We’re reading The Giver now. “This book is weird.” “Duh. I told you that before I handed it out. For you guys, if it isn’t weird, it’s ‘boring.’” I was waiting for the, “It’s weird and boring,” but it didn’t come. Phew. Last year was the first year I taught it, and I didn’t even finish it out, because I had a student teacher last year, and she took over after chapter 6 or so. So, this is virgin (snicker) territory for me. It’s kind of fun figuring things out for the first time, and I really like this book. I love blowing their minds. (If you have any groovy ideas or suggestions, I’m all ears, as they used to say.) Related aside: If you have time and the inclination, check out We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. It was supposedly the inspiration for Orwell’s 1984, Vonnegut’s Player Piano, and The Giver. I really enjoyed it. But I’m a sucker for those crazy Russian writers. Tuesday, we had read where Lily was wishing she could be assigned to be a Birthmother. After the sadness that nobody got to be with their “real” parents, the giggles started in about Lily’s vision of the
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The boys are in the church cutting their hair (some of the girls visibly wince as Johnny “starts sawing” on Pony’s hair with the same knife he used on Bob) and killing time with Gone With the Wind. We’re talking about irony and Richard Cory. We go through the poem, and I keep the fourth stanza hidden from them. They laugh when they find out that “crown” means the top of your head, and that in Jack and Jill, Jack really breaks his head. I explain that “clean favoured” means good looking, and they are quick to realize why the poet used “quietly” to describe how he is dressed (“arrayed’). “It means he’s not showing off.” Good. They are also pretty good at getting what “he was always human when he talked” means. Seventh graders are very quick to spot someone “putting on airs” as they said in Tom Sawyer’s time. They tell me it means he’s down to Earth. Nice. Then, after the first three stanzas of description, I stop and ask, “Now, who, in The Outsiders could we compare to Richard Cory? Who is rich, good looking, popular, well dressed, yet down to Earth?” “Sodapop?” Rich? Well dressed.
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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.)