Monsters on Maple Street – Teaching The Outsiders (and more)

Monsters on Maple Street, Reading Aloud, Seventh Grade Behavior

Pssssst. Act!

mrC

We almost finished The Monsters are Due on Maple Street today. Obviously, since it’s in teleplay form, we have had people reading parts. I get to read the longer stage directions and be Rod Serling, all deep and gravelly. (You wouldn’t believe how many people have told me my voice sounds like David Frost. I […]

8th grade, Flowers for Algernon, Monsters on Maple Street, Rerun

“We’re all weird!” (Again.)

mrC

Eighth Grade: Finished with Nothing But the Truth. Pretty much all of them liked it. I do only have one class of eighth graders, but for my first time through this book with students, I’m pretty stoked with the response. I’ve talked to some former students whom I thought would have liked the book, and […]

Monsters on Maple Street, Moodle, Snow, The Giver

Snow?

mrC

I’m not dead yet. It’s just been a bit busy ’round these parts lately. And I’ve been sleeping in for five days, so I’m still a little dopey. Even most of the kids were quiet today; they looked sort of tattered. “Where’s all the left-over pie I asked for?” “Everybody in my family went eeewww […]

Beowulf, Guest artist, Monsters on Maple Street, Other activities

Only 35% New Shtuff (But it’s Gold.)

mrC

…I’ve been a little laggy about posting (again) because I’ve been revamping my school’s website. Check it out: http://lams.slcusd.org. …While I was checking out the sites for other schools in the district, I happened across a feature that Charlie Perryess, one of the English teachers at our sister middle school (about 1/2 of our 730-something […]

Emily Dickinson, Monsters on Maple Street, Romeo and Juliet

Ewww. (Moral Relativism in 7th grade.)

mrC

Poem #435 by that strange duck (really) Emily Dickinson is a pretty good intro for Bradbury’s “The Earth Men.” And the idea that the majority decides who’s normal and who’s not (and everything else) really gets some of the kids angry. Seventh graders are strange ducks as well. They like to think of themselves as […]

CPS, Monsters on Maple Street, RaffleKing, Teaching, The Giver

“-isms” (Also: mucous)

mrC

All this sleeping in this week is making me a little laggy… When we were talking about idiosyncrasies and -isms the other day, one of the kids brought up the fact that I have a lot of “Mr. Coward-isms.” Point well taken. Examples follow. (Some of them already have their own entries.) 1. MYOB – […]

Monsters on Maple Street, Seventh Grade Behavior, Teaching

“It’s how I was taught!”

mrC

Two day week! Woo hoo. The timing worked out better this year, and I finished The Giver last week (no Jeopardy, though), so I have two days for “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.” Perfect. For these two days, we’re going to work on listening skills. Today, we didn’t even use paper. Even seventh […]