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	<title>Teaching The Outsiders (and more)</title>
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	<link>http://teachingtheoutsiders.com</link>
	<description>Middle school teaching: Five shows a day, 180 days a year.</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Fri, 18 May 2012 04:14:42 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>An Unrelated Dog Story</title>
		<link>http://teachingtheoutsiders.com/an-unrelated-dog-story/</link>
		<comments>http://teachingtheoutsiders.com/an-unrelated-dog-story/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 May 2012 04:14:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>mrC</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[dogs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Me]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://teachingtheoutsiders.com/?p=2878</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Time out. I just have to tell this story. Sorry, it&#8217;s about our dog. I&#8217;m sure I could find a way to connect it to teaching  and all, but really, I just have to share this one. Backstory: We got our current dog from the Humane Society about two years ago. Since he&#8217;s, you know, a dog, I can use his real name: Cosmo. He came named that way, and yes, it&#8217;s after the famed one-trick Seinfeld character. He&#8217;s a Jack Russell and MinPin mix (we think), and weighs in at a sleek 17 pounds or so. Late last summer, the boy volunteered for a week at the shelter and was put in charge of a dog named Kramer. Uh huh. Jack Russell mix, but leaning more toward the wire-haired side. No, it doesn&#8217;t just happen in movies&#8230; they were brothers. They were brought in together. So of course every says we HAVE to get Kramer too. Great. Two dogs. I&#8217;m in&#8230; I guess. But the shelter won&#8217;t let us just waltz off with him just because they&#8217;re brohans. There has to be a supervised meet and greet in one of the pens at the shelter. Fine. OMG. It was [...]]]></description>
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		<title>State Testing&#8230;and etc.</title>
		<link>http://teachingtheoutsiders.com/state-testing-and-etc/</link>
		<comments>http://teachingtheoutsiders.com/state-testing-and-etc/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 May 2012 03:16:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>mrC</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Cheech and Chong]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[testing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tips]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://teachingtheoutsiders.com/?p=2874</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Boy howdy, I&#8217;m really milking this one, huh? I think, after a week and a half, we&#8217;re up to number three on our list of teacher tips for state testing. (This pace reminds me of the classic Sr. Mary Elephant bit from Cheech and Chong back in the day: &#8220;Now class, Sr. Rosetta Stone has told me that your assignment for the past two months has been to write an essay&#8230;&#8221;  And then none of them have it finished yet.)  Sister Mary Elephant Ok. So far we have: 1. Teach &#8216;em to game the test. 2. Teach &#8216;em how to erase. So, on to number three. 3. Somehow get them to buy into the conflicting ideas that a) the test is important to them and b) not to worry. News alert: Unless they are gluey high-schoolers in danger of failing the graduation requirement or unless they have parents who take these scores seriously, right now there really is no down side to doing poorly, other than pride. Our VP tries to scare the 8th graders by saying the high school (yes, in our town there&#8217;s only one) will take away their electives and put them into remedial classes if they [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
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		<title>State Testing &#8212; Tips for Teachers II</title>
		<link>http://teachingtheoutsiders.com/state-testing-tips-for-teachers-ii/</link>
		<comments>http://teachingtheoutsiders.com/state-testing-tips-for-teachers-ii/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 May 2012 02:50:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>mrC</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[testing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tips]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://teachingtheoutsiders.com/?p=2870</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[My drain is unclogged, but Survivor AND Modern Family are new tonight, so we gotta work fast. I realized, after I left Monday, that I might have been a little flippant about the  disutility of practicing for these tests. The kids do need SOME practice with these types of things, especially if they haven&#8217;t dealt with the multiple-choice (or closer to the middle school reality, multiple-guess) tests. This will be dealt with in the tips section, but I guess I was thinking of what our school used to do until just this year. Which was to mass-copy packets of questions (from previous years&#8217; tests) from the Department of Ed website, and hand them out to everyone, so their kids could practice for the test. And at our school, we test the kids with their first period teacher, so here we have Mr. Grissom in shop class droning out the correct answers to the practice tests, and kids are already thinking they&#8217;re going to fail the real thing because they got so many wrong on the practice, which was lame anyway and maybe they thought they had a few more right, but Mr. Grissom can&#8217;t answer their questions about &#8220;that English stuff&#8221; or &#8220;that [...]]]></description>
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		<title>State Testing&#8211;Tips for Teachers&#8230; Interrupted</title>
		<link>http://teachingtheoutsiders.com/state-testing-tips-for-teachers-interrupted/</link>
		<comments>http://teachingtheoutsiders.com/state-testing-tips-for-teachers-interrupted/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 May 2012 03:12:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>mrC</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Tips]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://teachingtheoutsiders.com/?p=2866</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[First of all&#8230; as if. As if some last minute review, or &#8220;covering the material&#8221; one last time (or for the first time), right before testing, does anything at all. You really think they go, &#8220;Whoa, I&#8217;m sure glad we rushed through factoring before the test As if some sort of  epic  &#8221;practice test&#8221; will do anything except get kids sick of the whole thing before it starts. As if.. d&#8217;oh, the sink is clogged, and House is on soon. Gotta go. I&#8217;ll finish this in the next post. But before I go, I gotta ask Heather, over in the the comments section, what the heck does SOL Test mean? I was checking out your blog page to see what your 8th graders are up to and I noticed &#8220;SOL Test.&#8221; Where I come from that has always meant, &#8220;$#!* Outta Luck. Maybe for some of them, that&#8217;s the end result. I guess that&#8217;s what they mean by high stakes testing?]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
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		<title>The Titanic Finally Really Sinks! (Also: Sidekicks.)</title>
		<link>http://teachingtheoutsiders.com/the-titanic-finally-really-sinks-also-sidekicks/</link>
		<comments>http://teachingtheoutsiders.com/the-titanic-finally-really-sinks-also-sidekicks/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 May 2012 04:01:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>mrC</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Rerun]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Research Papers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Seventh Grade Behavior]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://teachingtheoutsiders.com/?p=2860</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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&#8217;em, 27. There was a renaissance in 2010, with about 20. I&#8217;m talking about research papers. And finally, for the first time since I started at this school in 1993, I won&#8217;t have to plow through another &#8220;all about the Titanic&#8221; nightmare. O. M. G. I&#8217;m just going to savor that thought for awhile&#8230; until some clown &#8220;can&#8217;t find ANYTHING&#8221; on his/her topic, and I cave and say, &#8220;Just do the Titanic.&#8221; Yes, it&#8217;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&#8217;t use it as an example topic. I went through dozens of topics, both good and bad, as we played &#8220;Is This a Good Topic or Not?&#8221; 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 &#8220;all about&#8221; [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>6</slash:comments>
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