Countdown
Twenty school days left. Three of those will be for testing, and one of them will be May Day, which is a big old hurrah that we're giving the kids the day after testing is done. There will pretty much be no more teaching required once testing is over. I have no idea what I'll do with them for the three or four school days that remain after that. Perhaps we'll eat my world famous brownies and have a poetry cafe like we did before Christmas. They've been asking me to make brownies again, so I'm going to do that the last week. Maybe I'll get them to write what they plan to do this summer and let them read that to each other. It would be nice to take them outside some. Maybe we can sit on the patio and read. Hopefully we'll finish the books we're reading-- Living Up the Street by Gary Soto for one group and Orphan Train Rider : One Boy's True Story by Andrea Warren for another.
Orphan Train Rider is holding their attention better than I imagined it would. I've been surprised to find that nonfiction tends to fascinate them more than fiction. I think it's because fictional books tend to take a little longer to get into the meat of what's going on, and they get bored before they make it through the setup stuff. (That's an official literary term, by the way. Setup stuff.) With nonfiction it usually jumps right in. Plus they really like to talk about people more than anything else, so Orphan Train Rider hits the spot. It also gives me the chance to fill their brains with little non-English related nuggets of knowledge. Even if you're not an 8th grader with an aversion to reading, you should read it. It's very interesting; I'm learning all kinds of things I didn't know.
The other group likes Living Up the Street because it contains story after story about how these mean ass little Mexican children tortured each other, their neighbors, and generally raised hell in their working class neighborhood. It's set in the 1950's, so I have to explain some things to my PlayStation addict students, but I think they can relate to the pure meanness of the characters. (Actually, it's more nonfiction. Soto's autobiographical narratives of mean things he and his siblings did as children.) We're only about half way through this one.
They brought me a new kid Friday. Can you believe that? A new kid with three weeks of school left. Why BOTHER?? I got another one just a week or two ago, but she was here before but disappeared after Christmas. She's in foster care, and they constantly move those kids around. The other new kid isn't in foster care-- or at least nobody's told me so yet. I think he's a good kid. Sometimes they seem that way when they first arrive, but their true colors come out as soon as they get comfortable.
Twenty school days.
Orphan Train Rider is holding their attention better than I imagined it would. I've been surprised to find that nonfiction tends to fascinate them more than fiction. I think it's because fictional books tend to take a little longer to get into the meat of what's going on, and they get bored before they make it through the setup stuff. (That's an official literary term, by the way. Setup stuff.) With nonfiction it usually jumps right in. Plus they really like to talk about people more than anything else, so Orphan Train Rider hits the spot. It also gives me the chance to fill their brains with little non-English related nuggets of knowledge. Even if you're not an 8th grader with an aversion to reading, you should read it. It's very interesting; I'm learning all kinds of things I didn't know.
The other group likes Living Up the Street because it contains story after story about how these mean ass little Mexican children tortured each other, their neighbors, and generally raised hell in their working class neighborhood. It's set in the 1950's, so I have to explain some things to my PlayStation addict students, but I think they can relate to the pure meanness of the characters. (Actually, it's more nonfiction. Soto's autobiographical narratives of mean things he and his siblings did as children.) We're only about half way through this one.
They brought me a new kid Friday. Can you believe that? A new kid with three weeks of school left. Why BOTHER?? I got another one just a week or two ago, but she was here before but disappeared after Christmas. She's in foster care, and they constantly move those kids around. The other new kid isn't in foster care-- or at least nobody's told me so yet. I think he's a good kid. Sometimes they seem that way when they first arrive, but their true colors come out as soon as they get comfortable.
Twenty school days.
