Already missed a day. Dang. Tuesday was big day. I introduced KBAR and our first Show not Tell assignment. First KBAR. You can read the KBAR page for yourself, but during the first part of the year, while we are reading The Outsiders aloud in class, I try to use my mutation of our school-wide independent reading program to show them how to read and respond to literature. So as we read live in class, I can demo what they should be doing at home with their books. Show not Tell is one of me fave ways of getting 7th graders to think writing can be fun…and of getting their writing to be a whole lot less boring to read. After all, I gotta read 140 of whatever, and if they’re not interesting, it’s going to be a slog. More on both of these later, but I just have to tell about this one before I forget. I think I already have a fave class this year. I know you’re not supposed to pick faves, but…some classes are just more…fun(ny). Today, reading The Outsiders, we were getting to the end of chapter one, and I’m asking them why they think
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I have been teaching The Outsiders ever since I started teaching junior high. The only “required” novel when I got to my school in 1993 was Tom Sawyer. The “approved” novels were shtuff like A Day no Pigs Would Die and Where the Red Fern Grows. Ummm, no offense, but I couldn’t cope. (Actually, I kinda liked ADNPWD – a bit.) I was rummaging around in the old English department storage room, and came across a class set of The Outsiders. Paydirt! Way better than Summer of the Monkeys. But it was only a class set. So, not knowing what else to do at the time, I decided we would read the whole thing as a class, in class. It has worked out beautifully. In fact, if I could only make one recommendation about teaching the novel, it would be this: don’t let them take it home! Hide all the copies in the school library. Tell the parents not to let them buy it or rent the cheesy movie. Read the whole thing in class! And read most of it to them. By the time we hit “I was wrong” at the end of chapter 3, most of them are
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(Friday Flashback – Last Year) “Mrs. G” has been teaching in our district for over 40 years. She’s been at our school since it opened in 1980. She’s taught English, art, social studies, music, and much more. She is literally an immovable object, and doesn’t need to rise from her chair to strike fear (well, not exactly fear any more, but…) into 8th graders’ hearts. She doesn’t care what people (parents, admins, other teachers) think of her, and speaks her mind whether it’s “appropriate” or not. She currently teaches 8th grade US history, and has been going toe to toe with a particularly pesky student I had last year. Now, this “Steve” sends me e-mails about how the posts he’s reading in the discussion forums on our Moodle don’t have enough thought behind them, and he has a real brain. But he’s a loud-mouthed pain in the rear, whose parents it seems, are wrapped around his finger. I was probably the only teacher he got along with…until Mrs. G. He’s still a pain, and though, like me she recognizes and likes the Steve underneath, she’s not afeared of giving what she gets. So… Food is not allowed in our classooms. [...]
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That reminds me of those great SNL skits about the Sofa King. You know, how the prices are "Sofa King" low, the deals are "Sofa King" great, etc. (You obviously have to say those phrases out loud to get the joke.)