Intelligence

At the beginning of class I defined intelligence as a changeable level of knowledge and problem solving skills. In English I will have my students do the following to develop emotional intelligence:

• Write personal journals with prompts about their feelings that day to help them recognize their own emotions.
• Brainstorm strategies for characters in the books that we read to manage emotions in specific situations and talk about ways to transfer that knowledge to similar situations in their own lives so that they can manage their own emotions.
• Set goals for the class that are the same or different from my goals for them and make a plan to reach those goals through self motivation. 
• In discussions when responding to others' comments students will show that they recognize others' emotions by saying "(student's name) feels (emotion) about (topic discussed). I can tell because (reason for thinking the other student feels that way)." i.e. "Emily feels angry about racism. I can tell because when she was talking about what happened to Tom in To Kill a Mockingbird her face got red and the volume of her speech was raised. She also used strong words about the scene in the book."
• Brainstorm positive ways to handle relationships and discuss them with a partner. Students will update the list monthly and continue to talk about ideas with classmates.