It's You or the Kids

I should be grading right now, instead, I am blogging on my phone at the Starbucks. Yes, I know, Starbucks. This town has three more independent coffee shops than bookstores, which means it has three independent coffee shops. But I got a gift certificate to Starbucks fromschjoll, so I'm drinking a free 16 oz. decaf, 2-pump, vanilla latte with whole milk. I feel bad for the guy when he has to repeat that back to me.

Anyhoo, I've been trying to drill parallelism into my kids' heads recently, with limited success. We covered it during rhetorical devices (notice I said "covered" and not "learned" because it's clear they didn't learn it ). But it's a big part if the state tests, not to mention good grammar. So we're doing it again-- the standarized test question way.

Everytime I go over a sentence that has items in a series that are not parallel, I start singing the Sesame Street song "three of these things are not like the other, three of these things are kind of the same..." to myself. I'm imagining a lesson with sentences cut into strips and they have to make them parallel whole I play the song in the background. Or something.

I find myself scouring our books for parallel constructions. Of course, I feel so harried by everything else, that nothing gas cone of this plan--yet. Yet. I guess my ultimate point is that I'm starting to feel like a real English teacher. I guess if you play one on TV long enough, it's bound to happenn.

More of The Wire

I've had lots of stuff floating around my head, but not enough time, determination, or focus to share. Oh well. One of these days. So here's just a brief moment of hilarity from today.

This makes more sense if you watch The Wire and/or are familiar with common drug-dealing slang. What you need to understand is "re-up".

I had my students build daybooks today. Oh yes, they now have all the assignments (minus only one essay) that we'll be working on for the next 5 weeks. :-D For the daybook, you pick up the papers and some construction paper (for covers) and staple it all together into a book. I have two staplers, but first block stood there like, well, morons waiting for one stapler when the other ran out of staples. After a few minutes of students standing around like bumps on logs, I asked what was up. I was a bit exasperated that I had to tell them to bring me the stapler for more staples. I told my other classes not to stand around if they ran out of staples.

One of my students in 3rd block is disengaged from school in a MAJOR way (he is about 2 1/2 years behind in credits -- yup, that means he's failed almost every class in high school); this is a hint that he has larger issues outside of school, like possible gang affiliation. He comes to school because he has to in order to keep his PO off his back, not because he has any desire to actually graduate. Sure enough, 3rd ran out of staples and he walked up to me with the stapler and says, "Hey, Ms. X*, I need a re-up."

It was so awesome. I laughed. I've got him asking for a re-up of staples. I live in The Wire. Sometimes, it's even funny.


*Names have been changed to protect, well, me.

I Scream

I stopped one of my students at the end of class today, because she never took the final before going to Mexico in December. As a result, she failed first semester. She looked at me with amazement that she had forgotten to take the final (no, she's not the most attentive student). However, her grade isn't so bad, so if she can pull off a 50% on the final, she will pass the class. I told her all of this.

While I was telling her this, she pulled a bottle of something out of her bag and gave it to me a little sheepishly. She said she brought it back for me from Mexico. She's not sure what it is in English, but it's really good. A couple of other students standing around the doorway agreed with her emphatically. One told me it was really good on toast. I looked at the jar of cafe con leche colored, creamy substance and realized she had handed me a jar of real caramel. Not fake, chemical caramel, but real, milk-cooked-down-until-it's-thick-sweet-and-delicious caramel.

I think I need some ice cream!

I Need to Practice

There's this old joke about Microsoft.

Q: How do you fix a bug in Windows?
A: Document it and call it a feature!

The same thing is true of teaching. How do you get the kids to do work the day after a break? Document the talking and call it a lesson plan!

I discovered this little trick thanks to the genius of my mentor teacher. I give them a scavenger hunt about who did what over winter break. The questions start pretty easy (who went out of town, who saw a movie) and get more difficult (who read a book, who wrote a story). After they find people and talk out their break, you hold a class discussion and move from what they did to curriculum. (The final questions should tie in directly with whatever you have been or will cover in class.)

So, I get to the "who wrote a story, poem, letter, or email over break" question. One student raises her hand and says that Michael wrote a story (we'll say his name is Michael, it's a popular boy's name). There are two Michaels in the class, so one says, "Which one?" in a rather accusatory voice. I said, "Well, did you?" "No," comes back the emphatic reply.

I look to the other Michael and he says, a bit sheepishly, "Yeah, it was me."

The classroom waited in silent anticipation for his explanation.

"Well," the second Michael begins rather quietly, "I read that you can make a lot of money by writing a book." He continued with a hint of defiance, "So, I figured I should get some practice writing a story."

Now that was a good day in English class.