Daily Archives: May 24, 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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Random Featured Post

You Gotta Have a Shtick (or a stick).

One of the things I like to say about teaching junior high is down at the bottom of this page in the footer. You’re too lazy to scroll, aren’t you? Fine. “Five shows a day, 180 days a year.” And there aren’t many crowds tougher than 7th graders. “This is boring.” The worst of all sins. Most of us who teach junior high have a shtick. A role we play, some isms we like to use again and again. Idiosyncrasies we play up for entertainment/attention value (oh the sharing I get when we talk about that word idiosyncrasy during “Monsters are Due on Maple Street“). The key is to make the shtick such a natural part of the classroom routine, that it doesn’t distract too much. Well, sometimes we need the distraction. There’s the Raffle King. There’s the Timer. There are the clickers. The Cage. Mental Floss. Nutty videos. MYOB. All of these are stalwart features of my classroom shtick. And as of a few years ago, there’s also the Quiet Stick. (four or five years ago – me visiting another teacher’s classroom before school) “Leenie! What the shiggy are you doing? Where’d you get this, and WHY ARE YOU [...]

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

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