My friendly and sensitive class is also the furthest ahead in the novel. When Johnny tells Dally that he wants to turn himself in, and Dally flips out and tells Johnny that he doesn’t want him to “end up like me,” we stop and talk about Dally. This class is quick to realize that Dally does care about something; Johnny. It’s a revelation to Pony too. “Aww. He doesn’t want Johnny to be like him. That’s so sweet.” They suddenly forget that Dally is a hoodlum, and the groundwork is laid for chapter 10. This is also where, I read somewhere, that S. E. Hinton got stuck as she was writing. The boys were in the church, and she didn’t know what should happen next. She went to her friends at school, and they suggested that she “burn down the church,” and see what happens. This is good place for us to discuss what it is that makes this such a great book. “See, it isn’t just that there’s action and such, it’s that she has created characters that we care about. Realistic characters we can relate to.” (They don’t know from not ending a sentence with a preposition.) Then
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“If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.” That’s Mark Twain’s famous observation after Tom Sawyer has scammed the town kids into whitewashing his fence for him, and paying him for the pleasure. We won’t be getting to Tom Sawyer until January, probably, but in seventh grade, we live aspects of Tom Sawyer every day. In this case, it’s about Punishment vs. Play. One of my classes was getting a little sporty the other day, and in frustration, I forgot that I had told myself I wouldn’t do that any more, and I threatened to go old school on them and put one of them in the cage. “What?” they all laughed. “I went to 12 years of Catholic school, baby. Kneeling on pencils (that story later), nose in the circle on the chalkboard, rulers on the backs of the hands and knees, cages…” “Cages?” I pointed to the ball cage I scrounged a few years ago, and keep in a corner of my
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The boys are in the church cutting their hair (some of the girls visibly wince as Johnny “starts sawing” on Pony’s hair with the same knife he used on Bob) and killing time with Gone With the Wind. We’re talking about irony and Richard Cory. We go through the poem, and I keep the fourth stanza hidden from them. They laugh when they find out that “crown” means the top of your head, and that in Jack and Jill, Jack really breaks his head. I explain that “clean favoured” means good looking, and they are quick to realize why the poet used “quietly” to describe how he is dressed (“arrayed’). “It means he’s not showing off.” Good. They are also pretty good at getting what “he was always human when he talked” means. Seventh graders are very quick to spot someone “putting on airs” as they said in Tom Sawyer’s time. They tell me it means he’s down to Earth. Nice. Then, after the first three stanzas of description, I stop and ask, “Now, who, in The Outsiders could we compare to Richard Cory? Who is rich, good looking, popular, well dressed, yet down to Earth?” “Sodapop?” Rich? Well dressed.
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“…Bring her on, and let her scream.” -Mark Twain. For most middle schoolers, one of the biggest problems they have with writing is being specific. Everything is weird or cool or disgusting or fun. Especially weird or disgusting. There are no details, just general opinions. (Oh how seventh graders love to give unsolicited opinions…) I like to start the year introducing them to the idea of Show not Tell. The first assignment is always to “show” me the messiest, most disgusting room possible…without using any of those kinds of opinion words. I encourage them to really go for it and try to disgust me. (“Keep it PG! Not PG 13.”) “Use all five senses: I want to hear the shlupe shlupe shlupe as you traverse the soggy, fetid marsh that is your carpet. I want to be brushing away flies and squinting through the greenish fog. I want to hear the muffled cries of your brother trapped under the mountain of gym clothes and mildewed socks.” And etc. I get all that (some of it exactly as I suggested it) and a lot more. Seventh graders love this one. They get to be gross, and talk about diapers, and…oh my,
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(Sung — way off key, and sort of warbley — to the tune of “Oh Christmas Tree.”) I guess we need to talk about the King. On Wednesdays, after we go over the vocabulary homework, and discuss the words, I give them a vocabulary pretest. If they ace it (100%), they are exempt from the vocabulary portion of the Friday test. I used to have one of them flip a coin to decide whether or not I let them use their “cheat sheet” — the homework page we just went over and corrected — on the pretest. What they don’t believe when I tell them — even though it’s true — is that, on average, their scores on the pretest are lower when they use the cheat sheets, and fewer of them get an exemption. But they like to think it’s a security blanket, so I play along. Then I discovered the King. I would give you the URL of his creator’s web site, but he has some other, shall we say, inappropriate shtuff. (You can do a Google search if you really want to check it out.) So I took the liberty of “cloning” the King. If you click
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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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That reminds me of those great SNL skits about the Sofa King. You know, how the prices are "Sofa King" low, the deals are "Sofa King" great, etc. (You obviously have to say those phrases out loud to get the joke.)