Educating by Heart: Let's bring some Saturday into our weekday classes

We were working at an EOC Rally this weekend, a last minute push to help students pass their retests on Monday and Tuesday. Many of the students there had failed the same test twice and were preparing to take them again. It was impressive to see their determination to succeed on these tests.

    During one of our sessions, one of the students asked "why can't every class be like this?" Then another chimed in and said, "Yea, I'm learning, why can't we have this much fun every day?" I asked them to clarify what the difference was and they whole class joined the conversation. They began talking about the activities and the manipulative's being used in their sessions. There were four sessions and each had several teachers working together, co-teaching.

   Our session covered the Literary essay and we began with a bubble wrap background knowledge pop, then a musical gallery walk to select character traits, then we completed their pre-write of a literary essay. Finally, we created a "fortune teller" style foldable which worked as a rubric to see if their pre-write has the necessary parts.
   These questions have stayed with me and I am not sure I have an answer that I can live with. What were the differences between the normal school day and the Saturday rally? First, a majority of the students present were there because they truly wanted to learn. Second, the atmosphere was more lenient which lent itself to fully engagement. That's the biggest difference, the students were engaged. The activities were geared towards having fun with the information, creating a novelty which helps memory. Finally, the teachers who were there, were there because they chose to give up a Saturday, to work with students.
   Back to the main question, "why can't every class be like this?" The only answer I can come up with makes my stomach hurt. Teachers can't always have the engaging, active, fun lessons because they are exhausting to plan and execute. Another point to consider is that at some point the students need to read and work independently. At the high school level we have to prepare the students for college and the professional world. I am not sure I am comfortable with either of my answers.
I believe I will try to bring some Saturday into my weekday classes. Adding one active and engaging activity into every lesson. Perhaps that will help. My job is to get every student to want to be in my room and to want to learn.

Musical Gallery walk. Kids had a limited amount of time, one song, to chose from a list of physical character traits, then rotated to emotional character traits and finally to descriptor of setting. They were creating their character and setting based on their interests without knowing the prompt.

Step 1- One each dot write something you know has to be in the Literary essay. Then attach them to the bubble wrap. As a group you discuss what you have written and then we share. As each part is shared, conflict, then everyone who has written that down gets to pop the bubble wrap under their dot.