Rerun

The Titanic Finally Really Sinks! (Also: Sidekicks.)

May 3, 2012
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First year ever! No Titanic! O. M. G. The average is about 7 or 8. The record was the 1997-98 school year with, count’em, 27. There was a renaissance in 2010, with about 20. I’m talking about research papers. And finally, for the first time since I started at this school in 1993, I won’t have to plow through another “all about the Titanic” nightmare. O. M. G. I’m just going to savor that thought for awhile… until some clown “can’t find ANYTHING” on his/her topic, and I cave and say, “Just do the Titanic.” Yes, it’s that time of year once again, the dreaded (by me) research paper. You might ask how I managed to sink the Titanic as a research topic, even as James Cameron and other rich guys celebrate the 100th anniversary of the giant metaphor. I didn’t use it as an example topic. I went through dozens of topics, both good and bad, as we played “Is This a Good Topic or Not?” for a week and a half, and I assiduously made sure I never even mentioned the Titanic as a topic, good or bad. My whole thing on research is that I HATE the “all about”

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A Flower? Phew.

March 26, 2012
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This one is from January ’09; back in the early(ish) days of this here blog. I was just reminded today when one genius thought I was asking for a paragraph of 150 pages, instead of 150 words. “I thought that was a pretty long paragraph… I mean really.. And you’re always telling us to use paragraphs, so I thought, whoa, and then I thought, hey, and then-” We were reading Tom Sawyer then too. Yesterday, we were going over chapter three, where Tom sees Becky (“The Adored Unknown”) for the first time, and falls in love. He shows off for her and she tosses a pansy over her shoulder. They always ask why he picks it up with his foot. “Being a boy, he can’t be seen picking up a flower. So he’s trying to be all nonchalant about it” There are also always some that ask what a pansy is, even after I just get through with my previous response. This time though, a girl in my friendly class says, “Oh, now I get it. It was a pansy, like the flower. Phew. I was a little worried about this book. I kept wondering.” “Why?” “I thought it said

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No Groove Yet (Also: The Giver and No Homework Returns)

January 5, 2012
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I don’t know about you guys (remember the old Electric Company intro: “Hey You Guys!”), but I’m having trouble finding any sort of groove so far in 2012. The kids are all dopey and spacey (I know; how can you tell?), nothing much is happening around school, my student servant doesn’t even have much to do right now, things are just feeling …weird. … They seem to be enjoying The Giver though. I have a Q/A each day before the reading quiz, and the questions have been coming fast and furious. “They don’t know what elephants are? What are they, stupid?” “Are all the kids adopted?” “So you don’t get to pick who you marry?” (Ask Depeesha over there in the third row.) “Why do they call it a family unit?” (What? They’ve never seen the Coneheads?) ‘Why aren’t there any cars?” (THAT sounds like utopia to me.) “Why is this book weird?” (I know you are, but what am I?) … Regarding the discussion beginning over there on the right side: Mrs. M, I really want to read that book. I went to their web site and read their brief excerpts, which were no more than one sentence teasers.

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“What about the butterflies?”

December 8, 2011
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On the second day of Christmas… I had been crabby for the first half of the week for many and various reasons: a “mama bear,” a moron or two, a faculty meeting, the brrrnesss of the weather lately–30 degrees on my bike to school every day this week…really? Really? I thought this was California… But today was full of laffs. aside: For some reason, I just really love spelling it that way and seeing it spelled that way. I don’t know why, I just smile every time I see it that way. Here’s one of today’s knee slappers. (I think I might need to save some of the others for days 9 or 10, if the well starts to run dry.) A few weeks ago, I found a stash of  the “consumable” workbooks that I thought we were out of, and we’re working (haha) our way through the “reading in the real world” type exercises. Yes I have blogged about this before, but instead of making you click the link to get the back story, I have conveniently included it below, along with the related “video,” which this lesson gives me an excuse to drag out each year. I’m sure my old

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Reading and a Rerun

November 28, 2011
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Reading and a Rerun

I know, I know. Thanksgiving is over. Time for a new post. Well, I’ve been busy… I’ve been learning a lot about maintaining a thirty year old pinball machine. And, ummm, playing one. Digesting food. Seriously. I weighed myself TDay evening, and then again then next morning (barely–it was almost afternoon). Six pounds difference. I don’t know where it goes. Well, I guess I know where at least some of it goes. Trying to stay ahead of my video class. Since there aren’t as many hardware issues this quarter, things are moving along much more quickly. I have a couple of pairs who are two weeks ahead of last quarter. D’oh. Enjoying our 70+ degree weather. In November. Sorry. It’s one of the reasons I live here. Reading. Latest in progress: Damned (narrated from Hell by a 13 year old girl…there are certain contexts when a 13 year old girl’s perspective is the best one to have), by Chuck Palahniuk, the same guy who wrote Fight Club (never read it or seen it… I might now). Damned funny. Sorry.  1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (an epic in three parts totaling 1000+ pages — I’m about 1/4 of the way in). I love his work. It’s

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Random Featured Post

Quizzes for Dummies?

A few years ago, while we were reading Outsiders aloud, I was about to give them my usual “reading check” type quiz to make sure they were following along, thinking about what we’d talked about, connecting the literary terms to the examples in the book, etc. I can’t quite remember what my inspiration was (probably just to throw them for a loop like I like to do), but I decided to let them “cheat.” My quizzes on the books and stories we read are always open book, but this time I told them they could take the quiz, not only open book, but “open mouth.” I told them they could talk about the questions and answers as much as they want in any way they want, and decide however they want to, which of the answers to choose. “You can share what you know…or not. You can decide whether to heed the wisdom of the group…or not. You just can’t lie. You can’t knowingly tell everyone the wrong answer on purpose.” One class that day came up with the name Quiz for Dummies. The rest of the periods thought that was a little “mean,” so we’ve stuck with Open Mouth. [...]

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Mr. Coward has been teaching on the beautiful central coast of California since 1989.

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