each other sound out the words, checking for capital letters and punctuation, and so on.  We once again stressed to the students that we wanted them to use inventive spelling when they write.  And this was something we also demonstrated in our writing.  This was something that both Zippora and Enoch questioned-why would we spell words incorrectly in front of the students?  We explained that our reasoning behind inventive spelling is because we have found that so often the students here are restricted by what they will write, because they are so concerned about the spelling.  Our focus for the lesson; however, was not on spelling but rather on creativity and writing a story. 

Sitting with Kato and Johnathan talking about their writing

The lesson went very well.  The students continued to work well with their partners and with practicing inventive spelling.  I should note that we have paired the students from the beginning based on ability level.  We have paired our highest readers and or writers with our lowest readers and or writers.  This way, the students can help each other.  And, the students have been working with their same partners from the very first day of buddy reading up to now with some minor changes here and there.  Both of these decisions we made have worked well.  The students came up with some very clever and funny stories.  Katie and I plan to go through their stories and ask questions throughout so that the students can extend their ideas and thinking and add more to their stories. 

Enoch seemed to really enjoy the lesson, as he encouraged Zippora to continue to do lessons like this one even after we leave.  Enoch also had very positive comments for us and thought that Katie and I worked really together.  He was impressed with our ability to manage all the students at once, and provide a lesson that kept every student fully engaged.

We came home from school early and rested, as we were both quite tired after last nights’ adventures.  As the afternoon went on, Katie felt her infection was getting worse and decided she wanted to go to a clinic to get some anti-biotics.  Although it wasn’t something we necessarily wanted to do, it was an interesting experience visiting a clinic here.  We packed up all of our own sterile supplies that we brought with us and headed out.  When we got to the clinic, Katie had to fill out a name card with very minimal information and minutes later the doctor was ready to see her.  We spent about 3 minutes in his office as Katie explained what her infection was and what anti-biotic she needed (Katie had talked with some nurses and doctors before we set off for the clinic).  He said, “okay” and wrote her a prescription.  We went back to the counter and she was given her anti-biotic and she paid her bill.  The entire visit cost about $3o (U.S.) without insurance obviously-not too bad!