getting up early

I have to say that I love getting up early. Not so much for the early part, but for the getting up and not having to talk to anyone (Dan? Get up early?) or do anything other than drink a cup of hot tea ....and maybe eat some grits. Doesn't that sound wonderful?

Today is my last day of Spring Break. I have to spend it getting together what I am teaching this week. I'm teaching a lesson on satire that I am "borrowing" from readwritehink.org. The students are going to be jazzed that we are watching Shrek, until we only watch 5 minutes of it. :) I'm so mean.

After that I have to come up with something else to teach. I have 2 ideas:

1) a modern play. I'm supposed to be teaching Literary Genres. While this is a TAKS class, I am really jazzed about the title and would like to expose them to some varying genres. However, I don't know a lot of contemporary plays. I mean I know the famous people like Sam Shepard and August Wilson. While The Piano Lesson has a video to go with it (kinda important cause we are talking about a play here). Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot (too obscure for them) and Sam Stoppard - Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are dead (which I saw at Millsaps in high school and loved it - but half of them haven't read Hamlet cause it is in senior English. It is only really funny if you have read Hamlet). I love the idea of it, but I can't quite decide which play would be good. Suggested has been Tennessee Williams, jonquils and the whole bit. Love Tennessee Williams...too much, if they didn't like it, would I be crushed?

2) Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Found a lesson, meant to be taught in Spanish of course, comparing "The Saint" (short story) with Miracle in Rome (video production). Really good lesson. . . Found Miracle in Rome at the library at North Side, but it is VHS so it may be entirely in Spanish. My kids would understand it (about 90% of them), but I wouldn't. Marquez is one of favorite writers since I read 100 years of solitude. I can get "The Saint" in English, but I'm not quite sure what to do with it after that. This is probably my best option though.

Ideas or suggestions? Anyone read anything contemporary (and fairly short - no novels right now) that they liked enough to think that others might too?