Posts Tagged ‘ Class Activities ’

They killed the King!

January 7, 2009
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They killed the King!

One of the reasons my previous attempt at blogging failed was that I was in the midst of another battle with our district IST department, and I spent too much time complaining about how they were interfering with my class, and how they…anyway, I’ll just make myself crabby again thinking about it. So I vowed I wasn’t going to talk about that sort of shtuff any more. It’s a lot more fun this way. But this week they crossed the line. They killed the Raffle King. Yes, the King is dead (at least at school…at least for now). First, a little background on how I discovered the crime. Monday, we were going to consult him about who was most worthy of the Magic Clicker #20. Magic Clicker #20 came into being the first year I had the clickers. I had one clicker (#20) stop working, and the company sent me a replacement one. It was different. They sent me one of the newer models. More sleek. Rounded corners. White instead of blue. Obviously much cooler. So now there’s one clicker everyone wants. They all want to break theirs so they can get a replacement. (These days, if you buy a

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It’s only 120 seconds. (Of terror. Also, more cartoons.)

January 2, 2009
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It’s only 120 seconds. (Of terror. Also, more cartoons.)

I have always hated “book reports.” (Wait, I told my wife I would try to stop using that word.) I didn’t like writing them (took all the fun out of the book), I didn’t like reading them back when I thought I had to assign them. I don’t like the summarize kind, the analyze kind, the combo kind, the form letter kind, or the “make a diorama” kind.  (Well, some of the dioramas I used to get WERE pretty cool; the Lego version of the murder in the graveyard in Tom Sawyer was very detailed and boss, and I still have a shoebox/popcicle stick Tom Sawyer whitewashing scene from 1995. If you like book reports, here are some less boring ideas.)  I figure KBAR takes care of most of my “need” to make them read/respond outside of class, and I certainly don’t need more work to grade. But I do see a large value in having the kids share with each other what they are reading and enjoying. They always need new material to try out. I have always disliked “presentations.” Especially long ones. After 15-20 minutes of whatever riveting presentations are being performed, the rest of the class (including

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Exemplary

December 1, 2008
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I’ll continue the -isms tomorrow. I just have to interrupt our regularly scheduled program to tell about a classic I rediscovered today. I started at my present school in 1993. The last job I had before that was teaching 9th and 10th graders at a big high school about 30 miles away. This school and the city it’s in were (and sort of still are) known as kind of gang-ish. (I don’t know, is that delicate enough?) We had three full-time campus cops. I had a few obvious wannabes as well as some of the real thing, but things weren’t nearly as bad as it sounds. I had a great time there. One of my sophomores who was one of the real ones, was also one of the smartest kids I had. It was sort of a movie cliche. He was a leader in the hood, and we (his teachers) all tried to sway him to lead at school. We should have considered ourselves lucky he even showed up. He could read, and obviously did; just not much of what he was assigned. He was quick-witted and could argue/discuss with the best. He often made me laugh. He seemed to

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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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“It’s how I was taught!”

November 24, 2008
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Two day week! Woo hoo. The timing worked out better this year, and I finished The Giver last week (no Jeopardy, though), so I have two days for “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.” Perfect. For these two days, we’re going to work on listening skills. Today, we didn’t even use paper. Even seventh graders appreciate the irony of a whole period IN ENGLISH, without writing. I always start this play by discussing a few things: 1. What makes people afraid. We start with death (and spiders) and come around to the idea that it’s really the unknown that most people fear. “If someone came back from the dead, and said, ‘Hey, it’s pretty cool floating around on a cloud, riffing on your harp all day,’ I don’t think anybody would be afraid of death. ” 2. What fear does to you. It makes you dumb, especially when you’re in a group. We talk about Franklin Roosevelt’s famous line about nothing to fear but fear itself, and after a quick summary of the Great Depression (it’s convenient, if painful, that we’re reliving certain aspects of that currently; this year’s bunch seemed to grasp the ideas better), I ask them,

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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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