Monthly Archives: October 2009

Gold.

October 12, 2009
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I finally got all five classes through chapter 5 and into chapter 6. Man, we’re moving slowly this year. I’ve decided to get a move on, and with any luck, get to the rumble by Friday. And since we’re also working on our color justification essays this week, I did the unthinkable… I cut…back…on..home…work. Boy, that was hard to even say. A couple of years ago, I added an extra R to KBAR. I like to say that I did it so I could talk like a pirate, but it was really to remind the kids of the importance of the RESPONSE. It’s also the part most of them sort of dread. So there was almost  universal jubilation when, as they were copying the week’s homework into their assignment books (“We call them planners…”), I used the Stick to point to the line that read, “No response this week.” “Yesssssssss.”  (Aside: Dunno if it’s just around here or what, but in the last year or so, I have noticed a marked increase in the incidence of entire classes hissing in celebration at a correct answer or good news from me. Yesssssssssss. They hold the s for days, like they’re all

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57% New Material (Chapter 5 and Richard Cory)

October 7, 2009
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I can’t figure out what’s going on. We’re at least 3 or 4 chapters behind where we usually are. I haven’t been trying out that much new material. One of the science teachers made a comment the other day about how many times we’ve had weird (read: shortened period) schedules this year. Let’s see… Extended Advisory Schedule: First period 20 minutes longer, all others four minutes shorter.  Normally our first period is 10 minutes longer than the other classes. That extra ten minutes is technically called Home Base (my crew calls it Homies) or Advisory. This is what’s left of our Advisory program which was part of the whole middle school idea that was so popular 10 years ago or so. We used to have an extra 1/2 hour period in the morning where we were supposed to do team building and character building and values building and all sorts of construction projects. That was when they changed the sign from junior high to middle school. (Before Advisory it was an entire period devoted to something called Teen Skills. Don’t even get me started on that.) We’ve had four or five of these, ostensibly to cover the school handbook. Uh

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The New (but really old) Quiet Stick

October 5, 2009
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“The school-master, always severe, grew severer and more exacting than ever, for he wanted the school to make a good showing on ‘Examination’ day. His rod and his ferule were seldom idle now — at least among the smaller pupils.”  -Mark Twain in Tom Sawyer There is a common misconception about the nuns back in the day. Everybody assumes that they did their all their whackin’ on us with rulers and yardsticks. That is untrue. They only used rulers on us if it happened to be during math class when we were measuring something. Otherwise it was THE POINTER. The nuns at St. Mel’s never deigned to actually touch the chalkboard, or the chalk for that matter. The dust might soil the habit. (Our nuns even wore the old school wimples, with the stiff, high cardboard up front.) So they used chalk holders to write with, preloaded by one of us assigned to the task. They used us to erase the boards and to clap out the erasers. (The latter was actually sort of a coveted job, because it got you out of class for 5 minutes or so…even if you did come home yellow and sneezing.) And they never

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Friday Follow-Ups

October 3, 2009
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Just some follow-up on some things I noticed I’ve left hanging. *Still haven’t heard from the DA about my possible vandalism charge. Wait…I never finished that story, did I?  (Here’s the beginning of the story.) After the cop came to the school and didn’t get to talk to me, he came to my house the next day, Saturday. I get attitude from the git-go. He says the guy who almost ironed me wants to have me charged with vandalism for making a dent in the side of his truck with my wristguards. Lucky it wasn’t my head, and you’re interviewing me in a hospital bed. Vandalism is a misdemeanor. I won’t go into details, but it wasn’t exactly a pleasant conversation. But the bottom line seemed to be that, with no witnesses except those involved, he had a he said/he said sort of thing on his hands, and was trying to get me to crack and confess. When he left he said he would write up his report, and then the DA’s office would decide whether there was a case or not. Great. The statute of limitations on charging me is two years. The incident was in February. Supposedly, according

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Hank vs. Prince. (Also: “Lean meat?”)

October 1, 2009
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Hank vs. Prince. (Also: “Lean meat?”)

Most of the classes finished the pivotal chapter 4 today. We listened to Hank Williams sing “Why Don’t You Love Me Like You Used to Do?” My Hank bobblehead rocked, even headbangin’ a little. Most of the kids squirmed and looked at each other nervously. “Pony feels the same way.” I did have a few cowgirls confess to me on the way out the door that they liked it. Why Don’t You Love Me Like You Used to Do? Hank gets mentioned three times in chapter 4. In Pony’s description of Buck Merrill, he says that Buck is “out of it…He dug Hank Williams. How gross can you get?” Then Dally adds a few choice adjectives after “Hank Williams.” That always draws a laugh, now that most of them know what an adjective is. And then Pony says that the farmer he asks for directions from sounds “as corn-poney as Hank Williams.” One of the questions on tomorrow’s test is: The early death of Hank Williams was a great loss to the music world.  a) True  b) False They had better get it right. We also rocked out to some Prince. One of

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Random Featured Post

“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? [Audio clip: view full post to listen] 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 [...]

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

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