RaffleKing

I’m back, baby. (Though not officially.) Also: RaffleKing Jr.

April 2, 2009
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I’m back, baby. (Though not officially.) Also: RaffleKing Jr.

I think my sad, tragic tale of woe is nearly over. Recap: Last Sunday, a palm branch fell from 20 feet up (while I was trimming the tree), and impaled my left hand with three spikes. The pic below illustrates what I mean by spikes. That is not me, but those spikes are dead-ringers for the ones in my hand. I pulled out two very similar to C and a portion of one more, labeled A, right after it happened. What I didn’t know was that a piece (“B”) was still in there. Until Thursday, when the swelling went down enough to notice. Last Thursday, the Doc in the Box pulled part B out of the back of my hand. After four days. Every day since then I’ve had a hole in my hand swabbed out  (rather forcefully), and packed with gauze. I was supposed to see the hand specialist yesterday, but got bumped by somebody else’s emergency surgery.  Ditto today. And now the gauze has come out, and hole’s closed up, and it looks sorta almost normal. But I’m supposed to actually see the specialist tomorrow to make sure. But I’m feeling pretty good, and I have some new

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What’s a Rerun of a Flashback Called?

March 31, 2009
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I was trying to wait until I reached 100 posts before I did this. You know, like in television, your series used to have to reached 100 episodes before you could go into syndication ands reruns. But I figure with my bad paw, I have a bit of an excuse. (It’s getting much better, but I go see the hand surgeon guy tomorrow to get the official word.) And the kids were bugging me about the cage today. I’ll be back to posting regularly soon; we’re reading another Ray Bradbury classic, “The Earth Men,” and it’s been fun. So here we go, and to paraphrase words of an old NBC promo, if you haven’t read it, it’s new to you. From September 26, 2008, The Tom Sawyer Syndrome (Flashback) “If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.” That’s Mark Twain’s famous observation after Tom Sawyer has scammed the town kids into whitewashing his fence for him, and paying him for the pleasure. We won’t

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Sometimes they’re actually listening!

February 4, 2009
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Sometimes they’re actually listening!

Wednesday is vocabulary day; going over the homework, explaining and exampling, then the pretest. And that means the Raffle King. He decides whether or not they get to use the “cheat sheet” (the corrected homework sentences) on the pretest. As I have said before, it doesn’t really help them (it tends to make them second guess themselves), but they really like having it. And since a perfect score on the pretest means an exemption from that part of the real test, they want every edge they can get. Today, I told the friendly class that the Raffle King had been crabby all morning, and had been saying no to all classes so far. So they pulled out all the stops, and even resorted to actually using some of the vocabulary words we had just gone over. Really. It was pretty boss to see how many they crammed into that 10 second countdown. 10 – 9- “Please don’t be INDIFFERENT to us!” (Nice one, I have to say.) 8 – 7- “C’mon, I promise I won’t be SULLEN to Mr. Coward when I’m in eighth grade.” (In explaining that word, I always talk about how in eighth grade, all my former

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They killed the King!

January 7, 2009
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They killed the King!

One of the reasons my previous attempt at blogging failed was that I was in the midst of another battle with our district IST department, and I spent too much time complaining about how they were interfering with my class, and how they…anyway, I’ll just make myself crabby again thinking about it. So I vowed I wasn’t going to talk about that sort of shtuff any more. It’s a lot more fun this way. But this week they crossed the line. They killed the Raffle King. Yes, the King is dead (at least at school…at least for now). First, a little background on how I discovered the crime. Monday, we were going to consult him about who was most worthy of the Magic Clicker #20. Magic Clicker #20 came into being the first year I had the clickers. I had one clicker (#20) stop working, and the company sent me a replacement one. It was different. They sent me one of the newer models. More sleek. Rounded corners. White instead of blue. Obviously much cooler. So now there’s one clicker everyone wants. They all want to break theirs so they can get a replacement. (These days, if you buy a

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Cartoon Fun II.

December 26, 2008
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Cartoon Fun II.

A “typical” period in Mr. Coward’s class in “pictures” Part II. After they have completed the warm up, we go over it. I use my wireless slate to circle the correct answers on the screen and write hints. I can also flip the pen over, and use the built-in laser pointer to emphasize (or annoy). Next we will often be working on grammar/mechanics, going over pink homework sheets or proofreading something (usually student work) live on the overhead or grooving on some Schoolhouse Rock (-ism #10). Their faves are “Unpack Your Adjectives” and “Mr. Morton.” (I had one class one year where several members would cry during that one; they felt sooo sad for Mr. Morton, even after it all ends well.) If it’s Wednesday, there will be vocabulary work. That means going over the homework, giving examples and usages, answering questions, and sometimes acting out the words. (OMG, they can’t cope when I undulate.) Then there’s the vocabulary pretest. A perfect score gets them out of that part of the test on Friday. It’s called being exempt (-ism #13), and in my class, it’s what they all crave. I use the Raffle King to decide whether they can use

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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 [...]

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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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