Why Should I?

We had an unscheduled evacuation of the building this morning. It was during homeroom, so everyone knew something was amiss, a drill at that time is unheard of. Our suspicions were only confirmed as the students streamed past our principal who was only just then heading inside, late for school. Fortunately, it was a lovely morning, a bit chilly, but the sun was rising over our school, and it shone on us as we waited shivering in our little lines.

I listened for the sound of sirens; in the event of an unplanned alarm the fire department must clear the building before we can re-enter. The trucks were a long time coming, and they hadn't arrived yet when the students began to get restless. We are supposed to remain silent throughout any emergency procedure, but there was quite a bit of chatter. Some teachers ignored it, some allowed it, others tried to maintain quiet.

I was one of the shushers. My students knew what I expected of them, but they tried to convince me otherwise, pantomiming their requests to sit down, pointing out other kids and even adults who were talking. I  shrugged unsympathetically at the scofflaws, regarding my own little group with a critical eye.

I have ten pretty squirrely kids in my homeroom, but I know they can stand quietly for ten minutes, and I wanted to prove it to them. "I'll give a lollipop to anyone who can stay silent until we get back to the room," I told them, and all of a sudden it wasn't hard at all to wait wordlessly in the warming air.

I'm So Adjective I Verb Nouns

We're coming down to the wire on the fiction pieces my students are writing. Almost all of them have submitted a typed second draft, and I'm making my way through them, working as editor. Most kids will hand in final drafts tomorrow.

Part of our class always involves looking at their independent reading to see what they can learn as writers. Last week we looked at setting, this week the focus is on verbs. Most of the kids have written tales of action, all have used dialog. Yesterday they copied a passage from their book and highlighted the verbs, discussing in small groups how the authors chose these verbs to help develop not only the plot, but also character and mood.

Today they used the word processor's highlighting tool to focus on their own verbs, then took a quick gallery walk around the room to see what action-packed vocabulary their classmates had chosen. When they returned to their seats, we made a list of the most notable verbs they had collected in their walk-about, and I showed them how to use the thesaurus tool to expand their choices. "Can we change our verbs now?" someone in every class asked eagerly.

I'm so nice, I let them.

Honk If You Like the Health Care Bill

Honk twice if you're worried about reconciliation.

I live inside the Beltway. 'nuff said?

Oh, and I picked Kansas to win in my NCAA bracket.

What I Learned Today

For the past year or so, part of my Sunday morning routine is to read the NY Times Book Review and then log onto my public library account and put anything I've found to be of interest on hold. As soon as it's available, I receive an email, and I can pick it up at the branch closest to my house. This is a convenient arrangement for me; the library is within walking distance, it is also next door to the grocery store and right on my way home from work. I can pick up and return my books and never go out of my way, thus significantly decreasing my book budget.

This morning, however, I found an even more convenient way to preview the books that I found interesting, and I owe it all to Ruth at Two Writing Teachers. I read one of her SOL stories this week that mentioned the free Kindle app for i-Phone. When the hold list at the library was longer than I hoped for the book Secret Son by Laila Lalami, I downloaded the app, and within seconds was reading the first chapter of the book, without having spent a cent. I liked it, but I decided to get the audio version for our road trip to Atlanta next weekend (after a free preview of that, too, of course).

I confess to being very skeptical about the Kindle. A few weeks ago, one of the teachers on my team told us how much she loved hers, but I still had my doubts. Don't get me wrong, like most English teachers, I struggle with book clutter, and I also abhor the waste which is an inevitable side-effect of our culture's current rampant consumerism, but I just didn't believe an electronic device could replicate the experience of reading a book.

Today I am a convert-- even on my i-Phone, reading the electronic version of a book feels a lot like reading the traditional version. It's weird, but it's true. This is my testimony.

Vocabulary Lesson

I have the Urban Dictionary word of the day gadget on my Google home page. I think of it as kind of a daily anecdotal look at the evolution of our language, and despite the occasional crassness, the words are often clever and entertaining, and usually informative. (Confession: I'm not very hip.) Who knew, for example, that the child of a baby boomer is an echo boomer, or that "That's crazy" is the perfect response when you haven't really been listening?  (Try it-- it works.) Oh, and I've been working on my undercover six-pack, too.

Anyway, a few days ago, the word was singletasker, and evidently, this term is mostly used ironically. Like if I say, I'm going to try and focus on getting these papers graded, instead of answering my colleagues' questions, checking my e-mail, supervising study hall, planning tomorrow's lesson, and posting my status on facebook.

Then the proper response to me would be, You're such a singletasker!

To which I might reply, I'd answer you, but that would require multitasking.

I laughed when I read the explanation; like many in our profession, I pride myself on my ability to multitask, and I'm familiar with current research that suggests that kids today are not only able to multitask but may function better in such an environment. Even so, there's a lot to be said about quiet time to focus on a single thing, and I'm aware it's an ability I don't often exercise.

Hmm... that's crazy.

I Love the 00's-- Quidditch Edition

As an advocate of self-selected literature for my students, I've ridden the Harry Potter wave for years. Sure, I knew it was losing momentum, but even so, I'm surprised to find myself up here in the dunes, totally high and dry. Seeing all those volumes of The Series of Unfortunate Events  languishing on my shelf where once I could barely keep them should have tipped me off, but I must have been distracted by Percy Jackson and Maximum Ride, and so I never saw this coming.

I realized recently that most sixth graders have not read the whole Harry Potter series. Upon reflection, it's not really that surprising; the majority of them were not even born when the first book was published. With few exceptions, even the most avid and accomplished readers among my students are tepid about the series. "It just doesn't interest me that much," a student told me today.

Potter is widely believed to be a classic-- frequently mentioned in the same breath as Tolkein's trilogy of the ring and Narnia. Are my current students anomalies, then? Are they experiencing a backlash from the Potter overload of the last ten years? Or could it be that Harry Potter was really nothing more than a flash in the pan destined to fade away until it's resurrected in some remember when retrospective of the early years of this century?

Immeasurable Objectives

Today at the swim meet, one of my former students anxiously approached me between events."Did you see where I returned your copy of Catching Fire to the shelf by your desk?" she wanted to know. I assured her that I knew right where it was, and I did, because I could visualize it there once she mentioned it. Truth be told, I do have a check-out system for the books in my classroom library, but I'm not very vigilant about enforcing it. It would take a chunk of class time and some dedicated punitive energy (two things in short supply) to regularly chase everyone down for my unreturned books. In the end, I would rather have books in the kids' hands than not, and so my collection takes a bit of a hit each year. Even so, I add to it regularly, the cost out of my own pocket-- I just think that if my students are excited about a book, they should be able to read it.

"Do you know what books your class might like?" she continued. "I just finished Airhead by Meg Cabot--" She stopped and looked at me suspiciously. "Have you read it? Do you have it already?" I laughed and told her no, so she gave a brief overview of the premise of the series. One of my current students stood at our elbows listening with interest. She and I made eye contact, and she nodded, as if to say, Oh yeah, we would totally love that, so I whipped out my phone and texted a quick memo to myself. (Both girls were duly impressed.)

Every year my main objective is to take the 80-odd sixth graders I will teach and to build a community of literacy. I want to be sure that they leave my class not only with the minimum requirements mandated by state and country, but also with the desire to continue practicing and improving the skills they need to be critical readers and effective writers.  My role is to be a resource and a support as they pursue this important goal, and in light of that , as willing as I am to do whatever I can to make books available to my students, it's a hundred times more gratifying to have them come back and show that they still feel a connection to our community.