S is for Same Book as Last Time

In my reading class we play a little game on Fridays where students have time to read the book of their choice and then write three clues about it. Afterwards hey have five minutes to interview as many other students about the books they are reading. Then we have a contest where the clues are read and a student's name is drawn at random. Will he or she be able to identify the book, or will he or she be forced to confess, as one student did so frequently last year that it has become a trademark of the game, "My mind is a blank!"

Winners get candy; there is also incentive to pay close attention because, time-permitting, we go through the clues again, and anyone who doesn't get called will get a chance in the second round. It's a fun way to have the students identify three important traits of their books and to do book talks.

I always throw a card with my current book as well, but the last couple of months have been a little predictable in that respect. I have come up with a slew of clues about Alexander Hamilton, and used my new found knowledge as a springboard for several short conversations, but this afternoon I reached the part in the many hundred paged text where Hamilton accepted Aaron Burr's challenge to a duel of honor, was mortally wounded, and died.

At Burr's shot, I clapped my forehead in sorrow and a little self-contempt. Why did I spend so much time with this guy when I knew what he was going to do? I wondered. And what am I going to listen to next? Because even though I didn't like the ending? I would definitely do it all again.

Life Lesson: "A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous." ~Alexander Hamilton

T is for There are Two Ways to Look at Anything

Even though the torrential rain and unseasonably chilly temperatures over the last couple of weeks kept me from working in my garden, today when I finally got out there in those seventy perfectly sunny degrees, because the ground was still so damp, the weeds slipped free like children from their jackets on a warm day.

In less than two hours, 6 bags were filled, the plot was cleared, and we were heading home with the sunroof open and the radio blasting, and all because of the rain!

Life Lesson:  “Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows.” ~Helen Keller

U is for Under the Weather

In my house, there are three words that you are never allowed to say, and they are:

I

Am

Sick.

Why? Well, it's because I believe in the power of words, and I don't think anyone should use the verb "to be" for anything other than the best part of themselves. I am a teacher? Yes! I am a wife, daughter, sister, aunt? You betcha. But even if I lose, I'm not a loser, and if I feel tired or bored, there's more to me than just being tired or bored. 

And so when we have a little scratch in our throats, or a stomach ache, or anything else, around here we don't define ourselves by that, we simply describe our symptoms, say something like, I don't feel good, and look forward to a better day tomorrow.

Life Lesson: “You gwyne to have considerable trouble in yo' life, en considerable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyne to git well agin.”~Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

V is for Vth Grade

One of the poetry challenges last month was to write six stanzas in the style of Wallace Stevens' poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. Every student who tried it did a terrific job-- it was some of the most imaginative and descriptive poetry of the month. One part of the directions was a little confusing to some, however. "Excuse me, Ms. S." one student said quietly. "I don't really get Roman numerals." He was referring to the way Stevens numbers his stanzas of course.

I learned Roman numerals a long time ago in 5th grade. The basics seemed easy enough. I equaled 1, and then it was hash marks until four. The word 'five' has a 'V' in it, four is one before five, and six is one after five, and so on. Ten and X? There was no trick to help with that, but once you knew it, you were fine.

I would have been totally lost when it came to the bigger numbers if my teacher hadn't taught us a phrase to remember them by: Little Cats Drink Milk. 'L' is 50, 'C' 100, 'D' 500, and 'M' is 1000. With that knowledge, I could write or decipher any Roman numeral you gave me. (It also helped that they always showed the copyright date at the end of movies and TV shows in Roman numerals.)

Once I showed that student the pattern, he too, was able to do it without any problem, and he was free to write a great poem.

Life Lesson: "I do not know which to prefer,/ The beauty of inflections/ Or the beauty of innuendoes" ~Wallace Stevens

W is for What if?

If there's one thing that drives any writing teacher crazy, it's when you give the students a prompt to write about, such as write about a time you were afraid, or write about someone you admire, or write about an unforgettable moment, and inevitably someone raises a hand and asks, "What if I never had that happen?"

Really? Really?

If students can't answer a question on a math assignment, do they need to ask what will happen? They'll get that one wrong. If they can't write about an atom or an amendment to the constitution in science or social studies, then their grade will be lower on that assignment. So why do we think that writing about our experiences is any different?

Part of being an effective writer is being able to find something to write about. Is it hard? Yep.  But as a teacher, I will never excuse a student from trying. (I will help, though!)

Life Lesson: "This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It's that easy, and that hard." ~Neil Gaiman

X is for eX-tra Sensory Perception (and X-ray)

The first x-ray I ever had was in 7th grade. The date was Friday, January 3, a day that I strongly believed that

I.

should.

not.

be.

in school.

And yet, there I was on the second day of a two-day school week, RIGHT AFTER WINTER BREAK!'

"Why can't they just give us two more days, which would be four more days, of vacation?" I asked my mother on New Year's Day. 

"You have to go back sometime," she said, "why not tomorrow?"

"Because it's dumb!" I answered. "I really don't want to go!"

The whole conversation was silly, because I really did like school-- I guess I just liked vacation better. That night I had a dream that I broke my arm. When I told my mother, she said I still had to go to school.

As far as I remember, the first day back was fine, but on the second day, we were playing Steal the Bacon Basketball in PE and when my number was called, instead of grabbing the ball, dribbling down the court, and scoring before my opponent, I fell in front of everybody and took the walk of shame back to the line after the other kid made the basket.

It was then I noticed how strange my arm looked, U-shaped, almost like the pipe under the sink, and how much it hurt, too. When I showed my gym teacher his eyes grew wide and he looked like he might barf.

"Let's get you to the nurse!" he said.

A couple of hours later I was getting that x-ray, and soon after, a cast all the way past my elbow.

"I told you I shouldn't go to school this week!" I told my mom.

Life Lesson: “Knowing too much of your future is never a good thing.” ~Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

Y is for Yellow

When I was little my favorite color was yellow, and even today, if you ask me what color I prefer, I'll say yellow, but I'm not sure how true that is anymore. For example I rarely wear anything yellow, and although my very first car was a yellow Volkswagen Rabbit, I would never buy a yellow car now. It's true that some walls in my house are yellow, but we chose that because it was light and it went with the brown, green, and red of our furniture.

Why do people even have favorite colors, anyway? A quick Google search will give you a couple of psychology articles and some even more fun personality tests along the lines of What does your favorite color tell about you? I looked at yellow, of course, and found that those who prefer it (statistically less than 5% of the population) are happy idealists who are underestimated far too often."People who love yellow sometimes come off as whacky or aloof, but that's just because the moody folks are straight-up jealous."

Maybe that's me, but just to be sure, I looked at some of the other colors I like. Blue folks are calm and cool like the ocean, green overvalue money (but why not nature?), and those who favor black are moody and sophisticated. And in case you are interested? Red is bold, orange is a drama queen, purple is mystical, gray can't decide, pink is naive, white is innocent (what else?), and brown is simple and comfortable.

They all sound pretty reasonable... now I know why I don't have a favorite color!

Life Lesson: "Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud." ~Maya Angelou