The Giver

Parental Units

November 19, 2009
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Remember the Coneheads? From the old Saturday Night Live when John Belushi was still alive? I have referred to my parents (and all parents) as “parental units” (PU’s) ever since 1977. Dad is PPU – Paternal Parental Unit, and Mom is MPU. Other expressions I still use which I stole from the Coneheads include: family unit, consume mass quantities, and proceed human. Obviously, that’s where Lois Lowry got the expression “family unit.” The other day, in my girls’ club class (20 girls/7 boys), we were laughing about that expression; family unit. I mentioned that I, even today, call my parents my PU’s. Haha and so forth. So today, one girl raises her hand during our Giver Q/A session and says that she told her parents over dinner about our discussion that day. I guess her little sister (I think she said she was four, but I’ll get back to you on that) really liked the sound of “parental units.” “And now that’s all she’ll call my mom and dad; parental units.” “That’s so great.” “Well, the problem is that once she gets a phrase or something like that stuck in her head, she’s like addicted to it. And she’ll keep

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The “Stirrings” (Again)

November 18, 2009
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It is sooo much fun making 7th graders uncomfortable and embarrassed. Is that mean? When the kids accuse me of being mean I tell them I get paid extra for being that way. “The meaner I am, the fatter the paycheck.” “Nuh uh!” I didn’t think kids said that any more. But I don’t think making them say “eew” or “gross” or making them do the uncomfortable/embarrassed squirm instead of the I’m-so-hyper-I-can’t-cope squirm is being mean. Besides, when you have 7th graders reading chapter 5 of The Giver, well now you have what the military calls a “target rich environment.” This year’s bunch was kind of cute about it, actually. After the previous night’s reading assignment, I hold a Q and A session before the reading quiz. I tell them I will answer any and all questions they have about whatever they don’t get. “I don’t get it,” is not a question. I also won’t answer, “What happened in chapter __?” Sometimes the sessions get a little free-wheeling, and each one takes on the characteristics of that class period. But this year, more than the past couple of years I have taught this book, there were waaay more kids with

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“-isms” (Also: mucous)

November 29, 2008
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“-isms” (Also: mucous)

All this sleeping in this week is making me a little laggy… When we were talking about idiosyncrasies and -isms the other day, one of the kids brought up the fact that I have a lot of “Mr. Coward-isms.” Point well taken. Examples follow. (Some of them already have their own entries.) 1. MYOB – Mind your own business. Although it’s usually said “bidness.” The initials (a staple of Dear Abby advice back in the day) are always present on one or more whiteboards in my room. When we read Tom Sawyer, it changes to TTYOB – Tend to your OWN bidness, as Aunt Polly tells Jim. As I tell the kids, “You have enough trouble doing that.” Other variations include, “Is this your conversation?” and “I wasn’t talking to you.” 2. The Quiet Stick 3. The Raffle King 4. Clickers 5. “Save it for circle time.” – Seventh graders always want to share (except when you want them to, or about what you want them to). They like to take the discussion off-track. I like a detour now and then, but…when they start wanting to share stories and “this happened to my friend” and… Well, I’m not big on

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“…flopping around at the end of the rope.”

November 19, 2008
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They say that the longer you teach at a particular grade level, the more you start to resemble a student at that grade level. In my case, I was already there when I started. Some who know me say that I’m barely out of junior high myself. (My wife pegs me from 13-16, depending…) So it’s easy for me to see how easy it is for my students to drift a bit. And certain things fascinate them, so I should know better than to even open certain doors. But, of course… Yesterday, we were debriefing after chapter 19, where The Giver makes Jonas watch his “father” release the lighter of the two identical twins. (Aside: I have a set of twins this year – one year I had 3 sets – and they have been great sports about us joking about releasing one of them. In fact, their birthweights are nearly identical to the ones in the book, with the same separation. One of them we now call “Little Guy.”) They were appalled by what Jonas witnessed. They couldn’t cope. We talked about China’s one child policy, and how many times only boys were “allowed to be born.” We talked

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“Do you love me?” (Also: Weird “Week”)

November 14, 2008
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Wotta “week.” Considering how tired I am, I can’t believe it was only a three-day week – for some reason we had a 4-day weekend for Veterans’ day. And I done clean forgot that I was supposed to give the “District Benchmark Test #1″ (that’s a whole ‘nother post) by Friday. So we spent Wednesday darkening ovals to generate data for the district, AND there was a “multi-media” assembly that, amid the rock and rap, touted the beauty of trust and honesty (also: don’t do those things which I obviously can’t mention, because ads for them started appearing here). AND, yesterday was “parent visitation day.” Whole lotta scare quotes today too. Usually I get a pretty good turnout for these parent visitation days (it sounds like a Catholic holiday). Our previous principal (our present principal is an FNG, both to the job of principal AND to our school) instituted these as a sort of PR for parents. Many parents of ms’ers are more than a little leery of sending their little angels to the big bad junior high. (You should have seen the reaction a few years ago when the district proposed making our school 6-8. OMG. You’d have thought

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Random Featured Post

“How cute. Like hobos…” (Also: Hank Williams.)

Wednesday. Vocabulary Pretest. Talk of facades and irony. Both figure large in The Outsiders. More on that later. Today I have more insight from my friendly class. We’re reading chapter 4 (the death of Bob, Dally helping with the getaway, jumping the train out of town), and we get to where Dally is telling Pony and Johnny to “hop the 3:15 freight to Windrixville.” We pause and talk about how it’s only been less than 36 hours (book time) since the beginning. They find it hard to believe until we start to do the timeline. Figure that Pony gets out of the movie in the late afternoon, and gets jumped and saved. Pony and Johnny and Dally go to the Nightly Double the next night, and it’s now 3:15am that same night. Then I make sure they know that a freight is a train. And one girl says, “How cute. Like hobos…” Hobos maybe. Cute? [Audio clip: view full post to listen] Why Don’t You Love Me Like You Used to Do? When the boys run to find Dally at Buck Merrill’s house, Pony offers a brief description of Buck that ends with, “…he was out of it. He dug [...]

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

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  • Meg commented on Rants and RavesI have the same problem with no name papers and it drives me nuts!!! Trust me, if there is someone out there with a good solution let me in on the secret as well.
  • 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

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