Chain reaction

HOW IS A STORY'S PLOT SIMILAR TO DOMINOES???

                                  "A story has rising action where things get more interesting."

                                              "There are unexpected twists and turns in a plot." 

                                                       "A story is full of ups and downs." 

                                                     = happiness

On the flipside

When the natural frustrations of teaching adolescents REALLY get to me, I know that I need to get away from my role as a teacher and plop into the student's desk. It's always humbling to be on the other side, fumbling about awkwardly and asking the dumb questions. 

Except I don't endure the torture of writing essays and filling out grammar worksheets like what I subject my own students to. Instead of a pencil, I'm armed with a spatula and my medium is chocolate. Dark, velvety, smoldering 72% cacao, 

chocolate. 

But one note about being on the other side...

I'll never be an innocent student again. My teaching instincts kick in, and I can't seem to shut it off. So when the male students in the background started giggling about the teacher's comments about stiff whipped cream, and her preferability in the hardness of it...I couldn't help but glare at them.  

How could I not be the teacher's empathizer when it comes to disciplining her students? I answered her questions eagerly, laughed a little too loud at her jokes, and scowled in the general direction of snickering. I'm a wolf in sheep's clothing. 

Land of Apples

If only life could be like the Garden of Eden, pre-apple tasting. I'm usually chipper about my students' potential, but more days like today and I think I'm going to officially migrate over to the jaded teacher's lounge. 

Today went horribly because...

A. How are we supposed to have a friggin' debate when kids don't do their friggin' homework of making debate notes?!

B.  As a punishment and mostly out of pure fury, I quickly zapped those who chose not to do their homework with  lunch detention. Steve decided to mutter under his breadth, "Racist", where upon I did the 360 degrees Exorcist head turn. 

C. During lunch detention, about half of the kids gave me pure, unadulterated attitude as if I was somehow responsible for they're not doing their homework. How dare I make them pay a consequence for their actions!

Bottom line is that I'm just exhausted. They brought out the worst in me today. Though it started with good intentions, I ultimately punished them because I felt angry and I wanted them to feel the disappointment that I was feeling. Why is it so hard to communicate that I care?

Thomas Guides

I remember my uncle's old Ford Taurus, baby blue, I think it was. It was a little, 2 door jewel that always toted the trusty, faded Thomas Guide in the backseat. My uncle would thumb through that massive book with licked fingers (gross) to the point where the pages becomes soft and pliable. I too would lean over and take a look at it, not understanding a thing I saw.


Sometimes, I feel exactly the same way when I'm lesson planning. My final destination is to drive my highly unmotivated, apathetic students into writing 5 paragraph essays that prove a strong opinion about a character through textual evidence. I'm lost by the first light.


Therefore, I experiment. I get lost, over and over again, till I get vaguely familiar with the landscape of failure. Ultimately, I get an instinctual sense to avoid it. Well, eventually. Hopefully?


So the planned route to essay writing is as following:


1. Criteria Chart

• In groups of 4, students decide on 5 traits a person must possess to be labeled as being good.
• Oddly enough, being funny came up quite frequently. When I tried to get them to think and asked them if being boring makes someone bad, many of them honestly answered, "Yes".
• Students will use this chart to judge the main character and develop a thesis

2. Color time!

• So that students are tricked into finding textual evidence, I have them highlight parts of the story where the main character acts in noble ways and underline in red, parts where the character makes his follies. It's my take on the angel and devil on each shoulder.

3. Class Debate

• Ok, they now have the basis for a thesis and have found their quotes, but the hardest part is realizing that someone might have a different viewpoint. Debate time!
• Class is divided in half and one side argues that the character is an overall good man while the other argues that he is not, using quotes from the story as their evidence.
• Each person must stand and give his/her case, and in order to not get disqualified to win the grand prize of small jolly ranchers.

Tomorrow's the class debate...I'm scared.

Why I love English

It never gets old. There is always a stone unturned, another meaning to find underneath in an innocent looking text. What's yawningly literal may turn out to be profound and vice versa.  

Cases in point:

Went a Jason Mraz concert where he shed a new light on a song that I've heard a million times before. "Make it mine" talks about being lifted away to a table at the Gratitude cafe. I believed Gratitude cafe to be an imaginary place where people happily bob amidst clouds, watching over the big picture that is their life. Turns out that it's an actual cafe in San Francisco, complete with lattes, sandwiches, and tip jars. 

Also found out that Mr. Humpty Dumpty wasn't such an empty egg after all. There are heavy political meanings behind his "falling" and "crashing" that coincide with what had been happening in England during that time period. All Poindexters unite and Google it!

 

 

Analyze this!

Whenever I hear this song, I automatically

1. Pucker my mouth and nod my head to the beat

2. Start doing fist pumps in the air

3. Think of my students from last year

I threw this song at my last year's students, challenging them to identify the metaphors in the song. Do you hear them?