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.

Vocabulary

When I was in 3rd grade, I copied a lot of definitions out of the dictionary. I remember one time, while kicking it in the advanced reading group, our teacher gave us a stern talking to about our definitions. It seems almost everyone defined the word by using the word--so we still had no idea what the word meant. (It was some adverb or adjective that used the noun form in the definition.) I forget the word, but I never forgot the lesson. A definition only works if you understand all the words in it. Sometimes, that means looking up another word.

Most of my students have not learned that lesson yet. They blithely copy definitions, then make a guess what the word means when they write synonyms and antonyms. If they are dedicated enough to use a thesaurus, I can still catch them on their examples--that have nothing to fo with the word's meaning.

I know that they ate disaffected and disengaged, but it seems like such a waste of time. Why bother even doing the assignment if you don't get anything out of it? Yes, I know, I need to figure out a way get them to care; bla bla bla. I just don't get them sometimes. They're 16 years old, not 8. Aren't they curious?

I Would Like to Thank the Academy...

I was trying to keep my squirrels in line this afternoon. My remedial class is a bit squirrely on the best of days (they haven't passed the exit exam yet for a reason), but here at the end of the semester, they are extra squirrely. I try, for at least the sake of appearances, to make them do their sentence correction warm-up. (Don't get me wrong -- we've worked, 48% passed the exam in October, and I hope another 5%-10% passed in November.) So, as I am coercing them into fixing four whole sentences, one of my favorite squirrels (she is as squirrely as they come, but is lively and chipper and good-hearted, just oh-so-squirrely) suddenly insists she has something for me in the migrant room.

A note: most (if not all) of the students in this class are either Sped or ELs (I think one of them might escape either of those labels -- MIGHT). Most of those ELs are also migrant students. They have not passed yet because the deck is stacked against them. They speak a language other than English, their schooling has often been interrupted, and their parents are often not literate in any language. Because they are in the migrant program, however, they get additional supports and they also get a smaller learning community. They know each other and they have good relationships with the migrant staff.

Although HeadSquirrel was begging me to go to the migrant room, I insisted that she finish her warm-up first. (I often do this. I insist they finish an assignment or wait until I am ready before I let them leave the room. Their first instinct is that I won't let them go or I don't believe them, when really, I just want to minimize the distruptions to their education.) Afterwards, I let her go. She came back -- with an award for me. They all voted to give me a certificate of appreciation for "Teaching Our Children". Then, the chorus of voices asked me where I was because they made a speech (in English and Spanish) and gave me this award at their La Posada celebration the night before.

Well, now I just felt like crap. They gave me an award and I wasn't there? But I swear, none of them told me about it! I got no notice from the migrant office that a celebration was even going on and none of them said a peep about it in class on Wednesday. (Last year I learned -- secondhand, sadly -- how important the migrant award ceremonies are, and I vowed I would do my best to attend them.) They said that another student of mine (in one of my regular English classes) told me about it, but she didn't. It's true that she was in my room yesterday taking her final because she left early to Mexico, but she never said a word about the party.

So, I'm sad that I missed a moment to be with my students and their families to celebrate their educations. I'm embarassed that they gave me an award and I wasn't there. And I'm disappointed that I missed out on all the food! They had posole and tamales and enchiladas... (have I mentioned how much I LOVE tamales?).

But mostly, I am so honored that they gave me this award. I've never gotten an award from my students before. I'm not a touchy-feely person, so the students don't instantly bond with me as they do with some teachers. That "cold-heartedness" doesn't make for a lot of warm-fuzzies come awards' banquet time. So even though it wasn't an ideal hand-off, it is still very, very sweet. I have the certificate hanging on my wall already.

I want to thank the Academy, my family, and especially all of you for reading and responding and being a part of my own learning process. I dissed you on a Thanksgiving post, so I'd like to express my gratitude right now. Thank you. Thank you very much.

And That Is Different That Now Because...

This year has been a bad one for illnesses. I have had many more students than usual who have racked up a number of absences due to illness. These absences come in groups and are typically verified by a parent. Some of the students manage to make up the work; others, not so much.

One of my students, lets call her Little Miss Needy (I'm sure I could make an entire picture book about her), has had this particular problem this year. She has made some noises about making up her work, but has not managed to complete anything. She makes meetings -- and then skips them. She asks for help -- and then leaves. She whines a whole lot -- but never steps up with the work.

She asked for some missing work last week, so I gave it to her. She emailed me because she was going to be absent again and needed some help. So I emailed. She wondered if there was anything she could do to pass.

I explained that she had a 25% and it was highly unlikely that she could do anything to change her F. She asked again in class today. Couldn't I just give her an essay to write, or something? An essay to replace a poetry unit, a rhetoric unit, The Crucible, and The Scarlet Letter, plus some incidents and accidents, mind you. No, I said, there was nothing that could replace all of that. (We are less than two weeks from the end of the semester and the deadline for late work was last Friday.) She humphed out of the classroom, exclaiming, "Well, I'm going to stop trying in here."

Help me, out, Little Miss Needy. That would be different from what you've been doing so far because...?