Reading Aloud

It’s Go Time!

September 19, 2011
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Whoa baby, this is fun. The comments area has had a bit of controversy about my thing for reading Outsiders (or anything we read in class) aloud to my seventh graders. We got people saying they don’t like to be read to, we got people saying the book is predictable and Ponyboy annoying,  and that as far as I can tell, they find being read aloud to beneath them. OK. It’s only really two people and me. But still, it gives me an opportunity to climb back up on my soapbox. (When will that metaphor go away? Answer: When people like me stop using it because we’re tired of explaining it to the young ‘uns.) I guess it’s all in the delivery. I Googled “reading aloud research middle school” just now. (Here’s another one of my Asides: I swear I invented that word. Google as verb that is. I have proof…well, sort of: Hi Mr. Coward! I was in your 7th grade English class around the year 2000 or 2001 and now I’m about to graduate college. My little sister is now a student at Laguna and I told her that you were a great teacher and that you showed

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What’s This Dang Blog supposed to Be About Anyway?

September 12, 2011
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So far this year has been the year of weird schedules. Late start schedule for “faculty collaboration.” That’s on Mondays. Two extended second period schedules for tours of the school and to drill the school handbook. (Luckily, with a second period prep, I was able to avoid the ugliness.) Extended Homie Base Schedule for the fire and lockdown drill. Last week it was 45 (instead of 35) minute lunch schedule all week long after the Monday holiday. This was to reward them for increasing our API by the required amount. (The possibility of which isn’t any better than a crapshoot from year to year. But we can pat ourselves on the back and pretend that our “increased focus” on testing last year was the reason we jumped so much. Actually a crapshoot is a better bet than our test scores going up every year, especially if you bet Don’t Pass.) I’m thinking test scores went up either because we taught them such mad erasing skills or because we walked around and hounded them so much to try their best. Also the incoming seventh graders played no part in the test score increase, but they’re not complaining about the extra ten minutes. Anyway,

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Pssssst. Act!

November 4, 2010
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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 figure that’s close enough.) And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you guys how the whole reading parts thing goes.  But I will anyway. 1. As soon as I say, “It’s a pla–” the hands go up volunteering for parts they can’t handle. 2. There’s always a bunch of boys who want to volunteer for the women’s parts. Then they they can’t cope if they have to call another character “Honey,” or they try to talk in a high voice, and end up giggling and stumbling so much I have to relieve them of their duties. 3. Girls do fine with men’s parts. 4. There are never enough good readers to go around. And most of them are girls. 5. When I say, “I need a good reader for this one, because he has a lot of lines, and is important to the story,”

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A Rerun, Just to Keep the Streak Alive.

August 31, 2010
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As you may or may not have noticed, I actually have a streak going. After taking most of July and August off, it’s been six days in a row now! My longest run in 2+ years of doing this. So even though it’s getting late, I think I can squeeze in a rerun (from the very early days of this blog, back in 2008), and make it seven straight. We started The Outsiders today. This is always my favorite time of the year. Baiting the hook, setting the hook, landing the fish. (It’s a metaphor for getting kids to like reading.) And I’d like make my regular plea to teachers everywhere to read aloud to your students. So let’s travel back to fall of ’08… (So I can keep the streak alive and still get to bed at a fairly decent hour.) Read The Outsiders Aloud! 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

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Virtual Mailbag: Yes, I do.

November 14, 2009
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Over there in the comments, Christine (thanks for the nice words) asks if I really read the whole of The Outsiders to the kids. Ummm, yeah. That’s sort of one of my shticks. Well, more like a hook. As in the fishing metaphor. The Outsiders is the hook I use to draw reluctant 7th graders into English and reading and actual discussions and such, and make them like it. In 16 years of teaching this book, I have yet to meet a 7th grader who doesn’t love it. But if you give it to them and let them go on their own, they will devour it in hours, and while they will still love it, they will miss two-thirds of what the book has to offer. And if you do the whole “popcorn” reading thing…well, no offense, but let me just say that I HATE THAT! The kids have to hear the rhythms and the feel of the dialogue and the writing, and I think one of the big problems kids have with reading comprehension is that many of them read so slowly that they lose the overall meaning. (More on this later.)  So unless you have a class full

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Random Featured Post

“There’s already something on the back of mine.” (Also: Racial Harmony.)

It was our first day back in the classroom after 8 days in the library. We were all glad to be back. “Oh, my clicker…how I’ve missed you.” One of them actually said that. OMG. What a day. Full of action, and laugh after laugh. First there was the video. YouTube is blocked in our district. Our head of IST keeps bleating about CIPA and how YouTube doesn’t filter, and…anyway, we can’t use YouTube. But finally, they created a workaround for us. We have to do things from home rather than from school, but it works OK. We find the YouTube video we want to use, and copy the URL. Then we go to the district’s “safe video portal” and paste it in. Then we can approve our own video, and use the safe portal to show it at school. It’s a bit clunky, but it works fine. Yesterday I added a video. I hadn’t even showed it yet, when I got an e-mail from my principal. I have only added a couple of videos before, but both of them were of the nutty variety, rather than the “educational” sort.  One of them is near the top of the most [...]

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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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