Class Activities – Teaching The Outsiders (and more)

CPS, RaffleKing, Seventh Grade Behavior

They killed the King!

mrC

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 […]

cartoons, oral reading, presentations, Reading

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

mrC

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, […]

Presenting the Book, stories, Teaching

Exemplary

mrC

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 […]

CPS, Monsters on Maple Street, RaffleKing, Teaching, The Giver

“-isms” (Also: mucous)

mrC

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 – […]

Monsters on Maple Street, Seventh Grade Behavior, Teaching

“It’s how I was taught!”

mrC

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 […]

homework, open mouth quizzes, Teaching, testing

Guinea Pigs

mrC

I guess the term these days would be lab rats. Maybe Guinea pigs were too cute. Seventh graders make for good experimental subjects too. Kids think we do the exact same thing every year. And being seventh graders, they are of several minds. They think that would make things so easy for us (which is […]

Related readings, Seventh Grade Behavior, The Giver

The Stirrings (snicker).

mrC

We’re reading The Giver now. “This book is weird.” “Duh. I told you that before I handed it out. For you guys, if it isn’t weird, it’s ‘boring.’” I was waiting for the, “It’s weird and boring,” but it didn’t come. Phew. Last year was the first year I taught it, and I didn’t even […]

Outside links, RaffleKing, Random Featured Post, Seventh Grade Behavior, Stories of Seventh Grade

Oh Raffle King, Oh Raffle King…

mrC

(Sung — way off key, and sort of warbley — to the tune of “Oh Christmas Tree.”) I guess we need to talk about the King. On Wednesdays, after we go over the vocabulary homework, and discuss the words, I give them a vocabulary pretest. If they ace it (100%), they are exempt from the […]

experiment, open mouth quizzes, Random Featured Post, Seventh Grade Behavior, testing, Tips

Quizzes for Dummies?

mrC

A few years ago, while we were reading Outsiders aloud, I was about to give them my usual “reading check” type quiz to make sure they were following along, thinking about what we’d talked about, connecting the literary terms to the examples in the book, etc. I can’t quite remember what my inspiration was (probably […]

Stories of Seventh Grade

Schoolhouse Rock Rules

mrC

First Monday of the year. First-Late-Start-Teacher-Collaboration-Time-Schedule, where the kids (this year it’s district-wide at all schools) start school an hour later on Mondays, “so’s us teachers kin do sum co-laborationing.” Sorry, Tom Sawyer is still a few months away. Monday means spelling and vocabulary lists. The vocabulary ALWAYS comes from whatever we’re reading at the […]

Reading

Library Day

mrC

Library orientation day. No teaching, just riding herd, giving reminders, shushing, etc. We’re meeting tomorrow in the computer lab to have them take the STAR reading test, so I can get a general reading level on them, and know what I’m dealing with reading-wise. We have an older version than the one they tout on […]

Seventh Grade Behavior, The Outsiders

“Sorry about that Chief.” (also: Hippies!)

mrC

I really did mean to post yesterday, but my fine web host decided it was a fine time to botch an upgrade, and my sites were inaccessible until this morning. Sorry about that. And the even more beauty part was that last night was Back to School Night, when I like to showcase to parents […]

Assignments, Seventh Grade Behavior

Day One

mrC

The first day is always so… well mostly they sit and stare. Some aren’t used to having to do something on the first day. My “faves” are the ones with the fat binder… WITH NO PAPER! Hello?! What’s up with that? Or toting the giant backpack that half of them could fit in… WITH NOTHING […]