I have been illin’ on and off (mostly on) for over a week. I have attended an exquisitely useless meeting, forced to grind my molars to powder in order not to make enemies of an entire department, the kids are on glue, and Modern Family was a rerun after I stayed up to watch all dopey and sick. I have been a little crabby lately. But I have also been doing a lot of lying around in bed, reading on my various devices. (I wish I had thought before just now, to convert my e-books to Palm format, so I could have been auto-scrolling, and not even had to move a finger to swipe.) So I’ve been reading some great books lately. Rant: I missed the Puppy Bowl for the first time since its inception eight short years ago. I always catch at least a quarter or so, but this year we were somewhere where the “real” Super Bowl wasn’t even mentioned. Too busy chattering about the upcoming David Beckham undies ad. I was too hungry to complain. I also miss the Bud Bowl. Rave: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party and the sequel,
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Usually I like to highlight my many and various triumphs in the classroom, and offer tips for the unwashed masses; you know, success stories. Let’s call this one a failure story. They say that in science, a failed experiment will teach you as much as one that succeeds, maybe more. Hmmm. Let’s hope so. Every year I try to make sure, even though there’s a definite routine I follow, that I still have room to mix it up and try out new material. (Aside: Believe it or not, I wrastled for awhile about where to put the word that in the previous sentence. Wait, I’m talking to English teachers. Of course you believe it. But try it. Should the word that go after the word sure, or where it ended up–after the second comma?) This year, like always, we have the 600 Words/Week going. And, as always, they need something to do while I check on them every Tuesday. Usually what I have done is give them time to write toward next week’s 600 words, and a list of suggested topics that they can do with what they like: use, mutate, ignore, combine, whatever. I don’t care; just write. This year I
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I’m going to try to tie together a couple of loose ends here. A couple of weeks ago (see how laggy I’m getting?) I was showing how long it takes me to actually finish some of these posts (haha, ironic), and I was telling the story of teaching the vocabulary word brusque. Let us resume the story… …One of the words on said vocabulary pretest was the word brusque. I’m going over examples (“Think of the stereotypical New Yorker”) and synonyms (“Kind of like a little pushy and a bit rude”), looking for them to give me the word for the blank on the homework sheet. One kid who really thought he knew that one guesses wrong, and when I give the correct answer, he looks even more puzzled than usual. With this guy, I’ve learned to wait a beat, and then the light bulb usually goes on. Sure enough, his face lights up, and he says, “I thought that word was brewski!” The whole class is dying. “I was wondering why people talked about brewskis all the time. Why would you talk about that? I was very confused. In DARE they talked about brewskis…” O. M. G. So now it’s a
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OK, I am officially buried. Behind. Lagging. Flaking? Behind the eight ball? Freaking out? Well maybe things aren’t that bad. I still have (a little) time for my homies here at this blog. I’m finally giving back shtuff my eighth graders gave me on February 9. Hello, my name is mrC, and I am a procrastinator. Anyway, this ain’t the place for whining; I gotta get my groove back. When last we talked, my students were flipping out at the writing exercise I had given them: one page about anything, you can’t use any form of be, do, go, get, or have. Go! D’oh! The whole point is to get them away from boring VERBS that don’t show any action and to force them into thinking of new ways to phrase their sentences. It’s a great exercise, and it drives them batty, but I would never make them write an entire real essay in this way. As I said before, I used to assign this one early in the year–during the first week, sometimes even on the first day–but then a whole lot of them thought they had to write that way all year, that those words were banned from
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One of my favorite things about teaching junior high is blowing their minds. One of my fave parts of the week is Fridays before the test, when we do Mental Floss. Middle schoolers: they can’t hit the curveball. Like this: “When the day after tomorrow is yesterday, this day will be as far from Friday as this day was from Friday when the day before yesterday was tomorrow. What day is it?” All I asked was, “What day is it?” All the rest is obfuscation. But they always try to figure it out. “OK, so. Day after tomorrow is Sunday, so yesterday is Thursday…wait…How can it be yesterday?” And etc. This class is also the first time some of them contemplate the whole time travel paradox thing. “So if Stevo here is feeling all sporty, joyriding in his stolen car back in the past, and accidentally runs over his mom before she’s his mom…” “Ewww. Why would he do that?” “He didn’t know it was her. And speed kills. Anyway, now what would happen? If she never had him…” “He’d just disappear!” Most triumphant. “So how did he travel back in time to hit her? If he was never born
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First off: Ok, Ok. I’m starting to find my happy place with research. Thank you for the comments and suggestions; I think next year will be better. You guys gave me some good ideas. We’re working on outlines this week, prepping for research. Among other activities, I give them partially completed outlines and word banks to fill them in with. I strategically place a few clues in the outline, and they have to determine the hierarchy of the various entries I provide, and fill in the blanks. Like this (the stats are kinda dated, but it’s a topic near to my heart): Topic: The automobile has become the American Nightmare kills 265,000 and injures millions annually, road rage and reckless driving have increased, better city design to decrease auto dependence, leading source of air pollution, alternatives to the automobile, main means of transportation, too many people dependent on the car, large SUV’s: rollovers and danger to smaller cars, more cars and more roads mean more traffic congestion, average car: 5 tons of carbon dioxide each year, contributes to acid rain and smog, leading cause of death and injury, new dangers with 2 recent developments, public transportation I. Main means of [...]
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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.)