Posts Tagged ‘ RaffleKing ’

I’m back, baby. (Though not officially.) Also: RaffleKing Jr.

April 2, 2009
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I’m back, baby. (Though not officially.) Also: RaffleKing Jr.

I think my sad, tragic tale of woe is nearly over. Recap: Last Sunday, a palm branch fell from 20 feet up (while I was trimming the tree), and impaled my left hand with three spikes. The pic below illustrates what I mean by spikes. That is not me, but those spikes are dead-ringers for the ones in my hand. I pulled out two very similar to C and a portion of one more, labeled A, right after it happened. What I didn’t know was that a piece (“B”) was still in there. Until Thursday, when the swelling went down enough to notice. Last Thursday, the Doc in the Box pulled part B out of the back of my hand. After four days. Every day since then I’ve had a hole in my hand swabbed out  (rather forcefully), and packed with gauze. I was supposed to see the hand specialist yesterday, but got bumped by somebody else’s emergency surgery.  Ditto today. And now the gauze has come out, and hole’s closed up, and it looks sorta almost normal. But I’m supposed to actually see the specialist tomorrow to make sure. But I’m feeling pretty good, and I have some new

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What’s a Rerun of a Flashback Called?

March 31, 2009
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I was trying to wait until I reached 100 posts before I did this. You know, like in television, your series used to have to reached 100 episodes before you could go into syndication ands reruns. But I figure with my bad paw, I have a bit of an excuse. (It’s getting much better, but I go see the hand surgeon guy tomorrow to get the official word.) And the kids were bugging me about the cage today. I’ll be back to posting regularly soon; we’re reading another Ray Bradbury classic, “The Earth Men,” and it’s been fun. So here we go, and to paraphrase words of an old NBC promo, if you haven’t read it, it’s new to you. From September 26, 2008, The Tom Sawyer Syndrome (Flashback) “If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.” That’s Mark Twain’s famous observation after Tom Sawyer has scammed the town kids into whitewashing his fence for him, and paying him for the pleasure. We won’t

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Sometimes they’re actually listening!

February 4, 2009
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Sometimes they’re actually listening!

Wednesday is vocabulary day; going over the homework, explaining and exampling, then the pretest. And that means the Raffle King. He decides whether or not they get to use the “cheat sheet” (the corrected homework sentences) on the pretest. As I have said before, it doesn’t really help them (it tends to make them second guess themselves), but they really like having it. And since a perfect score on the pretest means an exemption from that part of the real test, they want every edge they can get. Today, I told the friendly class that the Raffle King had been crabby all morning, and had been saying no to all classes so far. So they pulled out all the stops, and even resorted to actually using some of the vocabulary words we had just gone over. Really. It was pretty boss to see how many they crammed into that 10 second countdown. 10 – 9- “Please don’t be INDIFFERENT to us!” (Nice one, I have to say.) 8 – 7- “C’mon, I promise I won’t be SULLEN to Mr. Coward when I’m in eighth grade.” (In explaining that word, I always talk about how in eighth grade, all my former

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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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Cartoon Fun II.

December 26, 2008
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Cartoon Fun II.

A “typical” period in Mr. Coward’s class in “pictures” Part II. After they have completed the warm up, we go over it. I use my wireless slate to circle the correct answers on the screen and write hints. I can also flip the pen over, and use the built-in laser pointer to emphasize (or annoy). Next we will often be working on grammar/mechanics, going over pink homework sheets or proofreading something (usually student work) live on the overhead or grooving on some Schoolhouse Rock (-ism #10). Their faves are “Unpack Your Adjectives” and “Mr. Morton.” (I had one class one year where several members would cry during that one; they felt sooo sad for Mr. Morton, even after it all ends well.) If it’s Wednesday, there will be vocabulary work. That means going over the homework, giving examples and usages, answering questions, and sometimes acting out the words. (OMG, they can’t cope when I undulate.) Then there’s the vocabulary pretest. A perfect score gets them out of that part of the test on Friday. It’s called being exempt (-ism #13), and in my class, it’s what they all crave. I use the Raffle King to decide whether they can use

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Random Featured Post

True That.

We had an open mouth quiz on chapter 8 today. One class has several boys who have a new phrase they’re trying out. Personally, I sort of like it. 4) On p127, we get an example of what seems to be foreshadowing. What is it? a) When Two-Bit says that Darry will kill him if Pony’s really sick. b) When Two-Bit says Darry could be a Soc. c) When Pony says he has a helpless feeling. d) When Two-Bit calls Pony chicken. e) When Pony says he’ll be well by tonight. “OK, number four. What’s foreshadowing?” The class takes care of that one for me. Most of them laugh, and one says, “I was wrong.” (Pony’s line at the end of chapter three, and a beauty example for them of foreshadowing.) “Oh yeah. Ok, so it’s C, right?” “True that.” “Number six. Darry, I mean Dally (they always mix up those names), right?” “True that.” (me, doing some “refocusing” of a gentleman off to the side) “‘Clark,’ could you focus your comments on the questions? Open mouth only applies if that mouth is talking about the questions.” “True that.” “And I think we’re done with that line, for today at [...]

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Mr. Coward has been teaching on the beautiful central coast of California since 1989.

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