Last week

I know everyone’s been writing about this and talking about it for the past week. And I know you’re probably terribly tired of it by this point. So don’t worry, I won’t resent you if you stop reading now. But I guess I need this to be part of my healing process.

Last Monday I went to the Boston Marathon for the first time in years. I think the last time was when I went to see my elementary school teacher run in it. But every other year for my whole life I’ve watched it on TV. After all, when you grow up in Massachusetts, it’s a beloved tradition. Every year you hear about the inspirational stories, hear the stories of great marathons past, make bets on whether the winner will be from Kenya or Ethiopia, and laugh at the funny costumes. We even refer to the holiday of Patriot’s Day as “Marathon Monday.” My college didn’t give us the day off, and I’d always grumble about having to be in class when I ought to have been watching the marathon. This year I decided it was high time I go watch in person, and I recruited a friend to come with me.

We went to Kenmore Square, a mile from the finish line, beginning the morning by sharing a doughnut (because let’s face it, there’s nothing like watching other people exercise to make you want to eat junk food. Especially Dunkie’s). For the next few hours we clapped and cheered for the elite athletes and ordinary folks. Whenever someone struggled to keep going, everyone started telling them, “You can do it! Keep running!” and whooped when they started picking up those feet again. When one man started swaying, on the verge of passing out, and fellow runner crossed over and put an arm around him, walking the man over to a police officer to get help. And yes, there were some great costumes—fairies, a bumblebee, superheroes, etc. The day was a great celebration, as it was always meant to be, and it was bringing out the best in people.

We left at 1:30, after being there since 10. After a little stop in Park Street (yes, to visit Brattle Bookshop….couldn’t help myself), I headed for my home outside the city. Soon after I got back, the friend I’d spent the day with texted me about the explosion at the finish line. I hurriedly turned on the TV, horrified.

When it was becoming clear that these were attacks, I became increasingly upset. I spent the next two days watching the news, crying, and checking in with friends and family so we could all make sure everyone was okay. And then on Friday, the horror hit again with full force. I was completely shaken up, and I felt violated. How could someone do this? At an event so dear to my heart? On a street I’ve walked down a thousand times in the city that I love? To people who were doing just what I’d been doing that same day?

I don’t need to relive for you all of the events of that week. But I am grateful that it was school vacation and I was able to spend time with some people that I love who helped me work through my emotions and anxiety, then distracted me with talk of all the good and wonderful things in this life. And I am extraordinarily proud of the way the good people of Massachusetts responded to the horrific events. From running after the finish line to the hospital to give blood, to opening up their homes to the stranded, to running towards the blast to help the injured, to pledging to not let this incident scare them away next year, the bravery and kindness shown was beautiful.

As we move forward, I hope that the lessons learned don’t fade quickly, as they often seem wont to do. And I hope that people do not condemn an entire religion for the acts of a couple individuals. This was something I had thankfully been addressing with my sophomores the week before vacation as they began reading The Kite Runner, and I hope they kept it in mind. I hope that they keep asking me questions so that we can openly discuss our fears and prevent ourselves from giving into them. One of the powers of literature is that it can allow us see ourselves in others, and can help ease our fear and mistrust of that which we previously did not understand. And I hope that Boston, and all those affected both directly and indirectly, can begin to heal together.

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WBUR posted this article on their website. It discusses why we so often feel the need to write about our connections to traumatic events. Many thanks to Ms. K for showing me this!

Learning to think before you speak

I love it when kids surprise me with moments of real maturity. Last week, one such moment came out of a much uglier moment. One kid drew on another's face with marker, and the young man who was the canvas responded by swearing and calling the kid a "faggot." Now, I've made it quite clear to my students that I will not tolerate derogatory language, and discussed with them how such words are not only offensive, but can also be very hurtful without them even realizing it. Both boys were sent to the office, and I told them the next day that they'd have to serve a detention with me.

The following morning, I came into school and found a letter in my mailbox from the boy whose language got him into trouble. It was a very nice apology letter, and he maturely acknowledged that what he said was wrong and took responsibility for it. He explained that he'd been so upset because he had a job interview later that day and was afraid that the marker wouldn't come out, but said he knew this was not a good excuse. Here are some excerpts from the letter:
"I just hope you know it was not intended to disrespect anybody, I just allowed my anger to get the better of me, and I'm really, really, really disappointed in myself for allowing those words to come out of my mouth. Because not only did I make people uncomfortable by saying that, I lowered myself down to something I never wanted to....I want you to know I'm sorry and had no intent to disrespect the gay community by my use of vocabulary by any means. I was just stupid and didn't think of others before I reacted. I feel ashamed of myself because I know what I said could affect somebody. And I hope you know that's not the kind of person I am. This has taught me a lot and I know I will always remember to think before I speak."

I pulled him aside that day and told him how much I appreciated his words and that he took the time to really reflect on what he'd done. He could have just simply served his detention (which he'll still do) and let that be it, but it took maturity to admit he was in the wrong and to show a true understanding of WHY. I love these moments, because teaching is really about so much more than just making the students better readers and writers; we also want them to become good, consciencious, compassionate citizens. This young man took a good step in that direction, and I hope that he really does keep this lesson in mind.

The good kind of drama

Last month (good lord, have I really procrastinated writing this post for a whole month?) I took the Drama Club to the Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild High School Drama Festival. Once you’ve caught your breath from that mouthful of a name, please continue reading. This is an annual festival/competition that I participated in for three years in high school, so it was quite exciting and nerve-wracking for me to participate this year as an educator. I found myself getting nostalgic about my high school experiences with the festival, and it seems that my students also had a wonderful experience.

I went to a tiny, weird, awesome charter school for just about my whole life. We had these classes called “Projects” or “Workshops” which students could choose according to their interests—art, engineering, environment, etc. From 10^th through 12^th grade, I chose theater. This class met several afternoons a week, though we would frequently continue our rehearsals after school, turning it into a hybrid of class and club. In addition to our spring performance of a professional play, each year we also all wrote our own one-act plays, then chose one to perform at the Drama Festival.

Being a poor school, our budget was basically whatever we made at fundraisers and some donations from our parents who took pity on us. Our costumes were dug up from closets, attics, and the Salvation Army; sets were kept as simple as possible, and what we didn’t have lying around we had parents help us build or borrowed pieces from a kind school nearby; props were similarly scavenged for. Our teachers were not trained in theater, so mainly they were our supervisors and gophers, devoting many unpaid hours to us. I can only hope we thanked them enough. We students were given nearly limitless creative freedom—we were the directors, producers, stage managers, actors, and designers. This often put a lot of pressure on us, because if we wanted to make something happen, we had to figure out how to do it. And it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.

My mother once asked me if I ever regretted going to that school, as it offered no AP or honors courses at the time, and had only a fledgling sports program. I told her that while I do wish I hadn’t missed out on those aspects of high school, what I gained instead was of much greater value. One of the many things it taught me, especially through the Theater Workshop, was self-sufficiency. We had to make something out of nothing, and work hard for anything we wanted. Nothing was handed to us on a silver platter, and that made us even prouder of the final product. At the Drama Festival, we went up against schools with established theater programs and actual budgets, and most used professional plays. And even though we never moved on to the next round, we always knew just how special our experience was, because it truly was OURS, every last detail. Moving on would have simply been icing on the cake.

At the school where I teach, I began getting involved with the Drama Club last year. This year, I am one of the co-advisors, and I knew that one of the things I wanted to do was participate in the Festival. I soon learned just how stressful being on the other side of it was…paperwork and scheduling and busses, oh my! I often felt that next to my credit as director it should also have said “child wrangler,” as getting all those students into one room together proved nearly impossible, and they were often not good about telling me when they could not be at rehearsal. I told them how lucky they were that they’re so darn funny. After all, it’s hard to stay too annoyed at a kid when they’re performing a scene for the 12^th time and STILL finding ways to make you laugh.

In some ways, this felt like my high school experience. Granted, the Drama Club had some money for us to spend, but as the play was about people auditioning for a play, the stage consisted of a table, folding chair, and a ghost lamp that my dad constructed (thanks, Pops). Costumes were closet pulls that the students and I collaborated on. Plus, our school doesn’t have much of a drama program—we don’t have a real theater (just a little “backstage” theater and a big stage in the cafetorium), no light/sound board, and no professionals who really know what they’re doing (because lord knows I’m not trained in this stuff, unless a little acting/directing experience and watching a crapload of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and some of the great comedians and studying their timing and whatnot makes you qualified to direct a comedy….). And just like when I was in high school, many of the people in the cast had never acted before. I badgered several of these kids for weeks about auditioning because I’d seen them act in class and knew they’d be great. What was really fantastic was that a couple of the new actors are members of the football and wrestling teams, and these two worlds are usually kept quite separate at this school. Bridging that gap felt like a victory in itself.

The day of Festival had its heart-attack-inducing moments, which I won’t go into (other than to say that at the end of the night, there was about a twenty-minute period during which I thought I’d have to go to my principal on Monday morning and say, “Hey, sorry, we lost one….”). But mostly it was great. The show went well, and even when a couple of kids messed up, one of their castmates covered for them beautifully. I was a nervous wreck in my chair, schvitzing like I’d just gone for a run, but delighting in how confident they looked up on that stage and in all the laughter coming from the audience. The rest of the day was filled with watching other shows, which was a fantastic learning experience for my students that made them want to improve to those levels, socializing with kids from other schools (I tried not to get too grossed out when a few of the boys had already picked which girls they wanted to chase after within an hour of our arrival), and having a great time with each other. And it’s fun for us teachers to have a chance to talk to these students and connect with them in a different way than we would in the classroom.

The long day/night ended with four members of the cast receiving recognition awards for their excellent acting, and yes, I cheered and took pictures like a proud mama. We didn’t move on to the next round, but the victory came on the bus ride home when the kids all started asking me about next year. Those who had been most skeptical about this experience at the beginning admitted that I was right about this being fun (duh) and said, “We have to start working on next year’s play TOMORROW!” I wish I could just bottle up the enthusiasm they displayed that night and take it out whenever I need a lift to my spirits. Even though the road to the Drama Festival was bumpy (as it always seems to be), I managed to turn a whole bunch of kids into Festie enthusiasts. Don’t hate me for being clichéd and corny, but there really are things more valuable than winning. When the host school was announced to be moving on to the semifinals, the person that went up to the stage to receive the award was the teacher/director, rather than one of the kids like the other schools had done. I don’t ever want that to be me. I always want to remember that it’s about the kids, about them having a positive experience. Knowing that my students were proud of their work, had learned a lot, and wanted to keep getting better was one of the best feelings I’ve had so far as a teacher. And I’m so grateful for my high school experience for making that possible.

Finding the happy

Hi all. I know I haven't written in quite a while. Believe me, I've been feeling guilty about it. This past month has just been incredibly stressful and full of frustrations, and the events in Connecticut last week have just made everybody even more on edge. I think that sometimes when I'm stressed and upset and feeling lousy about myself, I just tend to retreat into myself a little, only choosing a select few people with whom to share my problems. And part of that has meant not being in a blogging mood. However, I want to make the effort to post more, partly because writing can be such a therapeutic exercise. It's advice I've given my students before, and I know I should follow it. It'll allow me to release my stress, but will also remind me to think about the good things and share them.

One much-needed happy thing that came out of my day today was when I was leaving the school. I had just left some holiday cards in my colleagues' mailboxes, and then I checked my own box. Inside was a card from a student. It says (with corrections made to the grammar, haha):

Dear Ms. ------,

In advisory we are making Christmas cards. I made you a holiday card. I hope you have a wonderful winter break. I'm excited for the Improv Comedy Sketch Club! This year in English class has been by far the best! Academically and overall. I know Hanukkah has already passed, but I still wanted to make you a card because you're the only teacher I like and know that I can write a card to. Anyways, happy holidays! Have a good winter vacation.


Thank you, student, for brightening my day. I appreciate it more than you know.

STOP THE PRESSES: Learning can be fun!

Overheard on the staircase at school: "You're not a banana!"

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The other day, my CP2 class was playing a vocab review game, a combo of pictionary and charades (whichever option the students felt most comfortable with). Some of the students were really getting into it, which was surprising from a group that generally has no enthusiasm whatsoever. One student, who has not done any reading or work in ages, actually made vocab flashcards, and was a big participant in the review game. When we were wrapping the game up so we could move on to doing some reading, one girl said, "Can we keep playing? I know that we're learning, but this is fun!"

WOAH. Somebody call CNN and get Wolf Blitzer to break this shit to the public: Learning can be fun.

Seriously though, that was music to my ears. They were buying into what we were doing, even if a part of their brains told them that doing so was weird. This class has been such a struggle for me, that often I just worry about getting through it each day. But maybe we'll be able to do better than that. Maybe if I keep experimenting a little, we'll have more days like this.

Then yesterday, both of my CP1 classes had a great time doing Socratic circles. This was our first of the year. (For those of you who aren't familiar with Socratic circles, in a nutshell they are formal, student-driven discussions. The students are given the very open-ended questions ahead of time and must prepare notes with ideas, quotes from the text, real-world examples, questions, etc. Then they're split into two groups, and each group takes a turn in the inner circle discussing one of the questions, and I stay out of it as much as humanly possible. The outer circle then gives feedback on how the discussion went.) They need a bit of work on integrating their quotes into the discussion and staying a little more focused on the topic, but overall they did a good job. Some very interesting ideas were brought up, and they did really well with actually having a conversation, building on one another's points and sometimes providing counterarguments. They also did well in the outer circle, providing insightful feedback that will hopefully help them recognize how to improve their own discussion skills.

I told the students that we'll probably do at least one of these per unit. They all quickly voiced their approval, saying, "This was awesome!" Sigh. Such bliss. It was nice enough seeing how into the discussions they were--I even let them go over the original amount of time I had set for the discussions to last--so to know that they weren't engaged in what they were doing simply for the sake of getting a good grade was some seriously delicious icing on the cake. One student pointed out in his outer circle feedback that he noticed there was a lot of passion in the discussion he observed. Seeing that kind of passion is what makes me love this job. Yes, they had prepared notes, but these students did not sound like rehearsed robots saying something purely to impress me. I even heard a couple of kids who almost never utter a peep in class speak up multiple times to defend their ideas, and they didn't just say something simple to get their participation done and over with.

I like Socratic circles because they really challenge students to take ownership of what they're doing. After all, they are the ones running the discussions and giving feedback to one another. At the end of each class, I reminded that that the skills they practiced don't need to be reserved for Socratic circles, but rather can and should spill over to our everyday discussions. I told them that I don't want them to always be looking at me when they speak, but rather I want them to look at each other and really, truly listen to what everyone is saying and actually respond, because that's when the magic happens. And, dare I say, that's when it starts to be fun.

Sunday night procrastination

Ahh, Sunday night. I should be grading papers right now, but I'm choosing instead to "productively procrastinate," aka pretend that blogging makes it okay to not be getting my real work done.

Last week was quite the adventure. No school on Monday and Tuesday thanks to Sandy causing power outages (luckily not at my apartment). Luckily, this meant I had a great opportunity to catch up on some of the work I felt like I was drowning in. Unfortunately, it also means that, if we get a couple snow days, I may end up going to school on my birthday (near the end of June) for the first time ever. It also threw off my plans for my classes a bit, and some things needed to be re-shuffled. However, we're getting back on track now.

Wednesday was Halloween. The English department, being the cool kids that we are, dressed up as various Harry Potter characters (I was Professor McGonagall). We looked pretty great, and the students got a kick out of it; I think it's good to show them that we've got a sense of humor about ourselves. I gave out candy to all my classes as well as the trick-or-treating daycare kids--ohmylord were those little ones ADORABLE. They are my favorite part of Halloween. Since I gave out so much candy during the day, I didn't feel so guilty ignoring my doorbell all night. My apartment is a second floor unit in a house, and there was no way I was running up and down those stairs all night. My roommate and I just grumbled about the doorbell like the crotchety old ladies we are at heart.

Tomorrow we are finally having our first meeting of the year for Drama Club! Oy, this has been SUCH a process trying to sort this whole debacle out. But I'm trying not to focus on that, and instead working on getting excited for the fabulous things we're going to do. This month I have to pick out a one-act play for the Massachusetts High School Drama Festival (if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!). I participated in this for three years back in high school, and it was always such a fantastic experience. It's strange to think that now I'll be participating in a completely different role. I hope the students love it as much as I did.

One of my big goals with the club this year is to make sure that the students have more ways to get involved rather than just acting--I'll get a student to be stage manager, students to help with backstage crew and publicity, etc. I'll also be running an improv/sketch comedy group. It's not my area of expertise, but it'll be a great way to get more kids involved, especially those who want to write. A couple of other teachers will also be putting together a show, possibly a student-written one. Several students who were involved with the Drama Club last year excitedly came to my classroom after school on Friday to do a partial reading of a play they've been writing. It seems to have potential, and it's nice to see how passionate they are about it. I'm hoping we get a lot of students to show up for tomorrow's meeting...we really need a lot more kids to get involved, and hopefully all the new stuff we're trying will help invigorate the program.


And I'll leave you with something to make you chuckle:

Of bibliophiles, Studebaker-lovers, and decorated pumpkins

Happy Hurricane Day, everyone! All the schools are cancelled, and everything in Massachusetts is pretty much coming to a halt--even the MBTA is shutting down at 2pm. So this means I now have time to get some important things done: grade lots of papers and blog. (I could have done some of said grading last night, but chose instead to celebrate the upcoming day off by playing Cards Against Humanity with some teacher friends. I stand by that choice.) And this past weekend was FANTASTIC, so I have plenty of great things to share with you.

On Saturday I went to the Boston Book Festival in Copley Square. It was my first time going, and I am already looking forward to the next one! I didn't get to visit too many of the vendors, but maybe I'll block out some time for that next year. I attended several talks, the first of which was called "The Short Story," with authors Edith Pearlman, Jennifer Haigh, and, one of my favorite authors, Junot Diaz. The discussion was very interesting, and thankfully I'd had the foresight to bring a little notebook in which to record ideas and quotes from the authors throughout the day. A few from this one:

Jennifer Haigh:

• "I write the stories that fascinate me."
• "A sentence in a short story has to travel a very long way."

Junot Diaz:

• Said something about "the multiple realities we all exist in." Don't recall the context, but thought that was a really interesting idea in itself.
• When talking about how some people don't like to read much while they're writing, but he does: "I totally don't give a crap if other people's voices are in my head."
• Talked about how novels can't be perfect, and they reflect our imperfections. Short stories, however, can be perfect, because they are short enough that the writer can hold the whole thing in his/her head and consider each sentence carefully. He says short stories are "strangely inhuman." Also, if you're too controlling, you can't write a novel.
• Mimicking reviewers who criticize him for returning to writing short stories after his previous book was a novel: "I don't understand why he went back to stories after escaping that ghetto."
• Going along with that, he does not like the hierarchy that people project onto different types of writing, how novels are usually more highly regarded than short stories.
• In talking about his character Yunior, he said that, especially in his newest book This Is How You Lose Her, Yunior uses his body to try to avoid dealing with the problems in his life. I'll need to pay more attention to this as I continue reading it.
• Also, when the authors were asked how they locate themselves in time and space in terms of their identities as writers, Diaz, who is a Dominican immigrant, said it's hard to categorize yourself when part of a 10 million person diaspora. I guess that, as a Jewish person, I found this to be a very relatable idea.

After the talk, the authors went outside to the Brookline Booksmith's tent (they are one of my favorite bookstores) to sign books. While the two women sat behind a table, Diaz stood in front of it, the better to interact with the long line of people waiting to meet him. He was so kind and gracious and signed all three of my books, plus took a picture with me. I was utterly starstruck. It was wonderful to see that he didn't look like a guy who was just there to sell a few books, but rather really cared about having that personal connection with the people who cherish his work.

 The authors in the beautiful Trinity Church.

One of my signed books!

After that, I met up with a couple of colleagues as we headed over to see "Great Brits and Books." However, we were disappointed to discover it had already filled up. So instead we headed over to "Serious Satire." I'd never heard of the authors before--Lizz Winstead and Kevin Bleyer, both formerly of "The Daily Show," and Baratunde Thurston of The Onion--but I quickly became a big fan of all three. They were absolutely hysterical, and I now want to buy all of their books! The end of the talk did get a bit too political, perhaps because we're all just so caught up in the circus of the upcoming election, but overall our Plan B turned out to be excellent.

Some gems from this one:

• Kevin Bleyer:
• After sharing this quote from Benjamin Franklin: "I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them," he said, "He sounds like a Republican endorsing Mitt Romney."
• "Is there ever a hero of a joke?"
• Thurston:
• "Presidents are supposed to suck. They're designed to disappoint you."
• Talking about all the problems in our country: "Honey Boo-boo? We did that!"
• On President Bush: "He was good for shitty comedy writers."
• Winstead (my favorite of the group):
• When talking about getting gifts like toy stoves and life-like baby dolls: "Anything my mother was sobbing her life over, I seemed to get as Christmas gifts."
• "The media is now a character in our world." (So true! I though this point was spot-on, and I want to find a way to bring that up with my students.)

I then ventured over the "Graphic Novels," as I've used a few as supplemental materials in my teaching, and my friend Ms. K is a big fan of them. However, this talk was a biiiig disappointment. The first person had no stage presence and was super awkward. Her story/comic that she shared with us was cool, but she didn't discuss her process, her thoughts on this form of storytelling, etc.--she just read the story. And one of the guys was dull and weird all at the same time, and I finally just had to leave. I headed over to "Jewish Jocks," as one of the authors there wrote a book I really like, called How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization. The demographic there was largely older Jewish people, so I felt a bit out of place. But I found out I was sitting next to the wife of Larry Summers, the president of Harvard. We were chatting about how the upcoming storm would give us more time to grade papers, and she asked where I teach, and when I asked her the same question, she responded with Harvard. Then Summers came over, as he was one of the panelists, and when she referred to him as "sweetheart" and wished him luck, I put 2 and 2 together. A woman in front of us asked her what they thought of him being portrayed in a movie ("The Social Network"), and she said they thought it was very funny.

Quotes from the panelists and moderator:

• Moderator: "We're going to be considering a book called Jewish Jocks, and we're off to a good start because no one laughed."
• After Steven Pinker's somewhat rambling talk on Red Auerbach, Franklin Foer jokingly said that they'd told him, "We're going to give you three minutes to link Red Auerbach with genocide. GO."
• "I didn't think Sandy Koufax had his priorities straight."--Summers, on Koufax's decision to not pitch in the World Series on Yom Kippur.

After this fun and thought-provoking day, my colleagues and I grabbed some dinner and planned out an apocalyptic novel, starring us, on a napkin. All in a day's work.


If you're still with me, I'll try to keep the rest of my update quick. Sunday was Pumpkin/Studebaker Day, a tradition in my family. Since I was a kid, we've been going to the Studebaker show at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, as my uncle almost always goes and enters one of his cars. Unfortunately, with the grey weather, he decided not to take the car out this year, and many other people made the same decision. So my dad and I just took a little walk around the park, as we always do (it is gorgeous there in the fall, and I highly recommend that you visit if you ever have a chance!), and then took our usual tour of the museum, which used to be the Anderson family's carriage house. After taking a quick look at the few cars that came, we headed over to Allandale Farm, another important part of our tradition, and picked out a few pumpkins along with some yummy grocery items (we found something called falafel chips--they intrigued me, so I had to buy them. Must try today....). I decorated my pumpkins with glitter and melted crayons, an idea I found on Pinterest.

 The Larz Anderson Auto Museum

 The car with the toilet is always everyone's favorite.

 bicycle

 A beautiful Packard.                                                                                   Now that's a trunk!

Another week in the life of a teacher.

Quotes of note:

• A former student was chatting with me, asking me how things are going, and then she inquired, "How's the synagogue?"
• Played some music during class while the kids were making flashcards, and Hanson's "Mmmbop" came on. A girl asked, "Is this the Jackson 5?" While I'm thrilled she's heard of the Jackson 5, I still felt a little piece of my soul wither away. And I told her this song was popular when I was a kid, and she asked, "When were you a kid?" like I was from the Stone Age or something.

Caught my CP1 classes trying to trick me into thinking they'd done their homework yesterday. Gotta love making the homework question about something that happens in the last two pages of the chapter. When almost every response was irrelevant to the question, I just kept asking each one, "Did you read the WHOLE chapter?" I was not pleased with them, to say the least. Luckily though, they have overall been doing a good job with this book, and today was a much more productive day.

I'm so excited to go to the Boston Book Festival this weekend! I've never been, but it sounds fantastic, and a few of my English teacher peeps are going as well. I'm planning on going to four lectures: "The Short Story," where one of my favorite authors, Junot Diaz, will be speaking (I am ridiculously excited about the prospect of meeting him and getting my books signed), "Great Brits and Books," where I'll get to see Maria Tatar, "Graphic Novels," and "Jewish Jocks," where Franklin Foer, author of How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization. I am so ready to geek out all day long, and I'll be sure to post and update afterwards.

I also wanted to share with you a letter that I read after seeing it shared on Facebook. I read it with my advisory today, and plan on talking about it with my other classes next week. It is an open letter to Ann Coulter, who, during the last presidential debate, referred to President Obama as a "retard." The letter, which you can read here, is a beautifully written piece by a man with Down syndrome who is a Special Olympian. He reminded the ever-classless (and that's me using every ounce of restraint that I posses) Ms. Coulter that such words should not be used as insults, that comparing people to individuals like him, who have to overcome so much and yet still "see life as a wonderful gift....should be considered a badge of honor." As an English teacher, I strive to teach my students about the power of words. Often we talk about that in a positive light, trying to get them to understand that with great communication skills paired with powerful ideas, they can rock the world. But it is important to also remember just how powerful words can be in hurting and degrading others. I talked to my students about this, reminding them that they have no idea how hurtful it can be when people use words like "retarded" and "gay" as insults and turn them into synonyms for "stupid" and "wrong." I asked them to be more conscious of their language, and to speak up when others use this language. I told them that I have asked people, including friends, not to speak that way. Not in a confrontational or angry way, but in a gentle manner that still conveyed that I'm not okay with what they said. Hopefully that message gets through to some of them, because it's important to start a ripple effect in trying to solve these types of issues.

What's Goin' On?

Moment of the week:
I had a writing prompt on the board for my sophomores, which included FDR's quote, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." When I asked one of the classes who said this, a student responded, "Dumbledore?"

And soon after that, the students saw an example of fear itself when a girl informed me that there was a gigantic spider right next to my head. I leapt off my stool, darted behind my desk, and nearly hyperventilated while a kid killed it for me. (At least he didn't eat it, like the kid I blogged about last year.....)



The last couple weeks have had some great moments, and also some struggles and frustrations. I'm tired and stressed right now (so glad I'm going to have a nice, home-cooked meal with my folks tonight), so I'm just going to bullet point to give you some of the highlights:

• My CP1 sophomores are pretty into Lord of the Flies. I feel like I'm doing a much better job of framing our discussions this year. When we started the book, I gave them our essential questions, along with the question that is guiding us for the entire year ("What drives us and makes us who we are?"). I'm really making sure to show how these questions and concepts relate to the real world, and so they generally have lots of ideas that they are eager to share. And most of them, even if they don't always answer the homework questions, are actually reading. I'm also trying to keep in mind that I don't have to talk about every single thing that happens in the book, but rather I just need to keep focused on our central themes and questions in order to avoid an information overload, as well as make our discussions more meaningful.
• My senior classes, on the other hand, have been fairly disappointing. They hate participating, they aren't good about doing their work, and they are just generally unenthusiastic. I'm sure part of it is that this course (all the senior classes are now 1/2 year electives) is new to me, and I'm still not totally comfortable with it, so that's probably coming through a bit. But there also just seems to be this laziness and apathy with a lot of them....I don't know if, because it's called an elective, that they think that it's not "real" English class, if they're uncomfortable having all of the levels mixed together, or if the senioritis is already in full swing, but already I have a lot of kids who are failing. And unlike in the past, they don't have the full year to pull themselves out of the hole. I've got to make phone calls to parents this week, and maybe start telling kids that they are required to stay after with me in the next week in order to come up with a game plan for getting their grades up.
• I have been trying a couple cool things with this elective (called "Criminal Minds in Literature"). As we've been doing Sherlock Holmes, I had them watch an episode of BBC's modern "Sherlock," which they responded quite well to, showed an example of a graphic novel version of one of the stories and had them create their own scenes, and also had them read a cool article on possible medical diagnoses for Holmes (Asperger's and bipolar disorder) in order to appeal to students who are more drawn to the sciences and psychology.
• One of my sophomores stayed after the other day for extra help. I didn't actually help him with an assignment, however. Basically, during the time he was here, he worked on organizing his binder, and the two of us talked about reading strategies he can employ, and talked about a game plan for improving his grades. Sometimes, it seems that even if you're not telling a kid something you haven't told all of them before, just talking something over step by step with them and making it all seem manageable can really help them reframe their mindset.
• And to end on a funny note: One of my former students asked me last week if I'd like to buy a wreath to help support the National Honor Society. Since I'm Jewish, I reminded him that I am not his target customer....

The good, the bad, and the daunting

Today, my nightmare class was finally good! For context, let me just say that this group has been making me want to jump out a window. It's my CP2 (lower level) class, and those classes are tough to begin with, but it's not just that a lot of these kids aren't doing their work. Several of them are also just plain nasty. Add that to the fact that they can't seem to stop talking, and by the end of class my headache is registering 8 on the Richter Scale.

But today was different. Almost every kid turned in an essay (yes, a lot of them seem to be too short, and I don't think any of them really followed the MLA formatting guide I went over and reminded them about 5 times, but baby steps, people, baby steps...), and when it was time for them to work on answering some questions on the reading we finished yesterday, they actually worked, and did so quietly. Hallelujah! A bunch of them even shared their responses when it was time for discussion. I made sure to say "good job" a couple times and encourage them to keep up the good work.

I was also pleasantly surprised when one kid approached me after class and apologized for how rude he's been to me. This was definitely a change from yesterday when I told him that I had written him up for his disruptive and rude behavior on Monday, and had emailed his parents as well. He was pretty angry with me and acted like he couldn't conceive of what in the world he could have done wrong. I don't know if the apology was something his parents told him to do, but he seemed pretty sincere (and usually every word that comes out of his mouth is dripping with snark and sarcasm...as if he thinks I don't pick up on that stuff. Honey, I majored in Sarcasm in college. Don't even.). I reminded him that I'm not out to get him, not trying to attack him, but that I have been frustrated with his behavior, and said that I hope we can use this as a turning point and make the rest of the year positive. We'll see how that goes.


In other news, today was my first day of grad school, and I'm already overwhelmed. I'm taking a hybrid course, so luckily I only have to go there once a week for a couple hours, and then the rest is on my own and online. Unluckily, I had a faculty meeting after school today, and even though I ducked out a couple minutes early, traffic sucked and caused me to be about 15 minutes late. I was a flustered mess when I finally arrived. I did not want to be that person on the first day, but alas, I was. At least the professor wasn't upset with me.

We went over the syllabus today, and learned that we have to choose a work of literature to do a research paper on, and do an annotated bibliography with 40 entries. GAHH. Yet the paper is only ten pages and only needs to make reference to four sources.....so that's kind of an annoying disconnect. I understand the need to be thorough in the research, but 40? Oy. But I talked to a couple of the other students after the class, and they revealed they were overwhelmed too, so at least misery's got company. Also, the professor talked about how she doesn't let people out early...but then she let us out 20 minutes late. I was just thinking listen, it's past 6:00, I have a drive ahead of me, I'm hungry, I haven't had time to pee all day, and I have work to do and sleep to attempt to get. SHUT UP. This is definitely going to be an interesting semester, trying to balance being both a teacher and a student. I just hope I come out of it in one piece and not too terribly sleep-deprived.