"F"rustrated

I, as well as the other English teachers in our humble hallway, have gone into state-testing mode. We've been drilling and drilling the students for months now.


"What's a gerund?!? Why, it's only a noun pretending to be a verb in 'ing' form and often serving as either the subject or direct object!"

"How do you identify a metaphor, you say? Well, just see if two unlike things are being compared to one another without the use of words such as 'like' and 'as'!"

"When do you know for sure if a sentence is complete? Check for subjects and verbs! Then check for clauses and phrases!"

I'm sure it's driving the students crazy, but it's one of those evils from which core subjects cannot escape. Not to mention the fact that some of these things are actually helpful in the future. Anyone writing a resume soon? Editing a scholarship application? Reading a really good book? Then you might want to know how to apply some of these things I'm supposedly "wasting your time" with. Sorry to blow up...it;s just that I assigned a simple two-page rough draft over the weekend (with twenty minutes on Friday to begin) to 115 students, and ten turned something in. That's less than 10%. How are we going to get through research papers when they won't even do a simple rough draft? I'm frustrated and upset and tired and desperately in need of Spring Break.

I had a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner. My family went up to the lake and feasted on turkey, mashed potatoes with garlic, cornbread dressing, green beans with bacon, mexican cornbread muffins, and EIGHT DIFFERENT TYPES OF PIE!!!

The break, however fleeting, was certainly welcome. I am absolutely exhausted at this point, and I am scared to death that I am somehow transferring this exhaustion to my classroom. Am I giving them enough of myself? Am I assigning enough work? Am I challenging them? The reality is that the students are working hard, and hopefully they are learning something important about themselves (and maybe a little something about English, too).

Today a couple of my students said I reminded them of Hilary Swank in Freedom Writers. I almost cried.

Rough Drafts

My students are working on the rough drafts of their persuasive essays right now. They've each chosen a topic and (supposedly) researched the idea to some extent. We talked about the persuasive appeals used by Aristotle - ethos, pathos, and logos - and looked at some examples in newspapers, magazines, etc. The topics ranged dramatically: off-campus lunches, four-day school week, U.S. dependency on foreign oil, incest, teen pregnancy, religious tolerance...

Some of the students are asking if they can take their arguments to the school board. I am thrilled that they want to take the assignment beyond the classroom, but at the same time I don't want their hopes to be destroyed when the administration only gives a passing glance to their hard work. Perhaps this would also be an appropriate time to teach the value of personal satisfaction. It's the act of creating that matters, not the opinions of others.

My Day

Today marks the end of the first quarter. I managed to get all my grades uploaded last night, so this weekend is FREE!!! That means Monday morning will smell of clean laundry, freshly vacuumed carpet, and baked apple muffins. Yay!

Next week we will embark on a tour of persuasive essays, complete with transcripts of presidential speeches and political cartoons. I found this really cool site with tons of lessons on cartoons and literature, so I'm excited to see how the kids react...






Here's an outline of my day as a teacher:

6:00 - my cell phone/alarm clock goes off
6:03 - turn on the coffee pot
6:04 - take a shower
6:12 - get dressed
7:00 - eat breakfast
7:12 - leave for school
7:20 - arrive at school, sign in at the workroom, and head up to class
8:00-9:40 - English classes
9:45-10:30 - run around making copies and grading work during planning period
10:30-12:10 - classes
12:15-12:40 - twenty-five whole minutes to eat lunch!!!
12:45-3:10 - classes
3:15 - grade, check mail, clean chalkboard, etc.
5:00 - leave school with more work
5:07 - open the front door, drop my bags, and run to the bathroom (high school bathrooms...I don't think so)
5:09 - change clothes, turn on the tv, start preparing for tomorrow
7:30 - find something to eat for dinner (usually a can of soup and some crackers)
7:40 - eat dinner while grading/checking e-mail/researching for tomorrow's lesson
9:30 - fall into bed, grab a book
10:15 - asleep

Week Seven

It's week seven here at my school. Everyone walks by chanting, "Can you believe it? Time flies so fast!!!" while I'm secretly thinking ONLY WEEK SEVEN?!?!

After our initial assessments, it's clear my students need some serious help with writing. Even though William Faulkner made stream-of-consciousness famous in the 1930s, kids today are making it infamous with the words "like," "so," "then," and "cuz" strung along the lines of paper without any hint of punctuation. I know that they have amazing ideas, and that they are capable of articulation; however, it will be a definite challenge to bring those ideas to life without stifling the students' enthusiasm.

Disappointment Runs Deep

The assignment was posted three weeks ago. It's on the class website and whiteboard. I reminded students every day. The requirement? Write four mini-essays (one page each) about a play we're reading - one for each section. Relate the play to yourself, your friends, or your family. I was trying to work on the "connect students to literature through personal comparisons with the text" element of the class.

And my heart literally breaks as I sift through the "essays." In my 6th period class, 6 out of 23 students did the assignment. Only 4 of those students did the entire assignment.

What am I suppose to do?!?!?!? I am trying so hard to reach these kids, to open them up to the idea that literature is a reflection of their own lives. Within the pages of books, should we choose to open them, are examples of find adultery, murder, anger, jealousy, rebellion, love, heartbreak, friendship, adventure, the search for identity...everything teenagers are going through right now!!!

I stopped one lovely little princess after class and asked her if she was worried about passing this class (after explaining the vocabulary test she failed and the essay assignment she didn't do). Her response: "Honestly, no."

What do I do?

I don't understand

This is a direct quote from at least four of my students this week:
"Those vocabulary words you gave us...where do we find the definitions?"

You know our education system is failing when 17-year-olds do not know where to find a definition. What's that sound? It must be Noah Webster rolling over in his grave. When I told students to find the definition on their own, the highest grade in ALL SIX ENGLISH CLASSES was 8/15. When I provided the exact definitions I would test them on (in the form of a MATCHING TEST), the grades were a little better, but I still had about 50% of the students with an F. Seriously? How difficult can it be to remember fifteen words?

Things aren't going much better in the attitude department. I actually had a student stand right outside my open classroom door and discuss how much she hated me and my class. So that afternoon I called the mom. She was at least kinder than the daughter, but when I said I was trying to engage her daughter in English, she said, "good luck with that." First of all, the phone call itself was an enormous step for me. I have anxiety attacks about calling parents. I am so afraid of parents that I prepare for the parent/teacher conferences about a month in advance. I pray for as few parents as possible. Maybe it's because my own mother actually took me out of school in 6th grade because I wasn't chosen as an usher for the middle school graduation. She was down at the school for many days debating the complete lack of justice in the selection process for ushering. USHERING. Now that I think about it, this may also be why I have an intense fear of graduation ceremonies.