Teaching practice

I am a ninth grade English teacher in Washington state. Well, I try to teach English anyway.

Sometimes I think my first period class gets the shaft. This is my first year teaching ninth grade. The curriculum is new to me. While I have studied Romeo and Juliet, I have not taught it before. First period seems to be a practice period unfortunately.

Today, I simpley forgot to give them practice time for their Shakespearean speech memorization. We completed a worksheet on figurative language (metaphor, simile, personification, and classical allusion) and I was tongue tied on other examples.

Now my third and fourth periods will be fine. I have had time to really think about examples and counterattack questions that students will have. But my first period is a testing ground and I think it shows in their scores. More kids fail in first period for me.

True they are half asleep at 7:30 am. I think that might be part of it. It is hard to have a discussion when no one wants to participate. I have no one to play off to better my examples. Third and fourth period are much more vocal and that can be due to the fact that those periods are after lunch or right before we go home.

How can I improve first period instruction? That's a question I have to work on.