(I can’t believe I didn’t talk about this one last year. This is one of my fave writing assignments. Though the range of quality is all over the map, even the “not so good” ones are usually entertaining to read. Anyway…) “Hi, my name is mrC, and I’m an English teacher who doesn’t especially like very much poetry…” There, I admitted it. I don’t do a “poetry unit.” I don’t assign the kids to write poems (shiver), except as an option on novel final projects, and then I make them meet with me first and run ideas and rough drafts by me. I do admire good poets’ ability to cram a whole lot of meaning into a few words, and there are some poems that just complement our reading so well, so we do read and discuss some poetry: e e cummings (check out this one), some Robert Frost (obviously), and my personal fave: Langston Hughes. I read somewhere that Langston Hughes was one of the first black men in America to make his living entirely from his writing. He didn’t just write poetry; he wrote short stories and plays and essays too. His work is accessible, yet has depth,
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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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