Day 153- I have no catchy quote or title for today.

Black days are a great start to the week, especially when I had to be out on the previous Friday. Fairly routine black day.

ECA testing started today. I don't give it, but quite a few of my students are retaking it. I could go on a huge rant about testing and how I feel we handle it, but either I'm just too tired or my bad judgement has finally taught me something. I'm leaning toward the former.

Day 152- Personal Day Soccer Style

I took a personal day to coach my club soccer team in a college showcase in Oxford, OH. Beautiful weekend to spend on the beautiful campus of Miami of Ohio University.

My English 12 started watching a video called Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam while I left my creative writing class with a choice of writing about a piece of furniture in their lives or a key in their lives and how it has molded and shaped them.

Day 151- “After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” Philip Pullman

This is my last day of the week, and it was long since I worked my butt off during my prep to get my grading caught up and my plans ready for tomorrow. My English 12 classes watched a video on tunnel rats (soldiers who ventured into the VC tunnels) during the Vietnam War, jigsawed some articles on the tunnel rats, and discussed chapters 11-12. After all this, we had about 10 minutes of class remaining, which I gave them to start reading their assignment for tomorrow. My last period class thought it would be fun to sleep during the video instead of taking notes like they were told, so I turned the worksheet I had for them into a little quiz over the video. They were none to happy, but neither was I about their sleeping. Guess it ended up being a win-win for us all.

Creative writing was fun, well it usually is, but they seemed to really enjoy the writings I had for them today. The quick write was my favorite as it can be adapted for many different purposes. I'll post it below. After the quick write, they had to write on a family tradition they have with the stipulation that the reader had to feel like the were really there at the event.

Quick Write:

Answer the following questions to make a short story. You must answer them in the order below for the story to make sense. You have 15 minutes to answer these questions in complete detailed sentences.

• How long have you been driving?
• Where were you going?
• Describe the two people who are with you.
• Why did your car break down?
• When you decided to leave your car, how far did you walk?
• What were you looking for?
• Describe the spooky looking house you come to.
• When you knock, who answers the door?
• Why did you go inside?
• Why did you start to explore the house?
• When did you realize that something was following you?
• Describe the creature.
• While you were running away, you tripped and fell. What happened?
• Who all made it out of the house?
• As you run screaming for help, who stops to help you?
• Where did this person take you?
• Why did he take you there?
• What was the big surprise at the end of your story?

Day 150- "“Just breathing can be such a luxury sometimes.” Up in the Air

Mundane black day. Blended met and we discussed the Cu Chi tunnels (they had a friendly fire online activity to complete). We got caught up on our character maps and class discussion, then dismissed.

iPass, prep, and the Read 180 writer's workshop followed and ended out my day.

Day 149- "You fail only if you stop writing." Ray Bradbury

In English 12, we discussed chapter 10 in Fallen Angels, then I showed them videos and pictures of the Cu Chi tunnels, the vast network of tunnels the VC used during the Vietnam War. I also showed them booby traps the VC set up and explained how these simple punji traps were very effective simple weapons of war against the US troops.

In creative writing, I did the activity below:
Begin with the conventional notion of titling an essay:

On ____________ (such as the Stephen King book, On Writing)Make a list of at least six titles that represent things you might like to write about, things that interest you and you feel confident you know something about. These may be abstract or specific. (i.e. On Movies, On Living in the Midwest)Make a list of six subjects you do not want to write about, and wouldn’t show to anybody if you did (i.e. On My Insecurities)Make a list of six titles in which the preposition “on” could be a pun: On Speed, On The Net, or On My Feet.Make a list of six titles dealing with subjects about which you know “nothing at all.” For me, that may include On Being a Woman, On Taxidermy, On Brain Surgery

They then had to choose 2 of the titles they came up with write one page on each of them. The struggled with the puns, but they seemed to enjoy this activity and the writing that came with it.

Day 148- "Maxim 15: Only you can prevent friendly fire" The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries

This is the start to a short week for me as I have to take a personal day Friday for my other job, which means I'm sure these 4 days will feel like 6. Today is a red day, which means a fresh rotation to start the week, but only one oasis this week.

In English 12, we discussed some instances of friendly fire in the US military. In our book, we just came across a part where friendly fire kills some men in another unit, so I wanted to show that this type of tragedy does happen in real life. I divided the class and had a few small articles for them to review and read and share out with the class. We then watched a 60 Minutes segment on Pat Tillman and his friendly fire death and how it was falsified and dramatized. We then compared this to how there were some scandals or inaccurate reports that were seen in our book as well.

For creative writing, I had them write about a time they go in trouble in their lives, and they had to use the voice of the age they were when they got in trouble.

Day 147- "Maybe you're the one who is gonna save me. And after all..You're my Wonderwall." Oasis

Ah black Friday. Not a bad way to end the week! I felt a little hopeful today as my blended class had at least heard of Dylan and CCR and Springsteen, so I haven't completely lost all faith in humanity. iPass, prep, and the writing lab (which is writer's workshop) are always fun, great way to end a week.

Day 146- "I ain't no fortunate son." CCR

Kids today know nothing. I wanted to put my head as far through a wall as I possibly could after today's English classes. I truly fear for the future of not just our country, but the human race. We did a lesson on Vietnam era music today and how it affected the attitudes of the country and we compared those attitudes to the soldiers in our book. No one in the classes had ever heard of CCR, Springsteen, or Bob Dylan. The only song I played they had heard of was "War", and that is only because of the movie Rush Hour. They really struggled to see how music can influence a whole culture, but I'm sure that is due to the crap music that is out now. After we analyzed the lyrics and they understood what was being said, they started to see how music influenced the thoughts of the society at the time, yet they still struggled to see how music could be so powerful to influence cultural change.

For creative writing, I gave them a day to work on their short stories.

Day 145- "Mercy!" Catelyn Tully Stark A Storm of Swords

Red Wednesday. For some reason, this reminds me of the Red Wedding. Let's be thankful today didn't take that turn, although it would have made for a much more interesting day. Anyway, in English we continued on with our book, reviewing and discussing chapters 5-6. I showed them pictures of some of the weapons referenced and how mines were used. I then gave them time to read their next chapter.

In creative writing, I did a prompt where they looked at a picture then had to ask 20 questions about that picture. They then had to trade with a partner and answer the 20 questions. Then, they had to write a 26 line short story where each of the lines started with the next letter in the alphabet, one line was one word, and one line was a question. Structured writing like this (such as a sonnet) can produce some very interesting results. I look forward to reading them.

Day 144- “It’s called reading. Top to bottom, left to right — a group of words together is called a sentence." Tommy Boy

My oasis has arrived, and another will be up the road shortly. My blended class met today, and we jigsawed and discussed chapters 2-4 as well, along with updating our character maps. They are getting the character map idea better than my other classes, but I also believe they are doing a better job of reading the book. iPass, prep, and Read 180 lab following, rounding out a pleasant day.

Day 143- "Don't tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on a piece of glass"- Chekov

Back at it again, and today was a long day. In my English 12 classes, I jigsawed chapters 2-4 in Fallen Angels since I missed Friday and we weren't able to review it. I also gave each group a character or two they needed to discuss for the character maps they are doing for the book. Most of the groups in both classes did a good job with this, yet some struggled with the character maps because it was a large section to cover. If they would have done the maps as they read, this wouldn't have been a problem.

In creative writing, I gave them a free writing day as their rough drafts for the short stories are due in a week. Some are panicking, and others are not panicking enough.

Day 142- Personal Day

I had to take a personal day today. In my absence, I left the sub with plans to have my English 12 kids discuss the draft with an article I had jigsawed for them, and my creative writing kids were to play a type of telephone writing game where they each wrote for 5 minutes, passed the story on to someone else, and they picked it up and wrote. This was done with 4-5 people, and the I'm truly looking forward to the results of their efforts.

Day 141- "I wish you had more time."- Man on Fire

Black days are divine. Read 180, blended 12b (which was a smooth rerun of yesterday), iPass, prep, and the Read 180 writing lab. I actually worked crazy hard during my prep today. I will be out tomorrow, so I had to make sub plans and prep for the first 2 days next week since I won't be in tomorrow to prep for Monday and I don't have a prep Monday. Anyway, it was a busy day.

Day 140- “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” Zen in the Art of Writing

Even after a long break, I still hate white days. I had my blended class meet today, so this was a full day of teaching. This class didn't let the previous day's classes lack of knowledge show them up, and one girl asked if Kwanza was a 15-year old boy's birthday. It just felt normal. We had the discussion about Vietnam, and this class new slightly more than my other classes, but still left a lot to be desired. 

In my other 12b classes, we discussed the reading from chapter one, and I modeled how to do the character maps for them. I let them listen to chapter 2, and showed them how to update the character maps and start new ones on characters that they came across.

In creative writing, we had a free writing day. The students have a big project, their short stories, due soon, and I wanted to give them time to write and conference with me on them.

Day 139- "Well son, the world needs ditch diggers too." Caddyshack

I am back after my slightly extended spring break, although, I would rather be working than have to deal with kidney stones again. This was kind of fitting that it was my first day back and we were starting off on a red day, so a new cycle began.

In English 12, we started a back for our next novel, Fallen Angels. This is a Vietnam War era book, so we discussed the Vietnam War and that time period. This being a senior class and the fact that they had U.S. History last year as juniors should make this a free-flowing fluid discussion, but apparently they either didn't listen well or don't recall much because they knew absolutely nothing. Actually, they knew less than nothing. During our discussion, I asked what social movement was going on during the 1960's, and two of the answers given were "slavery" and "the depression". It was all I could do not to email our social studies department and ask them what the heck is going on over there! It was painful. I told them they may learn more about the Vietnam War in this class than they did last year in U.S. History, but also after today, I think that may have been accomplished.

Creative writing got back into the swing of things by disucssing the elements of a good story and then we made some rules we wanted for our short stories. We ended the class by writing a one-page description of a bitterly cold scene. The object was to use such language with verbs and nouns to make the reader actually feel cold.

Day 138- Sick day kidney stones version

I  was out today recovering from kidney stones over the weekend. Freaking bane of my existence.

Day 137- "He is the One"- The Matrix

Last day before break! Senior Slaughter-House projects were due today, and I believe all but one student turned in their projects. On first inspection, many of them did a very nice job while others left something to be desired. We finished up the movie version of Slaughter-House and continued out in-depth comparison and contrast of the novel and movie. I think after watching the movie, many of the students have a higher respect for the novel.

In creative writing, we finished up our hero's journey of The Matrix. We discussed the elements we saw in the movie and how it fit perfectly into the hero's journey formula.