2nd wk of school....

But i have great news so i decided to put in a short post. i'll try to catch up next week when they get my class sizes below 35.....


http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/business/12461791.htm

YA novel #5 - The exchange student by Kate Gilmore

This novel is about a girl whose parents sign up for an exchange student from another planet. This is set in the future after the world has been annihilated by a ecological catastrophe. The heroine is involved in rebreeding all of the animals on earth. All the common sci-fi stuff is there, food replicators, etc. her exchange student eats a lot, turns colors according to his mood and is very interested in the animals. their relationship develops but she can tell that there is something she is not telling him. Great story, good sci-fi background. a little slow, but most sci-fi novels are, aren't they?

YA novel #4 - 3 days off

3 days off by Susie Morgenstern

This author, though born American, originally wrote this in French and the translation retains a sprinkling of French phrases and a scene where the main character tries to understand an American tourist as they go through the city together.

Now, when the title says 3 days off what do you think it would be about? A vacation? A snow holiday? No, you would be wrong. the main character here actually gets suspended for telling his English language teacher he would like to know what color her panties were. Apparently he didn't mean to say it, just blurted it out. but gets suspended for 3 days nonetheless. he gets up every morning to figure out how to tell his mom. she actually gets fired from the factory the same day he gets suspended so he chickens out of telling her and has to pretend he is going to school. he can't actually return until she comes to school with him. he is a teenage boy, thinks a lot about the girl he likes, wants to get out of the town he lives in and move to a bigger city, etc. All ends up well, he learns his lesson. The whole book is only 89 pages so it is short enough to read quickly. There are 3 sections/chapters, one for each day.

YA novel #3 - Both Sides of Time

Both sides of Time by Caroline B. Cooney -

Apparently this is a series. The Time Quartet. It is a cute love story about a girl whose boyfriend cares more about his car than her and she wishes she lived in 1895. As she is walking around a condemned house that is about to be demolished, she ends up "falling" through time to 1895. She falls in love , gets caught up in a murder and falls back to her own time. All ends up well in the end. This novel is well written, fun and a bit sappy. :) I am interested in finding the rest of them because I wonder where the story goes.

virtual worlds

I am officially a computer geek. Now, I have been flirting with this for years. My husband, Dan, and I would go into the video game stores and all the other guys would tap and nudge each other, "Look, a girl! a real live girl! and she has heard of these games!" I would giggle at being the oddity and move on. We would play selective games: Civilization II & III; Kingdom Hearts; Lord of the Rings. . . . But all in all I was just flirting with game playing. Until last night. Last night I officially signed up to play Everquest II. Dan has been playing for 3 weeks now and I have been holding off, watching movies, reading books instead. However I sucuumbed. My screen name is Anaria. I am a level 5 Gnome Scout after one night of play. Actually, I just finished the tutorial and we are about to head away from the refugee camp into the "real" world. :)

Honestly, it is kind of fun. I'm not into killing, but there is more to do than just kill the monsters. And I have a sneak attack that makes me invisible. :) Fun times to be had by all.

YA novel #2 - Hole in my Life by Jack Gantos

Really liked this one. This guy is a children's author and this is his true story. When he was in high school he knew he wanted to be a writer and it talks some about his quest to be a writer. he didn't live with his parents his senior year of high school and got into some drinking and pot smoking. This isn't so much condemned as it shows that it did get him into some trouble because it was a symptom of his irresponsibility in this case. All said, he takes a job helping drive a boat to New York full of hashish fresh from Morocco and gets caught, goes to jail at 19/20 and spends 15 months there. This is a good story that lets you know what exactly he was thinking. It isn't preachy. It isn't really a "don't do what I did." It is just "hey this is what happened to me." Even if you aren't into Young Adult novels, this is a good one and a quick read.

YA novel #1 - Whirligig by Paul Fleischman

Really, I picked this book up because it had a cool cover and i liked the word "whirligig." Which, come to find out, is an actual thing you can build that has spinning arms or parts when the wind blows. The premise of this book is that there is this extremely self-absorbed teenager. Obsessed with being popular and his dad moves around a lot. He over analyzes everything to make sure that he is what other people think he should be. After a bad experience at a party, he drives home (beyond the legal intoxication limit) and decides to kill himself by letting his car swerve in the other lane. He lives, the other driver, a high school senior, dies. The girl's mother sends him on a trip to of penance building whirligigs in the four corners of the country. It tells the stories of the people who find them as well as his own. Cool, lots of irony.

Catching up

Ok, It is currently 4:50 am. I have been awake since 3:30. I feel like I'm jetlagging, however I'm not so i know I will pay for this tomorrow. I can't figure out what the problem is: i went to bed at 10 (normal), didn't take a nap, don't feel sick or anything like that. . . who knows. but regardless i'm up so i'll take advantage of my time.

Joys of my life right now:
-We failed the national AYP standards last year for LEP (limited English proficient) students last year so we are currently at inservice all week to learn how to teach them. Our contracts ended Friday at 3. We aren't finished till this Friday at noon. :) But lots of people need this stuff so i'll just stick with it.
-I'm teaching literary genres - 110.51 next year. . . sounds like a fancy advanced course doesn't it? :) nope, it isn't. actually is the TAKS (state standardized test) remediation for those juniors who have to start passing this february or they won't get a diploma. it is a reading class...i really love teaching writing better. It is going to be all the students that are reluctant, not sucessful students, but actually i really like teaching those (why is that when i was actually the opposite that all these kids were when i was in school?). Bonus: I get to teach TWO Reading I classes in language center (immigrant students on their 3 year phase in plan back to regular classes - Reading I is for 9th graders. Usually their 2nd year in the US). And I am teaching one or two literary genres just for ex-language center students. Don't get me wrong, I think it will be fun. . I'm just going to miss writing.
-The students arrive from Japan on July 16. 9 days. Leave on 23rd. We leave on July 26 and return on August 4. Getting close.


There, now everyone is caught up. For the summer, since I am reading masses of books, I think I'm going to share all the Young Adult novels that I'm reading. Some of them are quite good. Some aren't. If anyone runs across something that HS students would read (interesting, low reading level (6-8 grade), not too many pages 100-150/175) let me know. i have gotta find things to read as a class and stuff to recommend individually.

What did you read in High school?

Ok, quiz. What did you read in high school that you:
a) liked
b) stuck with you
c) have shared with others since then.

I want to include stories that are more of a classic nature...but I don't want to bore my kids with Old Man and the Sea, Tale of Two Cities (though I liked it) and Hound of the Baskervilles. Ok, now I am going to tirades that these are three of the most influential books in someone's life, but really...do I want to fight that battle?

Instead, what did you read that stuck with you, that you liked? Short stories, novels or novellas. I have no curriculum so I'm making it up as I go along. I have money to buy stuff too! :)

Missed Pop Culture

The other day I was at our planning meeting for the Harashin Japan trip this summer that I'm co-sponsoring. The kids were considering doing the Macarena as their entertainment for the Mayor, Japanese Businessmen and Mr. Hara himself. (They ended up going with a hick rendition of Deep in the Heart of Texas. . . which I actually had learn the words to.)

The whole thing made me realize something. See, the Macarena was one of the things I "missed" being out of the country. Came back and it was this huge fad and I had never heard a word about it. You miss a lot of things when you are out of the country. It is funny how much pop culture is shared in the two months or so that I've ever been away. Does anyone have a story of something they "missed" when they were away?

One of the funniest and most ironic things i have heard in a while

Tales from the journeys of the eternal nomad: Just to prove I'm keepin my spirits up after the Bad News

fun things i plan on doing

Ok, I am not further ahead on my lesson plans than i have been the entirety of this year. I have all planned out the cool things I am going to do to get the students to focus. . . let's just see if they buy in. :)

First, If you haven't read Isabel Allende, she is a really good writer. Perhaps airing a little to the romance genre, but very good nonetheless. She just wrote a new book based on Zorro. . . usually she is dealing with material based in the background of the political situation in Chile (where she is from). We are reading a short story by her, "And of Clay Are We Created," set around a volcano in Columbia in 1985 that caused a mudslide and obliterated a town. No background on the destruction, just the story of one girl and a reporter. Really great story. I am hoping the kids are liking it.

Then we read a non-fiction piece about a plane crash (the one in D.C. over the Potomoc) and look a picture. The triplet.

Then we are going to do a powerpoint. they should enjoy this. it will be a lot of fun. Since we are doing these heroic events it is going to be based on a heroic event of their own or someone they know that is a hero. Downside is that I'm requiring a picture so I may spend 3 days helping them get the pictures scanned in while we work on them. We'll see.

Ok, so that is the fun that is my life. I think we are down to 20 instructional days left. I only have 16 cause I have 3 more inservice days and my sis graduates from Southwestern with her masters this friday. My brother graduates from Mississippi State on Saturday...busy weekend.

Ok, after this I promise. . .

. . . I harp on things. If you know me very well, this will be obvious to you. But currently I am harping on my own wrestling with an inservice I'm in for the weekend. It is the first one I've been to since I became a teacher that I didn't agree with everything or almost everything the presenter said. He prefaced the talk by saying that we needed to be open-minded, etc. so I am trying *really* hard to do that. It is hard with me cause I think I have some ideological problems with the basic premise. . . . one more day.

But on to my harping. Does anyone know where the "teach a man to fish" saying really came from? In the workshop it has been attributed to the Bible, which is not anything I remember or can verify. I can deal with people being culturally naive, but lets not go throw things around like "That came from the bible" when really you have no proof. I found this site that references phrases that *did* come from the bible. But it is by no means comprehensive. Any thoughts?

Respect, TAKS and 4/20

Things I have learned this week:

1) my kids like me. well, one does. i have them writing their culminating Caesar papers and one of the topics is qualities of a good leader. After fighting with one student, leaving him alone, coming back, etc, etc. I finally relented and let him use me as the good leader. a lot of the students tried to pull that they were going to use me, but i talked all but this one out of it. I let him write. . .came back and read it. one thing stood out. he said that I respected my students. now this is big for teenagers and for the students at my school particularly. they don't dish that out lightly. i was pleased. this kid made like a 10 in my class first semester and is passing for the spring. he is one of my sucesses, be it ever so slim.

2) TAKS is tiring, very hard for regular kids and apparently a breeze for the bright, culturally neutral students. for teachers it is just a worry and an incredible pressure. will they pass? if they don't will the state really come in and take us over? will it make a difference? we are on probation with the federal government's no child left behind annual yearly progress. we didn't make standard last year. this year if we don't the state has someone on campus every day then the next year we all reapply for our jobs and start over. . . or wait, maybe we reapply in the fall. who knows. it is bad. but we have prepped, yelled at the kids, tried to make them take it seriously and now we have to just wait.

3) 10 points extra credit for anyone who knows the significance of 4-20 day. :) My birthday sits smack between it and Earth day. what does that say about me?

Ray Bradbury

Cool site about Bradbury. It has the first chapter of a quite of few of his fiction books to "test drive."

Ray Bradbury

Also, this is a new program by Jon Scieszka (the guy who wrote Stinky Cheese Man and other fairly stupid tales) about how to get boys to read and what they like to read. Any validations from the guy community out there?

Saturday school

Ok, first off, I have proven that I am a horribly unreliable blogger. I will work on getting better.

Random thought of the day. I worked at Saturday school this morning. In addition to providing extra tutoring for students it is also a way to make up attendance. . . when you realize that it is April, you have 15-20 absences and can't get credit for the semester for anything over 9 and panic. We let them come 3 hours a week on Saturdays and make up the time. Today they needed a math teacher. I told the lady in charge on Wednesday to make me her absolute last backup person. While I am not horrible at math it has been a long, long time and I tend to get confused on the rules. Today I was able to help 7 kids. . . most of whom told me how to do it first or I just asked the right questions like:

"So after you set it up, what should you do first?"

"What is the order of operations here?"

and other mathy type questions that I remember. I don't think I confused more than 1 poor kid and by the end of the 3 hours I was actually beginning to remember algebra and geometry, I think. Now it is also possible that I was just fooling myself and doing all the questions completely wrong because I only went and asked the AP math teacher (doing a lesson down the hall) one question cause I kept having to bother the class and I have a phobia about that. All in all I think it went pretty well. My students even smiled to see me on Saturday. That is encouraging. They didn't groan and walk out though I freaked out one kid entirely trying to teach him math instead of English. . . he left early and said he would see me on Monday.

Switching gears

Mondays through Fridays I prod and poke my 10th graders along. Really I enjoy it a lot. I like conning kids into doing their work and then seeing them actually retain the material. (For this Caesar test it is going to be the "sleepers" in the class that do well . . . don't ask me why, but they are the ones that can answer the review questions).

Sundays I switch gears entirely and pull out all my long buried children's knowledge and teach 5th and 6th grade. It is probably a good break but it is fun pulling out the scissors that cut funny shapes, crayons, magazines and making cards for the leadership in the church. Today the only kid I had that showed up was pulling out all the questions he had been saving up all week. First he asked who Pope John Paul III was going to be. . I told him I didn't know and then tried to explain what a pope was, just so we were on the same page. Then he asked me what girl popes were called.

"What? Girl popes? They don't have girl popes."

"Yeah, you know girl popes. They are like married to God. What are they called?"

"Oh, you mean nuns. Nuns aren't really the same thing as a girl pope."

"What does it mean to be married to God?"

"Well, it is their way of saying that they are dedicating their lives to God and his ministry instead of getting married."

"Can they fly?"

"What?"

"Can the...what do you call them?"

"Nuns"

"Yeah, can nuns fly?"

"No, that was just a movie."

We went back to the lesson from there. I can only assume that The Flying Nun was on TV yesterday. And just for those of you who are wondering what I teach in Sunday School, we were studying baptism. You can't get much more doctrinally sound than that.

Worried students

I love giving out grades . Every time I give out grades I have these students that panic "What you mean I have a 21 in your class? Why did you give me a 21? I do all your work?" Let me reinterate that I don't give grades. I have found out that some teachers do, in fact, make up grades as they go along. However I base my grades purely on what the kiddos did. I don't even have a participation element. Secondly, if they had actually "done all the work" then they would have a blank bottom half of the page where the missing tasks go.

Yesterday I gave out grades, I have about 75% of my students failing because I gave a test grade for memorizing Mark Antony's funeral speech. A lot of them blew it off. So I had 3 kids stay after yesterday for tutoring. . .on Friday. . . I don't stay on Fridays. I ran home cleaned up and two of our friends came over with their new baby. So I got to play with the baby all night and chat with Sarah, while Dan and Scott look on monster.com for a job for Scott when they move out to North Carolina last month. Far too much excitement for a Friday. . I'm tired!

A Week of Kindness Blog: The Laura K. Krishna Saga Archives

A Week of Kindness Blog: The Laura K. Krishna Saga Archives: "Laura K. Krishna is Just a Dumb Kid With a Nice Mom"

Found a great resource that lays out a present day example of plagarism and can be used in a lesson. I'm working up a lesson for next week (April 14) if anyone wants a copy of it w/ a powerpoint, let me

Cheater, cheater, cheater

Every Friday I give a vocabulary test. Every Friday since school started I have looked around for students to be cheating, given them zeros for talking during the test (mostly threatening to give zeros but a few students have actually gotten them). However until last week I haven't actually caught any. . . does this mean I am getting more observant? Building that teacher sense?

Cheaters in the past two weeks:

1) Hid words under hand, put head on desk. . .ended up having the wrong list of vocabulary words, swore they were there already and weren't using them
2) Hid words under their hat with hat on desk (nothing is supposed to be on their desks) picked up hat to move it, found words
3) Taped Marc Antony funeral speech to Mountain Dew bottle and asked to bring it up as they recited. Turned their back to class and read from the bottle.
4) Taped vocab words to the back of chair in front of them.

If I have caught this many in the past two weeks have I been being scammed all year? Scary thought.