Monthly Archives: September 2008

“How cute. Like hobos…” (Also: Hank Williams.)

September 17, 2008
By
“How cute. Like hobos…” (Also: Hank Williams.)

Wednesday. Vocabulary Pretest. Talk of facades and irony. Both figure large in The Outsiders. More on that later. Today I have more insight from my friendly class. We’re reading chapter 4 (the death of Bob, Dally helping with the getaway, jumping the train out of town), and we get to where Dally is telling Pony and Johnny to “hop the 3:15 freight to Windrixville.” We pause and talk about how it’s only been less than 36 hours (book time) since the beginning. They find it hard to believe until we start to do the timeline. Figure that Pony gets out of the movie in the late afternoon, and gets jumped and saved. Pony and Johnny and Dally go to the Nightly Double the next night, and it’s now 3:15am that same night. Then I make sure they know that a freight is a train. And one girl says, “How cute. Like hobos…” Hobos maybe. Cute? Why Don’t You Love Me Like You Used to Do? When the boys run to find Dally at Buck Merrill’s house, Pony offers a brief description of Buck that ends with, “…he was out of it. He dug

Read more »

The Hook is Set.

September 16, 2008
By

Since yesterday was late start day, classes were 11 minutes shorter, and what with copying the homework into planners and warmup and Academic Words Pretest #1, we ran out of time for Outsiders. Boy Howdy, they were ready today. The three biggest parts of chapter three: 1) Ponyboy blowing up about Darry and dissing Johnny (“…and we all know you ain’t wanted at home…” OUCH. But Two-Bit gives Pony one upside the head for us.) 2) The confrontation with Randy and Bob (Two-Bit’s joke, “Pity the back seat…” goes right by most of them; I usually pause and wait, and then explain) and Cherry telling Pony she’s going to pretend not to know him, which leads to our second important sunset line, “Just remember, some of us watch sunsets too.” 3) The blowup with Darry. There really is silence in the classroom when Darry slaps Pony. The kids are as shocked as Pony. They also laugh when Darry yells, “Pony, I didn’t mean to,” which Darry just got through yelling at Pony for saying. I managed to stop one class at the end of chapter three. “I was wrong.” Oh the begging. HAHAHAHAHA. One of the afternoon classes got into

Read more »

CPS RULES!

September 15, 2008
By
CPS RULES!

A few years ago I was the lead teacher for an EETT (Enhancing Education Through Technology) grant our site received. Over the course of two years, our site received a truckload of money (like a couple hundred grand) to spend on technology training (from me) and a whole lotta shtuff. Among other things, we bought lcd projectors and computers and wireless slates and some SmartBoards and several sets of CPS “clickers.” The Classroom Performance System consists of software (a tad clunky, but eventually very useful, and getting better), a USB receiver that looks like a flying saucer, and 32 “clickers” that look like remote controls. You make up series of questions (grouped into what they call lessons) with multiple choice answers. Then you project the warm up, quiz, whatever, on your lcd projector, and the kids click the appropriate button on their clickers. You can set a time limit for each question, and it displays (live) who has answered (but not what they answered), and when the time is up, it displays how many kids chose each answer, and optionally, the correct answer. (Beauty for teaching opportunities: “Now, it looks like a lot of you chose B, and that was

Read more »

Quizzes for Dummies?

September 12, 2008
By

A few years ago, while we were reading Outsiders aloud, I was about to give them my usual “reading check” type quiz to make sure they were following along, thinking about what we’d talked about, connecting the literary terms to the examples in the book, etc. I can’t quite remember what my inspiration was (probably just to throw them for a loop like I like to do), but I decided to let them “cheat.” My quizzes on the books and stories we read are always open book, but this time I told them they could take the quiz, not only open book, but “open mouth.” I told them they could talk about the questions and answers as much as they want in any way they want, and decide however they want to, which of the answers to choose. “You can share what you know…or not. You can decide whether to heed the wisdom of the group…or not. You just can’t lie. You can’t knowingly tell everyone the wrong answer on purpose.” One class that day came up with the name Quiz for Dummies. The rest of the periods thought that was a little “mean,” so we’ve stuck with Open Mouth.

Read more »

Which one is the real you?

September 11, 2008
By

Well. I guess daily posts might be a little ambitious for me… They’ve been begging to read Outsiders. (All according to plan.) Almost as much as they’re begging to see “Unpack Your Adjectives” again. One kid even said, “That’s why you don’t let us take it home. We’d just read it all in one night. You like to torture us with the suspense.” Very perceptive, that boy. We finished chapter two, and charged into chapter three today. We talked about foreshadowing with Johnny and the knife he now carries (after the flashback to his mugging), and foreshadowing again with, “I know better now,” at the end of chapter two. (See how easy it is to teach those kinds of terms with this book?) Then we get to how Cherry can actually open up to Pony, unlike around her “friends” and how she always has to keep up an image. I stopped there and asked them, “How many of you are a different person around your parents from the one you are around your friends?” Most of them raised their hands. “How many of you are yet a different person around Gramma?” Most hands again. “How many of you are a

Read more »

Random Featured Post

Twits

I just read a webnews headline that read: “Twitter is the New CNN.” Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket? If Mr. Coward were to “tweet” his way through a typical day period (which is about as likely as, oh let’s see, Hell freezing over is too cliche, how about…Bill Gates going broke.) 8:21- the homies r screaming since vp said hand over your heart 4 the pledge – oh the pain! I left the door open: some poor late kid in the hall looks alarmed 8:22- I gotta put a switch on the speaker: more drivel from some underprepared kid talking 2 close 2 the mic…sounds like the bus station back in the day 8:26- blue slip. since it doesn’t say NOW, I set it next 2 the Popple…probly forget it later 8:30- finally!! “share” time is over and we can start – don’t remind me that I told Vero she could share first tomorrow about something she will have forgotten by then if we’re lucky 8:32- checking vocab hw, 1/4 not holding…”why is my grade so low?” it ain’t rocket science people 8:38- correcting warm up…let one of them try to write on the shmartboard …you [...]

more -->


Mr. Coward has been teaching on the beautiful central coast of California since 1989.

Archives

September 2008
M T W T F S S
« Aug   Oct »
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930  

Recent Comments

Links

Privacy Policy

Tags

cartoons Charlotte Doyle Class Activities clickers CPS CTEL Flashback grammar high school idiosyncrasies irony Mailbag Me mechanics middle school teaching Monsters on Maple Street Moodle online learning oral reading Outsiders CHapter 5 Outsiders Chapter 7 RaffleKing Ray Bradbury Reading Richard Cory Seventh Grade Behavior Stories of Seventh Grade substituting Teaching Teaching Tips teaching with technology teaching with technology teaching writing Technology techology testing The Earth Men The Giver The Midwife's Apprentice The Outsiders Tips Tips for teachers Tom Sawyer Wiki Writing