Most classes finished MAUS I today. Most all of them are riveted. I’ve had three tell me they went out and bought both books for themselves. (We’re making do with class sets of each chapter that my aide and I have xeroxed from my old books.) Half of them aren’t listening to the instructions for the warm up because they’ve pulled a chapter from under their desks and are reading away. Hard to get mad at that… but I somehow manage. We’ve been reading out loud and taking parts, drama stylie, and reading the talk balloons. I play Vladek, so I get to talk funny (“…in this way he survived me my life…”), and have to do most of the attempts at pronouncing all the places and names. Sosnowiec is one of the easier ones. It’s all uphill from there. Or at least I thought so until today. I pick the best reader in each class to play Artie, and for the rest it’s a free-for-all of volunteers. Some like to try their hands at accents, especially the ones who play Nazi soldiers–you can imagine how that must sound–and the boys called on to play women are especially distracting, even
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First off: Ok, Ok. I’m starting to find my happy place with research. Thank you for the comments and suggestions; I think next year will be better. You guys gave me some good ideas. We’re working on outlines this week, prepping for research. Among other activities, I give them partially completed outlines and word banks to fill them in with. I strategically place a few clues in the outline, and they have to determine the hierarchy of the various entries I provide, and fill in the blanks. Like this (the stats are kinda dated, but it’s a topic near to my heart): Topic: The automobile has become the American Nightmare kills 265,000 and injures millions annually, road rage and reckless driving have increased, better city design to decrease auto dependence, leading source of air pollution, alternatives to the automobile, main means of transportation, too many people dependent on the car, large SUV’s: rollovers and danger to smaller cars, more cars and more roads mean more traffic congestion, average car: 5 tons of carbon dioxide each year, contributes to acid rain and smog, leading cause of death and injury, new dangers with 2 recent developments, public transportation I. Main means of [...]
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