And we're back!

Being on vacation can do some weird things to you:

You start drinking tea instead of coffee.

Exercise becomes spiritual as opposed to torturous.

And you develop a sense of entitlement about life-believing it to be yours to be enjoyed as well as lived.

Strange.

One lingering effect of winter break is my slower pace. I wasn’t given much choice upon seeing that 75 friggin percent of my students had failed their grammar test.

With first semester counting down and so much curriculum left to cover, it’s surprisingly hard to teach what needs to be taught. In my rush, I’d love to skate over concepts, but I must dive first and guide my 7^th graders through the murky waters they believe NOUNS, pronouns, and adjectives to be. How they end up in 7^th grade without fully understanding nouns is a topic for another entry.

THE BATTLE PLAN

1. Have them in groups of 4, taking notes on one grammar concept. Notes consisted of writing a definition in their own words, 5 examples, 3 sentences using the examples, and drawing 3 symbols or pics that relate to the grammar concept.

2. Then they had to form new groups of 4 and teach the other group members about their one grammar concept because by now I know how much effect my own teaching has upon them.

This activity became fun for me when I witnessed the 25% who passed the test, and the students who managed to understand the grammar concepts upon the review session, tutoring their classmates. Just as I was about to kick my feet up and really get back into vacation-mode I saw something that made me freeze in my tracks.

I asked this student, "Uh, what are you doing?"

He responded, "Isn't this number one?" pointing to the first noun he circled. When a student creates an imaginary problem, follows imaginary directions, and circles nonsensical answers, you know that vacation is definitely over.