Doing the Hard Work

A student of mine approached me soon after we began reading Native Son.  She was concerned by the graphic nature of the novel, and she tried to explain to me that she’d already read a number of “books like this,” so she felt that it would be okay for her to sit this one out.

Native Son is a terribly difficult novel to get through.  There are a couple of really graphic and ugly scenes in the story, but neither scene (nor anything that leads up to it) is gratuitous; those scenes are vital to our understanding of the reality of the main character.  I insisted that she continue in the reading.  I told her that I understood that it was hard to read, but that I thought it was important that she keep at it.

She came to me again this morning, upset about yet another graphic murder in the story.  She had worked herself into tears, and I spent the better part of ten minutes trying to explain to her that a good part of the POINT of this novel is the graphic nature of those scenes and of the lives of the people in the story – those people who find themselves with choiceless choices.  I’m not sure she heard me, though, so I wrote her this note (which I cc’d to her mother, just to give her a heads-up).  My hope is that I hit the right note of appreciating her objections while explaining why I think it’s important for her to keep at it.

Dear Josephine:

    I understand that you’re upset right now, Honey, and I am genuinely sorry for that.  I want you to understand, though, that I think that the work that you’re doing is very important, and that I wouldn’t be asking you to do it if I didn’t think it was something you could handle.

    Native Son is a VERY difficult novel to get through.  I know that the graphic description of two of the key events is particularly troubling to you, and I fully appreciate why you feel that way; please don’t think for a moment that I don’t understand that.  What I want you to understand, though, is that those scenes are desperately important to the overall function of the novel.  

    One of the central ideas of this work is the brutality of the life that Bigger (and by extension, other oppressed people) live EVERY SINGLE DAY.  We don’t want to look at the ugliness; we don’t want to look at the desperation and the despair and the fear and the rage that are an everyday reality for people who find themselves in impossible situations with impossible choices.  We, as members of a privileged class – you and I are white, educated, reasonably wealthy people living in stable families in a reasonably safe and clean and well-appointed environment – can say we understand how other people live, but we really don’t see it; we can only imagine it.  It’s uncomfortable when we’re presented – full-on and in our faces – with the hard and cruel and brutal that other people have to live around all the time.  It’s supposed to be uncomfortable; it’s supposed to make you uneasy.  I want for you to use the skills of critical and professional distance that we’ve been practicing all year to take a step back from those scenes.  The point isn’t the graphic descriptions (though I know they’re hard to get around): the point is that Bigger doesn’t believe he has any other choices.

    What are the implications of that fact, and what kind of work can you do with that knowledge?  What kind of spin does that put on your thinking about current events, or about the reality that you and I get to participate in a system that deliberately and brutally excludes entire populations of people?  What does the investigation of Bigger’s reality – of his self-image and his self-esteem, of his prospects and his goals, of his aspirations and his dreams, of his relationships and the ways he believes he’s supposed to behave – do to the ways you think about yourself?  To the ways you think about our collective past?  To the ways you think about our present, and the policies, stereotypes, and assumptions that we continue to create (or to perpetuate)?  

    There’s a lot of really great thinking to be mined from this novel.  I’m eager to get Mr. Carson in to the class to help you all work through the history of the time period – and to see how some of those policies and attitudes are STILL in place today (have you been paying attention to all the racism that’s evident in our current political and national news?  Have you heard of Treyvon Martin and seen all the ugliness that has stirred up?).  This novel is an important one for you to have in your arsenal; I know that you’re angry and upset, but I also know that you’re smart enough to get past that and to do some really significant thinking.

    Trust me, Josephine; I have faith that you’re more than capable of getting through this, and of coming out on the other end with a deeper and more nuanced understanding of race, economics, and politics that will give you a really strong and impressive foundation for a lot of the work you’re going to be asked to do in college.  Remember, too, that I’m around to talk you through all of it; I don’t expect you to do any of this work on your own.

    Warmly,

        Mrs. Chili

The Alice Light Bulb Moment

Yesterday, I posted an entry on the Blue Door in which I said that I was too busy to blog about some things, and one of the things I was too busy to blog about was the fact that in every single class I ran on Thursday, I was able to pull off  what I call “Helen Keller” or “light bulb” moments; that glorious few seconds when a kid leaps from “I don’t get it” to “OH!  NOW I see!!“  I live for these moments, and the fact that I was able to execute the same one in all three of my core English classes was kind of a record for me.  I needed to share.

The entirety of CHS is reading Alice in Wonderland.  Several of the kids have read it before (and a number of them are familiar with bits of the story through various film interpretations), but none of them has analyzed it yet; they’ve read it for the surface stuff, but really haven’t taken the time to really think about all the weird shit that happens in the novel.  I had suspected that the kids were blowing through the book without really getting what they were reading, and I suspected that they were missing some of the funny stuff, so I decided to point something out to them to see if I was correct.

At the very outset of the story, Alice impulsively follows a waistcoated white rabbit down his hole and finds herself falling for what feels like forever; she has time to observe the walls around her and to investigate an empty jar of orange marmalade, and then she starts thinking about how she’s going to apply this experience to her life when she returns to it (though she doesn’t really give a thought as to how she’s going to get out of her predicament; her impulsivity is something which serves as a constant through the novel).  She thinks to herself:

“After such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down-stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!” (which was very likely true.)

I read that passage aloud and asked the kids to really think about what was being said here, both by Alice and by our narrator (who, it turns out, has a flair for snark).  They read it, and read it again, and really didn’t see anything much to it.   Just when they started thinking that I was seeing something that wasn’t really there (“because English teachers do that all the time, you know; they try to find something deep and meaningful in everything!”), one girl gasped and her eyes got HUGE and I pointed at her and said “SHHHHH!  Let them work it out for a little longer!”

Of course, this got them all riled up; they HATE it when one of them is in on a joke that they don’t get, so they went back to the passage and tried to will themselves to figure it out.  One by one, a few more kids got the joke, and when about five of them were bouncing in their seats wanting to explain it to all the other kids, I pointed back to the first girl and said “GO!”

“YOU GUYS!” she said, “The narrator is telling us that she wouldn’t say anything if she fell off the top of the house because she’d be, like, DEAD!  She LITERALLY wouldn’t say anything about it because she’s be a smear on the sidewalk!”

Yes, my lovely; that’s it exactly.

That scene played out, in almost exactly that way, in all three of my classes.  It was awesome.  My hope is that this little exercise will inspire my babies to read more carefully, and with an eye toward the snarky and ironic.  We shall see if my hope is well-founded.

I love my job.

Two

Grrrrr….

They’re at it again (or, rather, they’re NOT).  Today, I ended up kicking nearly my ENTIRE film and lit class out of the room for not having done the reading.

*I told them a MONTH ago that they needed the book.

*The book in question is a Grisham novel; easy to read, compelling story, generally fun.

*The assignment asked for them to read 93 pages in four days (the assignment was given on a Thursday – we didn’t meet again until today).

*Of the 10 kids I kicked out of the room, only three of them actually HAD the book.  Three claimed to have the book at home (“I forgot it…”) and the rest haven’t bothered to get the book at all.

The two kids who were left in the class had not only read the assignment, but couldn’t stop and read PAST where I told them they could have stopped.  We had as lively a discussion about the book as we could (given that we were only three people).  I gave them chocolate.

Grrrrr…..

Finding My Stride

We’re into our second week in school, though neither week has been a full five days (because of the Labor Day holiday last weekend, last week was Tuesday through Thursday, this week is Tuesday to Friday).  I’m coming to realize that I had no idea how much I missed my job until I came back from summer vacation.

I’m teaching four classes this year; freshman, junior, and senior English and a Film and Literature class.  So far, they’re all going really well, though I’m still trying to adjust my brain to how much work I should reasonably expect from the students.  I’m settling into the routine of taking attendance in the new platform our Tech God launched for us this year, and that same Tech God got my (messed up) classes set up (correctly) in the class management system we started playing with last term and are running full-time this year.  In terms of logistics, I think I’ve got it figured out.

We’re running a college-inspired schedule this year, which, so far, is working out GREAT.  On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, my professional life is almost obscenely leisurely to look at from the outside; I’m only scheduled for the freshman class first block and the freshman portfolio advisory right after lunch.  I’m finding, though, that my M/W/F is packed much fuller than my Tuesday/Thursdays where I have a class literally every block.  Those “easy” days are the ones where I’m doing all my grading, planning, copying, and scheming, not to mention trying to keep up with three reading assignments (and that’s one fewer than there’ll be soon; I doubled up the English III and Film and Lit readings for the first outing).

My freshmen are reading Lois Lowry’s The Giver and are trying to figure out the writing process ahead of composing their own personal narratives.  Most of the kids have read the novel already – most in 7th grade – but I think they’re going to be pleased, and not a little surprised, by how much they DIDN’T see in the story two years ago.  I’m going to get them started on their personal essays at the end of next week with an eye for having a finished draft before the end of the first grading period in mid-October.

My English III kids are reading The Secret Life of Bees (as are my Film and Lit kids).  I’m thinking that I’m going to use the same lesson plans for both classes for this novel, and of showing the film to the core class kids, as well.  I’m dying to start talking about this book; a couple of students have come in and boldly declared that Lily is a little girl with daddy issues and I think it’s going to be fun to watch them come to the realization that her issues are all mommy (as are, consequently, her daddy’s issues.  Yep; that’s going to be a great conversation!).

My English IV kids are reading Frankenstein, and I absolutely cannot WAIT to see where they go with it.  I got a lot of complaints during the first reading day; they couldn’t get behind the language and they were completely confused about what was going on.  A couple of the kids came back to me today, though, and told me that once they got going, the ride smoothed out a bit.  I figured it would, but it was good to hear it from them.  I’m trying something different with my seniors this year in that I’m giving them, right off the bat, free rein to decide how they’re going to approach this novel.  I’ve told them that they’ve got to come up with some other supporting experience that they can interpret to show me that they’re engaged with Frankenstein on a level that goes beyond just the plot and setting, but that they have complete autonomy in how they do that.  While I’m expecting them to fall on their faces this first time out – they’ve never really been given this kind of absolute freedom before – I’m hoping that they’re observant enough of the text to be able to come up with some academically substantial ideas.  Maybe some of them will choose to examine some excerpts of Milton’s Paradise Lost or Wollstonecraft’s Vindication on the Rights of Women, or they might investigate the current issues in medical and scientific ethics that Shelley so presciently wrote about in her novel.  I’m also hoping that some of them will go off and do something creative and original; one long-ago student, when faced with the same assignment, decided to write two more chapters to the book in which the Creature returns from the Arctic and confronts Ernest.  It was delightful, imaginative, true to the voice of the novel and completely in keeping with the characters, and I’m hoping that someone sees fit to try their hand at that kind of creative effort.

We just finished Willow in the Film class, and the kids are tasked with writing a short essay in which they argue who that story is really about; my interpretation is that it’s NOT about the main character, and I’m eager to see not only who they choose, but also how they defend those choices with evidence from the movie.  They’re also finishing The Secret Life of Bees, and next week will be spent in conversation about the ideas of prejudice, faith, confidence, connection, and determination that the novel forwards, as well as in discussion of some of the creative choice the director made in the adaptation of the book to the screen.

See?  Busy!  How’s YOUR school year going?

Ten Things Tuesday

Ten things we’re working with in my classes this year:

1. My film and lit class is watching Willow as I write this.

2.  The Secret Life of Bees, both the novel and the film; Goddess, but I love that story.

3.  The Giver.  My freshmen start this novel tomorrow.

4.  Frankenstein.  My seniors start reading this today.  I’m thinking about showing them a couple of film versions, to boot.  I so love this novel.

5.  Something Wicked This Way Comes.  I’ve never read this, but I’ve always wanted to.  One of the cool things about my job is that I get to decide what we read, so I get to pick stuff both that I love and that I’ve always wanted to read.

6.  Atonement.  I finished reading this about a week ago, and I’m eager to read it with my seniors.

7.  The Client.  My film kids are going to read and watch this.  I can’t wait.

8.  The Book Thief.  Another of my most favorite books.  I’m dying to read this again.

9.  The Empire of the Sun.  Another film class film.

10.  Night.  I’ve read this about a dozen times, but I’ve never taught it.  My freshman get it this year, and I’m eager to see what they do with it.

Want a Project?

So, here’s the story; I’ve been given 100% free rein to do whatever I want in building, from scratch, an entire English department.  From scratch, People; I have absolutely no constraints – I can pick whatever books I want and teach them in whatever order I want using any projects and assessments I want and….

You get the idea.

While I’m in love with the idea that this is entirely mine to create – how many of my colleagues fantasize about being able to teach the books they love instead of the books they’re ordered to read by the administration or the state? – I’m also here to tell you that absolute freedom isn’t necessarily conducive to creativity.

I need edges.  I need guideposts.  I need something.

When I met with Mike the other day to talk about getting the planning started, I told him that I was almost paralyzed by all my freedom; I had no place to put in, I said, and I found myself staring at a blank computer screen, wondering just where the hell to start.

That’s when he suggested that we create a canon.  We’ll compose a list of books that we feel deserve a quasi-permanent place in the various curricula.  The idea is that we’ll have a list of books that we go to whenever we’re teaching, say, a freshman core class, and choose some anchoring texts from among that list that fit with whatever the school-wide theme is for that year (as opposed to teaching the same books every year – if it’s freshman, it must be Romeo and Juliet! – which, frankly, we teachers just don’t want to do).  That way, we figure, we’ll never teach a book to a junior class that already read it as freshmen and, in the process, we make sure we hit at least some of the more widely-read novels that colleges expect students will have some passing familiarity with (and that we either love or never got to ourselves in our own educations).

So, I’ve got this list.  It is by no means a complete list, and I’m leaving it entirely open to revision and/or suggestion, so that’s the first part of your project; if you see something on the list that shouldn’t be there – or there’s a book that is dear to you that you think should – speak up.

The second part of my request is a bit more involved, though; I’m going to ask you (especially you English teachers) where in the course of four years you’d place a book.  It’s pretty much decided that freshmen will get To Kill a Mockingbird and The Book Thief, and that seniors will get Frankenstein and Beloved – and there are a couple of other novels that will sort themselves out simply because of their subject matter or their voice – but I’m really interested in finding out what you all think about where the books should go.  You don’t even have to take on the whole four years; if you teach sophomores, for instance, tell me what books you either teach or wish you could teach to that bunch.  If you teach college, tell me which books you want your incoming freshman to know in order to have discourse about the novels that you teach at your level.  I’ll take any and all input any of you wants to offer up… and thanks!

To Kill a Mockingbird
The Book Thief
Native Son
Invisible Man
The Sunflower
Ender’s Game
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Frankenstein
Hamlet
King Lear
MacBeth
Much Ado About Nothing
The Taming of the Shrew
Othello
The Great Gatsby
The Things They Carried
The Kite Runner
Night
Watership Down
1984
Fahrenheit 451
The Giver
The Color Purple
Beloved
A Christmas Carol
This Boy’s Life
The House on Mango Street
Oliver Twist
Catcher in the Rye
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
As I Lay Dying
A Farewell to Arms
Brave New World
A Member of the Wedding
The Bluest Eye
Cry the Beloved Country
Things Fall Apart
Pride and Prejudice
The Scarlet Letter
Lord of the Flies
A Clockwork Orange

Summer Reading

I always loved the idea of summer reading programs, even though I didn’t participate in them as a student (don’t give me any crap, either; I was working full time by the time I was a sophomore in high school, so I didn’t exactly have time to lug a book to the beach, you know what I mean?).  Reading is one of the major activities of my summer as an adult, though.  I love all the lists that come out, I can’t wait for my public radio to do their annual summer reading show (it aired today, but I was away from a radio, so I’ll listen to it tomorrow when it gets posted on their website), and I end up with a “my eyes are bigger than my tummy” situation in that my stack of books is often way out of proportion with the actual time I have during the summer to read them, but I don’t care.  Summer, for me, means ice cream, salads, the Cape, the lake, and books – lots and lots of books.

For our first annual book list, I’ve taken the easy out and hit up the American Library Association’s banned books list as a starting point, though I’m telling students that they can read any novel they like.  I’m thinking that, since I’m asking the kids to write a full-blown essay for every book they read*, I should give them some sort of incentive for doing the work.  I’m thinking of giving each summer reader a few “pink paper” passes; while I’m not willing to let them blow off a major essay, I would be okay with their skipping a reading response or two.  What do you think?

********************************

Why read?  It’s a lot of work, after all, this reading stuff.  It requires a lot of effort on our part; we have to take the time, we have to participate in the actual act of reading, we have to think and question and remember.  It’s so much easier to watch T.V., where we can just sit back and let ourselves be entertained; the sets are designed for us, the lighting is carefully manipulated to convey a particular tone, and actors tell us exactly what we need to know.

Reading, though, engages us in ways that other media can not.  Reading asks us to hear voices in our heads that are not our own, to see places we’ve never been, and to partake in experiences we otherwise wouldn’t have.  Reading lets us travel in time and space, gives us insight into how others think and live, and asks us to be a part of the story.  Reading opens our imaginative and intellectual doors.

Below is the first annual CHS Summer Reading List.  The theme for this inaugural list is “banned books” and celebrates the right to read.  This list is taken in part from the American Library Association’s Banned and/or Challenged Books (ala.org).  Students may look online for other reading choices from the ALA, or they may read another novel of their choice; please don’t feel limited to this list:

The Great Gatsby; F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Catcher in the Rye; JD Salinger

The Grapes of Wrath; John Steinbeck

To Kill a Mockingbird; Harper Lee

The Color Purple; Alice Walker

Ulysses; James Joyce

Beloved; Toni Morrison

The Lord of the Flies; William Golding

1984: George Orwell

Their Eyes Were Watching God; Zora Neale Hurston

Of Mice and Men: John Steinbeck

As I Lay Dying; William Faulkner

Native Son; Richard Wright

The Lord of the Rings; JRR Tolkein

Students who read should write a brief summary of the novel(s), which should include a short description of the plot, personality sketches of major characters, the tone of the work (i.e., what message does the reader think the author was trying to convey?) and an explanation of the novel’s major theme.  Along with this summary, students should include a 3-5 paragraph personal response in which they address a) whether the story (or the themes in it) reminded them of anything – a personal experience, a film, another novel, a poem, etc. and, if so, how the two experiences are similar, and b) what stood out for the reader – where did the story provoke the most emotion?  Where did the reader see the story’s “turning point”?  Which character changed the most, and why?  These should be printed in plain, 12-point font on white paper and turned in during the first English class of the term.

Students who choose to participate in CHS’s summer reading may earn credit in their core English classes based on their summer work; students should consult with their individual English teachers to determine how credit will be given.  If a novel crosses the curriculum, students may be able to earn credit in other courses (math, history, science, etc.) as well; check with your teachers.

If you have any questions about the summer reading program, or you would like a personalized book suggestion, feel free to email Mrs. Chili at any time.  Happy Reading!

**********************************************

*understand that this in no way constitutes an expectation on my part that anyone’s going to actually READ.  I’m hopeful, but only a little…

Credit Recovery

HELP!

I’m trying to put together an 8 week credit recovery program for the students who failed junior English this term, and I’m bumping up into a serious creative wall.

I want for the program to be largely self-directed; that is, I only want to meet with the kids once a week and have them do the rest of the work on their own.  I also want for it to be substantial; I’m resisting the urge to reign in the material because, well, if they couldn’t handle what I gave them in small doses every day for 15 weeks, what makes me think they can handle a lot on their own in 8, right?  The point is that they COULD handle the work, they just chose not to and besides, the point here is for them to prove that they’re ready for senior level English; one of the main themes of that class is moving toward independent, self-directed work.

I’ve got the first week knocked; they’re going to write a personal literacy narrative in which they relate how a literacy has helped to shape how they read, write, think, or behave.  It’s an assignment I do with pretty much every writing class I teach; what I want for the students to understand is that reading and writing are intimately connected and not, as so many of them think of the experiences, discrete activities.  I can point to any number of books that have been instrumental to shaping how I view myself and my place in the world, and I want for my students to be self-aware enough to understand where their influences come from.

After that, though?  I’m stumped.  I can’t decide if I want to continue the theme of social justice that we were working on over the semester (though I am leaning heavily in that direction) or if I want to branch into something completely different – adventure literature, say, or biography.  I can’t land on whether I want to teach one book in-depth, or work from a collection of short novels, stories, and film.  Further, I can’t decide if I should make the summer term all about critical analysis, or if I should make it a straight writing craft course (though, to be honest, I’m likely going to keep pushing the critical analysis, as that’s going to be the primary objective in senior English in September).

I’ve got a stack of potential books on my desk; A Long Way Gone; Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, Beloved by Toni Morrison (or possibly Song of Solomon), The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, and American Gods by Neil Gaiman are all in the running, as is The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (because my plan is to work that book with juniors next year, and these students, if they complete the summer session successfully, will enter September as seniors, so they won’t have to work the book twice).  I’ve not read the Beah or Gaiman books yet, and it’s been a very long time since I’ve read Conrad or Morrison, so I will have to work those right along with the kids, but I’m not opposed to that.

What do you think?  How would YOU go about building a summer school term that had a heavy independent study feel to it?  Thoughts?  Suggestions?  Please?

Coming of Age

The theme for next year’s curriculum is “coming of age.”  CHS is entering its fifth full year, we’re re-imagining our vision and purpose, and the director of the school is dying to stage a production of Alice in Wonderland, so we settled on the theme of personal growth to inform our curriculum choices for the next school year.

I’m asking you, dear readers, which novels, short stories, plays, poems, and films you’d recommend for the theme for my core English courses.  Keep in mind that I’m designing classes for all four levels – freshmen to seniors – and that I’m invested in a wide variety of genres.  Also keep in mind that we’ll likely read Alice in Wonderland as a school community, so that’s already in the plan.

In 10 minutes of brainstorming, I’ve come up with:

The Book Thief     To Kill a Mockingbird     The Secret Life of Bees   Atonement  Speak    The Perks of Being a Wallflower    The Diary of Anne Frank   Siddhartha     Frankenstein

What would YOU want to read (or what would you want your child to read) in this theme?

Aaaannnd, GO!

Hey, Chili! How’s the New Term Going?

Well, I’m glad you asked!  It’s going pretty well, actually!

I have two classes first thing in the morning – English III/IV is first, followed immediately by the writing workshop class – so my schedule is exactly the same, time-wise, as it was last term.  I like that a lot; having to set myself to a different time schedule sometimes takes me a lot longer than I like, and I always feel a little off-kilter until I figure it out.

My first class is populated by 15 juniors and seniors (though I think I’ve only got two seniors in the class; the rest are juniors).  One of those kids is a boy I had in my III/IV class last term.  You might remember him; he’s one of the kids who didn’t do anything.  Anyway, he’s taking my class again because he didn’t earn any credit for last term.  He’s likely not going to earn any credit this term, either, if his “performance” thus far is any indication.  Sigh.  There’s also the kid whom I’ve only seen once thus far; he’s got “transportation issues” that prevent him from getting to class.  Oh, and then there’s his girlfriend, a tough little knot of teenager who thinks she’s dangerous when, really, she’s only a threat to herself.

Those are my challenges this term; the rest of the class is really pretty on the ball.  I’ve got a couple of the out-and-proud members of the school’s ‘geek squad’ in the class, and though they complain enthusiastically about having to read, they must be doing it because they’ve been coming to class with something to say.  I’ve also got three kids who, by general consensus of the teachers in the building, are the smartest we’ve got.  They are a lot of fun because they challenge the class in positive ways – they’re willing to talk during our discussions and they bring up ideas and questions that the rest of the class seems pretty willing to entertain.  So far, it’s going really well.

My Writing Workshop was designed as a remedial course for kids who failed English I/II last term, but I’m not exactly sure that’s how the class is shaking out.  I’ve got a couple of kids who really don’t need to be there; they passed my course last term, but because there’s nothing else being offered in that time slot that they need, they ended up in the class.  Now, having said that, there are a bunch of kids in the room who REALLY DO need to be there; I’ve got one kid with a 40-something average in the class right now.

We started that class with the basic parts of speech – nouns and verbs – and spent the whole week on them.  I covered the different forms of nouns (common, proper, collective, that kind of thing) and a number of the different tenses of verbs.  I think it was verb tenses that fried their little circuits; I’m still not entirely sure they understand the difference between simple present and present progressive tenses.  I’ll go over them again as we continue on.  Next week, we’ll review pronouns (objective and subjective in particular, though we’ll also cover that tricky who/whom problem) and get through adjectives and adverbs.  I’m thinking I will pound the grammar until February break; when we come back, we’ll start writing.

Oh, and just as an aside; the school’s director and the music teacher (who happen to be engaged) are in a grudge match to see who can get the highest grade in my grammar course.  I’m giving them all the quizzes the kids get, and they’ll take all the exams and assessments.  So far, though, only the music teacher has given me anything back (I wonder if I should give the director some pink paper?).  He’s got a 97 average in the class (he missed identifying a noun in a sentence on the noun quiz, and he messed up a tense in the verb quiz – it was that simple present/present progressive problem I was talking about earlier).  This is going to be fun.

The Pink Paper Policy is in full force; if a student doesn’t hand in a homework assignment, that student hands me a piece of obnoxiously pink paper with his or her name, the date, and the assignment’s name written on it (in the student’s handwriting).  My plan is to hold on to all that paper so that, when I meet the parents during the first grading milestone and they demand to know why their little angel is failing my class, I can produce the stack of Angel’s pink paper and ask the parents why they think it is that s/he doesn’t think it’s worth the time to do the work.  We talked, during our last staff meeting, about instituting a “no late work” policy across the board (it should be noted here that, of the seven member staff, five of us already have that policy in our syllabi).  I think the kids blame me for the fact that their other teachers are now handing them pink paper when they blow off an assignment.  Oh, well…

Finally, I’ve decided to take a class this term; I’m in my colleague’s Film and Society class.  The group has met three times so far, and while I’m not quite sure where my friend is going with the course, I’m enjoying being a student.  The teacher has told me that, at some point, he’s going to ask me to stop doing the homework (which is online) because he wants to see how much I’m influencing the level of discourse and participation, but we’ve already joked (ruefully) about how little these kids seem to appreciate that, even when something is posted online, grammar, spelling, and style still count.

All in all, it’s going exceedingly well.  I love my job, and I feel very, very lucky to have landed where I have.