Posts Tagged ‘ Writing ’

Something New.

July 20, 2009
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(Pssst. It’s still summer. I still have 5 weeks until school starts again. So it’s not really considered lagging when I go so long between posts; you know, because of summer and whatnot. You really should check out Refugio Beach.) My regular readers (I think there are a few of you) know that I’m a big fan of wikis. If you’re not a regular reader, or if you need a refresher, check out the Tom Sawyer wiki we had going this year. It allowed the kids to collaborate on chapter summaries, and add related information or extra explanations. Wiki entries grew from a sentence or two from one contributor to hundreds of words written and edited by a dozen kids each. It worked out beautifully, without a lot of management from me. Here’s how it ended up. However, the downside (especially in a computer lab type setting where 20-30 kids are all doing trying to do the same thing at the same time) is that with a wiki, only one person can be editing the wiki at a time; everyone else is locked out. I wanted to try some real-time peer editing and writing collaboration, but the wiki format wouldn’t

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Telepathy vs. Reality

April 8, 2009
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We’re picking and choosing our way through Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles.  We just finished the story “The Earth Men.” Even when we read the whole thing like a novel (which we’re not doing this time: I think we’ll only read 4 or 5 this time – and this time we’re doing all the reading in class), I always start with this story. The kids always wonder why we start on p16, but EMen, as we call it, has much more of a hook than “Ylla,” the jealous husband story that begins the book (after the scientifically implausible 1-pager, “Rocket Summer”). And since most of the short stories weren’t originally intended to be connected in a novel, we have some wiggle room on the selection and the order. Now of course telepathy – the key element of the story –  is just as scientifically implausible as a rocket changing the weather, but it’s a lot more fun to speculate upon. After Mrs. Ttt (which we shorten to Mrs. T – some of them even chuckle when we meet Mr.T – “I pity the fool”) says, “I not speaking, I’m thinking. Telepathy,” I stop and ask, “How many of you would

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“I was sent to the box…”

April 3, 2009
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(Sorry about the auto-play on the video. I fixed that too. I know it’s annoying.) I was a teacher long before I became a parent. In fact, I balked at parenthood for a long time at least partly BECAUSE I was a teacher: “Why don’t you have kids, Mr C?”  “I do. I have 150 of you every day.” Luckily, I was finally persuaded, and now I have a wonderful son. This was when he was four: My boy is almost 10 now. In two years, he will most likely be in my class. I’m not sure how that’s going to play out. If you’re still reading this blog then, you’ll find out as I do. But I think I got a taste the other evening. We were having dinner, and the boy was chewing with his mouth open, a definite no-no around Mom. She’s talked to him about it countless times – sorta like what we do all day every day, except about topic sentences and using paragraphs for God’s sake – and now she’d had enough. Last time, she had threatened to send him outside to eat with the dog if he continued to eat like one. So

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Mix It Up (but not too much).

November 10, 2008
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No school today. Or tomorrow. A 4-day weekend for Veterans’ Day? Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Weekends mean sleeping in; 9 am instead of 5, and I’ll take two extra days of that any time. It’s a good time for another (irregular) installment of tips for middle school teachers. (Here’s a link to the first round.) 1. “Say/Do That Again…and again, and again, and…again.” Most everybody has to be told something several times before it becomes “rooted.” (Especially teachers. No offense, but as the tech support guy, and the BTSA guy, and having given many an “in-service,” I have learned that teachers, as a rule, listen about as well as middle-schoolers. I have the e-mails to prove it.) I’ve heard the number seven bandied about; as in you have to see/hear/etc. something seven times before it takes. Anyway, ms’ers need a lot of repetition, but…it works a lot better if they see it, hear it, do it, do it again, in several different ways: Start with some warm up questions to see how much they know, then a “lesson” (I’ll have a post sometime on my dislike for that word), then practice, then homework, then more practice, then a

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“Don’t tell us the old lady screamed…”

September 22, 2008
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“…Bring her on, and let her scream.” -Mark Twain. For most middle schoolers, one of the biggest problems they have with writing is being specific. Everything is weird or cool or disgusting or fun. Especially weird or disgusting. There are no details, just general opinions. (Oh how seventh graders love to give unsolicited opinions…) I like to start the year introducing them to the idea of Show not Tell. The first assignment is always to “show” me the messiest, most disgusting room possible…without using any of those kinds of opinion words. I encourage them to really go for it and try to disgust me. (“Keep it PG! Not PG 13.”) “Use all five senses: I want to hear the shlupe shlupe shlupe as you traverse the soggy, fetid marsh that is your carpet. I want to be brushing away flies and squinting through the greenish fog. I want to hear the muffled cries of your brother trapped under the mountain of gym clothes and mildewed socks.” And etc. I get all that (some of it exactly as I suggested it) and a lot more. Seventh graders love this one. They get to be gross, and talk about diapers, and…oh my,

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Random Featured Post

A First!

This afternoon, I asked my friend and colleague, in his experiences with junior high, how many times he could remember seeing two seventh grade boys hugging. Sincerely. “Like a man-hug, or a real one?” “What’s a man hug?” “You know, you start out with the soul shake, and then you pull in and sorta bump chests, and then the other hand sorta slaps the back.” “Not that kind.” “Ummm. None.” “I knew it. It was a first for me too!” Milk and Cheese, the “True That” boys, were at it again. They were moving their desks closer together (again), like they like to do, and jabbering nonsense. Nothing major, and technically it was before class, but I said, “Well the quarter does end Friday, and I change up the seating chart every quarter, so next week I get to move you guys far, far apart.” One of our recent vocabulary words was crestfallen. I should have taken a picture of them to use as an example. Milk holds out both arms pleadingly (and it if it wasn’t sincere, he should be an actor) and says, “But…But…But… What about The Team?” OMG. The class is dying. Half of them are happy [...]

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

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