Monthly Archives: May 2010

I’ll take 32, please.

May 24, 2010
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I’ll take 32, please.

We’re at the halfway point in the research process; one week in, one week to go. You can tell how exciting this past week has been by the lack of snappy posts.   There are still about a dozen shmarties who basically haven’t started, but most seem to have something going on. The Titanic is having quite a renaissance this year, clocking in at 20+ kids interested in giving me lists of the many amenities the ill-fated ship offered. Another biggie this year is global warming, at 18+. UFO’s; Are they spaceships? has about 15 backers. And now that there’s the excuse of the initiative on the November ballot here in California, legalization of ____ is also a hot topic, also with about 15. (I don’t need those kinds of ads appearing, thank you very much.) I always tell them, “As long as Mom knows and approves…” Most of them have a bare-bones outline, and some notes… But you all know that seventh graders and actual research –skimming, reading, note-taking, etc– are like oil and vinegar. You have to do a whole lotta shakin’ to get them together. And then, if you let ‘em sit for awhile, you hafta shake

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“Until you have kids here.” (Not already?!)

May 19, 2010
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In my annual Back to School Night spiel to parents I always talk about what a Disneyland we have here. I worked for two years in da hood before I landed this job, and I’ll be here forever. “Like I say to the kids, ‘I’ll be here until you have kids here.’” I’ve been saying it for years (17), but I thought I still had a quite a few years before it actually started happening. (Our Mrs. G has been there for awhile.) But the other day, a kid (not one of mine) came up to me in the quad and said, “Do you remember a kid named ‘Carl Mayer’?” “I’ve actually had two. Which one are you talking about? The one from way long ago, or maybe, five or six years ago?” “Way back in the day.” “Ok. That was maybe ’94 or ’95? I don’t know. So? Don’t tell me you’re another cousin or something.” “He’s my dad.” Well then. I did the math. It turns out it was ’94 when I had Carl, so he became a dad at 16. Hrrrm. In a related incident…I was finally starting to clean out one of my old file cabinets.

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CSI?

May 17, 2010
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Every year, I threaten to stop putting myself through this. As I have said before, let social studies or someone else teach the research paper. Let someone else slog through in-text citations. (“What? After every fact? There’s gonna be a ton of them.” Yes, I know.) Let someone else read another encyclopedia paper about the “History of…” Let someone else nitpick over the latest MLA format for the works cited list. Because, you know what? I don’t really care. My thing is to try to get them to stop with the old putting it your own words thing, and to stop relying on one source so much. I want them to know how to take notes on what they read, and be able to explain what they’ve learned to someone else, coherently,  in writing. My French teacher back in high school used to say that if you can’t explain it to someone else then you don’t really know it. I tend to agree. The kids can’t cope when I say this. (Aside: Yes, I took French in high school…only because it was the only language, besides English and Gaelic, our nuns back at St. Mel’s knew. So our foreign language

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Whatever it is…it ain’t working.

May 12, 2010
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Prologue: “Nancy” (she of fraternal twin fame) announced yesterday, “They changed my medicine, and I’m supposed to be able to pay attention better now.” Let’s see how that goes. Here on Earth. That dreaded time of year is at hand: Research. We’re going into the library next week, and we’re trying to get topics dialed in. I make them put their topic in the form of a question, and then their thesis is their prediction for the answer to that question.  I’m trying to eliminate the dreaded “all about” paper: France, Soccer, Hitler, Cheese, Dolphins. Anyway, we were going over the first handout today. It’s the one with all the technical requirements and length  and suchlike. It’s the only part anyone (especially parents) thinks is important. How long does it have to be? What size font? (Do I look like an idiot? Does ANYONE actually believe that the old giant-font-size trick works?) When’s the final draft due? Do we hafta have pictures? And etc. I was at the part in my speech about the old “putting it in my own words” method of research paper writing. “I’m betting that for you guys writing a research paper looks a lot like

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This is what I’m working with this year.

May 6, 2010
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This is what I’m working with this year.

29 mo’ day.  Never has that seemed so far away as this year. Here’s the sort of crowd I’m dealing with… We’ve been practicing with outlining in preparation for (shiver) research projects. More on that later. One of the in-class activities we did involved a brief excerpt (I actually got it from the textbook!) from an article about twins. The excerpt talked about the differences between fraternal and identical twins. I. Identical twins A. One egg splits into 2 B. Identical genes 1. 2 girls 2. 2 boys C. Occur once every 250 births II. Fraternal twins A. 1. 2. 3. B. C. Their job was to fill in the second half of the outline covering the part about fraternal twins. Of course, in seventh grade, nothing is as easy as it sounds. Immediately we veered into, “I knew these twins who…” and etc. Then… “I’m a fraternal twin!” “Yes ‘Nancy.’ I finally realized (only about two months ago!) that your brother is one of the pains in my heinie earlier in the day. I hadn’t realized you were even related you are so different.” Now Nancy is one of those people (in my experience they’re usually girls – sorry)

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Random Featured Post

Quizzes for Dummies?

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. [...]

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

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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

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