Monthly Archives: January 2010

“I near pi_ _ed myself.” (120 Seconds II)

January 14, 2010
By
“I near pi_ _ed myself.” (120 Seconds II)

We had missed a few days of reading The Midwife’s Apprentice, so I told a couple of the kids scheduled to read to us today for their 120 Seconds presentations that they were postponed until tomorrow, so I could carve out a little more time for reading MWA. You’d have thought I was the governor calling in their pardons, seconds before the warden pulls the switch. I wanted to get to the end of chapter 6, where Alyce/Beetle saves Will, one of the boys who’s been taunting her, from the river. It’s also the chapter where she asks the cat what he wants to be named. It’s also one of my favorite parts of the book, and if I were a seventh grader doing my 120 Seconds, it would be the part I’d read out loud.  When Will says that Beetle “were brave” because she didn’t run away, Beetle replies, “Naw, I be not brave. I near pissed myself.” I always have to pause for the pandemonium. Sometimes I repeat the line, milking it like a bad comedian. “I guess she was scared… ‘I near…’” The line is all too appropriate for the way some of them are looking forward

Read more »

120 Seconds – The Two-Minute Book Report. (Remix)

January 13, 2010
By
120 Seconds – The Two-Minute Book Report. (Remix)

This time (and next), it’s not quite a rerun. It’s more of a remix. Yeah, that’s it. Right now we’re in the midst (today was day 2) of our two-minute book reports. I posted about this last year about this time, so I’m going to use that previous post as the starting point, and embellish… I have always hated “book reports.” (Wait, I told my wife I would try to stop using that word.) I didn’t like writing them (took all the fun out of the book), I didn’t like reading them back when I thought I had to assign them. I don’t like the summarize kind, the analyze kind, the combo kind, the form letter kind, or the “make a diorama” kind.  (Well, some of the dioramas I used to get WERE pretty cool; the Lego version of the murder in the graveyard in Tom Sawyer was very detailed and boss, and I still have a shoebox/popcicle stick Tom Sawyer whitewashing scene from 1995, a matchstick Outsiders hide-out church from 1994, and Tom and Becky lost in a shoe-box cave, complete with bats. But still… If you do like book reports or feel the “need” to assign them , here

Read more »

Mostly Rerun Because House is Back

January 11, 2010
By
Mostly Rerun Because House is Back

House returns in 15 minutes, and well, it’s been a while… I do have to share one new, beauty line I got today. I’m going to leave out the spaces between words because that’s how this kid talks. Also, his volume goes to 11. “Mr.Cowardyou’remyfavoriteteacherbecauseyouunderstanduskidsyouknow… …exactlywhatit’slikeyouknow…andyouletusshootourpinksheetsonFriday…” “Take a breath G. Thanks, I think. What do you mean, ‘you know exactly what it’s like?’” “YouweremedicatedasakidYouwerehyperactivetoohuh.” Ummmm. (More on this later.) 10 minutes until House. We’re reading The Midwife’s Apprentice now, live in class like The Outsiders. It’s a lot of fun. They can’t cope with how stinky things were back then or with the fact that even the kids drank beer for breakfast. 7 minutes. And I don’t have any snacks ready. So here’s a fave moment from last year’s take on MWA (12/8/08): A seventh grade class is the perfect straight man; they often don’t realize how funny they are, or how often they set you up for a funny line. We’re reading The Midwife’s Apprentice right now. I only have a class set, so we’re reading it all in class, like The Outsiders. It should work out beauty, with just a couple weeks left until winter break. The kids usually like

Read more »

School Dance!

January 8, 2010
By

Isn’t there a law written down somewhere that requires school dances end with “Stairway to Heaven”? What happened to that? Was the law repealed? Or is there just no enforcement? I didn’t have my usual luck in drawing numbers for extra-curricular duty sign ups. The last time I had to chaperon a dance was my first year here…16 years ago. But tonight I got to watch 200+ kids wiggle for an hour and a half. Wiggle isn’t quite the right word. They just never stopped moving. As I recall, dances usually consisted of a lot of standing around, mixed with moments of terror.  (Sort of like war, I hear.) This was not like that. Not one of them stopped moving ever. Not for any longer than it took to get a piece of pizza or some cotton candy. Never. Stopped. Moving. If they were standing in one place (never longer than 3 minutes), they were hopping up and down, or just sort of vibrating and, well wiggling. After 3 minutes of that, small groups would just randomly run outside, or to another part of the multipurpose room. More groups would follow, and the whole crowd would flow like an amoeba.

Read more »

Near Catastrophe

January 7, 2010
By

Today I came much closer to a catastrophic tech failure than I’m used to. And it happened live in class. Now, as my loyal readers may have guessed, I don’t have many tech failures, beyond finicky overhead bulbs and such. (In fact, I get to play the Fonz quite a bit with my overhead. It must have a loose connection to the bulb, because if I’m a bit too forceful in my pointing with my pen, the bulb goes out. So then I whack it a certain way on the side, and it works again. I bat about .900 with the restoring whack, and I give the thumbs up, but none of them know who the Fonz was. They are still slightly awed in their seventh grade way. It’s even better when I do the backside kick to my class computer – it’s on the floor under my center table – to quiet the occasionally noisy cooling fan. They love that one. ) First, I am mostly religious about backing up data. My CPS databases are on a flash drive which is backed up to my space on the school server (which is supposedly backed up nightly) and every now and then

Read more »

Random Featured Post

Oh Raffle King, Oh Raffle King…

(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 [...]

more -->


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

Archives

January 2010
M T W T F S S
« Dec   Feb »
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Recent Comments

  • mrC commented on It’s Go Time!@Sarah-Most excellent! Keep up the good work, and don't let any of them talk you out of it. Glad to hear your kids recognize the value too. Fight the good fight!
  • Mrs. M~ commented on Illin’Feel better soon! There is nothing worse than being at school and trying to be "on" when you feel like death.
  • Sarah commented on It’s Go Time!I just came across your blog...I am a second year teacher and I am currently reading The Outsiders aloud to my seventh graders. I read it to them last year, too. I catch a lot of criticism for reading it to them...but they LOVE to have me read to them. I actually had a group
  • joan commented on Illin’I'm on day two of out-with-the-crud. I needed the rest. Hope you're in tip top shape by Monday!
  • mrC commented on “The Sub Used One of Your Sticks!”That one oughta be strung up like they used to do to horse thieves.
  • Heather commented on “The Sub Used One of Your Sticks!”The last sub I had left no note at all and broke the arm of my spinny chair by leaning back in it so far that he fell in the floor. The kids all said he was the best sub ever. I politely asked the school secretary to never have him sub in
  • mrC commented on The Future of Space Travel@Heather: Gawd I hate that. I think I even posted about it awhile back. @Kelli: This reminds me of high school. I went to a Jesuit high school (all boys) and for our Friday football rallies, we would import cheerleaders from other schools to be a part of the rally. And the girls would always begin
  • Heather commented on The Future of Space TravelMy eighth graders just have the habit of prefacing every question with, "I have a question." And announcing "I'm done" when they complete an assignment.
  • Kelli commented on The Future of Space TravelIs it bad that I sometimes start my stories with "Okay, so...."...? I guess the kids have rubbed off on me. Sigh.
  • Kelli commented on Blogging the Scoring Session (Part I)Ugh! Been there. I have been to those "Scoring and Rubric" type meetings in two different states now... Not fun, and not entirely informative, either.
  • Meg commented on No Groove Yet (Also: The Giver and No Homework Returns)There was a district I student taught in that hand the no fail policy. I child could not be held back a grade, even if they did absolutely nothing the whole year, until they were in high school. It took most of the middle schoolers about 3 seconds to realize they didn't have
  • Kelli commented on No Groove Yet (Also: The Giver and No Homework Returns)You know, that whole "no-zero" policy goes hand-in-hand with the "no-failure" or "no-retention" policy, and my school district is a definite contributor to this madness. I can understand the desire to stop giving zeros and MAKE the kids do the work (giving countless opportunities until successful), but I have been in a situation where
  • commented on Obligatory Santa VideoWe have an unofficial "no zero" policy. It takes a little extra effort on the teacher's part to get all of the students to complete their assignments but we have made it work. The thing that was most helpful was instituting a "homework detention" that is separate from discipline detention. If a

Links

Privacy Policy