Hiiiii people :)
Sorry I’ve been such a slacker with blogging this past week. I’ll give you a quick run-down instead of a lengthy, long-winded post- you’re most welcome.
On Monday, I assigned a project to English 3 and English 2- Soundtrack of Your Life. For those who haven’t heard of it, I think LitTunes came up with it, and I adapted it to fit the needs of my students. English 3 started Puritan Lit on Monday with “To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet (they hated it and I had a haaard time making it fun and interesting). We started The Crucible on Tuesday. Yes, it’s unorthodox and really early in the semester to start it, but I’m using it to teach Puritan life and values. Later on, we’ll revisit it and examine McCarthyism as it relates to the 50’s. I’m using all of the 60 second recaps to hook the students on the play, and so far it has worked perfectly.
They love the idea of these crazy girls that were their age and everyone, boys and girls, wanted to read the part of Abigail. In both English 3 classes, every student has a reading part and every student volunteered to read. We read the play in class on Tuesday and Thursday and spent Wednesday and Friday in the computer lab so the students could work on and type their essays for the soundtrack project. We also did 6 word memoirs on Thursday. I found out that one of my students is openly a drug dealer and a thief. So, I’ll have to keep an eye on that one.
Also, Tuesday was an awful day. I had some serious discipline problems. My CT took 2 students to the office to write them referrals and while he was gone, I had another student have a physical temper tantrum and I had to have the basketball coach next door come help me remove him from the class. Then, 4 students were busted smoking marijuana before school in the woods and 3 of the 4 are my students. They got suspended for 10 days. Needless to say, I’m very disappointed.
In English 2, we read “Porphyria’s Lover” , did 6 word memoirs, spent Wednesday and Friday in the computer lab, and did a creative writing assignment. I split them into 6 groups of 3 or 4 and gave them each a famous painting. They had to write a story telling what was happening in the picture. The story had to be a full page long and everyone in the group had to participate in the writing. After they read their stories to the class and I put the picture on the doc cam, we voted on 1st place, 2nd place, 3rd place, etc. the 1st place group got free lunches in the Hurricane Café and they got 32/30. 2nd place got 30/30, 3rd place got 28/30, and so on. They got a chance to be really creative and I enjoyed seeing them work as a team. I made a cameo in 3/6 stories and a student even rapped one of the stories.
I promise I won’t slack anymore on keeping up with this blog. The week was just really busy but now I’m well rested and ready for our soundtrack presentations tomorrow! I have a lot of grading in my future.
Peace, love, and Oxford Commas :)
