The Outsiders

Hank vs. Prince. (Also: “Lean meat?”)

October 1, 2009
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Hank vs. Prince. (Also: “Lean meat?”)

Most of the classes finished the pivotal chapter 4 today. We listened to Hank Williams sing “Why Don’t You Love Me Like You Used to Do?” My Hank bobblehead rocked, even headbangin’ a little. Most of the kids squirmed and looked at each other nervously. “Pony feels the same way.” I did have a few cowgirls confess to me on the way out the door that they liked it. Why Don’t You Love Me Like You Used to Do? Hank gets mentioned three times in chapter 4. In Pony’s description of Buck Merrill, he says that Buck is “out of it…He dug Hank Williams. How gross can you get?” Then Dally adds a few choice adjectives after “Hank Williams.” That always draws a laugh, now that most of them know what an adjective is. And then Pony says that the farmer he asks for directions from sounds “as corn-poney as Hank Williams.” One of the questions on tomorrow’s test is: The early death of Hank Williams was a great loss to the music world.  a) True  b) False They had better get it right. We also rocked out to some Prince. One of

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50% New Material

September 23, 2009
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We  finally had a regular schedule today (54 minute periods). Monday was our weekly TCT (Teacher Collaboration Time)/Late Start Schedule (43 minute periods – the kids start at 9:30 instead of 8:20; not as collaborative as hoped) and yesterday we had the ASB election assembly (assembly schedule: 47 minute periods). (Aside) As ASB election assemblies in junior high go, this one was pretty good. But… Back in the day (2 years ago), when we actually still had a full time drama teacher on staff (she retired after almost 30 years and they didn’t replace her), the election assembly was always jazzed up with short skits that promoted recycling or previewed the upcoming production. I really miss those skits, as well as having actual drama classes at our school. NCLB. Bah. So this year, it was the usual intros by the “campaign managers” (I keep waiting for one of them to bring the candidate a towel, or fan him Elvis stylie, during the speech), and then strings of empty promises (more activities, loosened cell phone restrictions, soda machines, “listening to your ideas”). But most of them were relatively well prepared, and one even quoted Gandhi and JFK. There was the obligatory

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“Can we read Outsiders today?”

September 21, 2009
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The down side of reading the book entirely in class is that there’s usually a lot going on in class. What with the warm up, a little grammar work, vocabulary, and whatnot (there’s always that dang whatnot), sometimes it ends up… “Dang it. We’ll have to get back to reading tomorrow.” We’re a little behind this year, so we’re only up to where Pony begins his flashback (literary term!) about Johnny, while he waits with Cherry in the snack bar. I always have to explain what the “concession stand” is, and they can’t cope that you can get two popcorns for 50 cents (“Two-Bit flipped me a fifty cent piece”) at the drive-in in 1967. And since most of them have been hooked (even the kid who really, physically, cannot stop moving, even for 30 seconds) since Pony bit down on the hand of the Soc trying to shut him up in chapter one, and since that was last week, I’ve been hearing a lot of… “Can we pleeeeeeeze read Outsiders today? We could skip the warm up. And adjectives. But can we watch Mr. Morton?” (The whole “have your cake” and etc.) Today we read the part where Two-Bit

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Snnkkkttt! (Also: Adjectives)

September 10, 2009
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Snnkkkttt! (Also: Adjectives)

Finally! I get to bust out the switchcomb. The groove is back. We finally had enough time to get a good start today. I managed not to accidentally show the switchblade comb too early, so it was a beauty when I clicked it open as I read the line… “The medium-sized blonde took a knife from his back pocket and flipped open the blade.” (I can’t believe I can quote that from memory – how close did I come? Well actually, I think I can believe it.) Snnkkktt! That’s the comic-book style representation of something metallic clicking into place. Like when Wolverine’s claws pop out. Snnkkktt! Like when a Soc flicks open his switchblade. When I flicked open my switchblade comb, they were so engrossed already that some of them actually jumped. “Don’t do that to me!” One girl actually said that. Teachable moment, as they say. “You didn’t even really know what that was, but it scared the heck out of you didn’t it? Mine’s a comb, but the sound is pretty similar, and that sound would’ve sent chills down Pony’s spine too. Ominous.” Snnkkktt. We’ve also been working on adjectives. Which means a lot of “Unpack Your Adjectives.”

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No-Brainer

September 9, 2009
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No-Brainer

And so it begins (again). We finally got to start reading The Outsiders today. The way things have been going so far this year, I still haven’t found my groove. We didn’t even get to the book’s hook – Ponyboy getting jumped.  But to continue the fishing metaphor, getting seventh-graders hooked on this book is like chumming for sharks; just dump it in the water and they’ll come swarming. It’s something about the voice of Ponyboy. Other novels with teenage protagonists or narrators may get the details right, but Susan Hinton’s voice just rings true. It’s almost as if they can tell it’s really a teenager telling the story, even as they are shocked when I tell them it really is. So on our first day with the novel, I barely had time to show them who Paul Newman was, talk about 1st person narrators, and read up to “…since Mom and Dad were killed in an auto wreck…” before we ran out of time. I usually like to stop on the first day at the line “Need a haircut greaser?” But it didn’t matter; they were still walking out the door saying things like, “Great book!” and “I can’t

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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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