Day 13: Morphine V. Cigarettes
Students will be able to describe Mrs. Dubose's character traits and Jem's point of view in chapter 11.
You'll notice I have the same student objective as yesterday. That's because we are somehow twenty minutes behind my lesson plans this week. Mostly because I've been using my little geometric "tangent" symbol, and in my excitement have been going off on lots of tangents. I think they've figured out that if they ask a good enough question, I tangent and they don't have to take notes. Today we covered the teacher strike in Chicago, mob mentalities, and quitting smoking. All of them had something to do with chapter 11, I think. We differentiated between a mob (the men who wanted to kill Tom Robinson in jail) and a flash mob (doing the Macarena at 11:42 AM in the cafeteria). We compared Mrs. Dubose quitting morphine to anyone they knew quitting cigarettes, and how people aren't exactly at their nicest when going through withdrawals. I had one brave student ask what morphine was - I can never assume they know something. I discovered that the first week when we talked about lynching. Most of them knew it involved killing someone, but few knew how or why.
...lynching, mobs, morphine addictions...I swear my class is more optimistic than I make it sound.
It started raining around lunchtime, and by seventh period we were in the middle of a massive, lightning-filled thunderstorm. I had to stop class to let everyone go look out the windows, because they were getting whiplash every time it flashed outside. It was like they had never seen rain before. I was only fifteen minutes behind, but distraction due to rain added the extra five minutes. I was glad it didn't get too bad though, since I haven't actually looked at my emergency weather map and don't know where I'm supposed to lead my class...
I took a phone today from one of my athletes who was texting very surreptitiously behind his copy of TKAM. It was impressive - I didn't even see it, and I feel like I'm pretty good at spotting, as I did it myself. He said he was texting his girlfriend. I wanted to know what class she was in, and he was like, "Oh, she graduated last year - it's her lunch break and it's one of the only times I get to talk to her during the day." He told me he was still involved in class - and it was true, he did add significantly to the discussion today. I informed him I was a military wife, and while I sympathized with his separation, he was distracting others in the class - even if he was still paying attention. I'm not positive this will work on him, but I've noticed kids seem to respond better when I show how their behavior affects other students; they all seem positive their behavior never affects their personal learning. I want this kid to buy into my class; I think we're on our way, but it's hard to tell. So many of my athletes seem to have decided it's not cool to participate, which seems silly as they need the grades to continue to be athletes. There seems to be a break in that student-athlete circle somewhere...perhaps a tangent line could close it up?
You'll notice I have the same student objective as yesterday. That's because we are somehow twenty minutes behind my lesson plans this week. Mostly because I've been using my little geometric "tangent" symbol, and in my excitement have been going off on lots of tangents. I think they've figured out that if they ask a good enough question, I tangent and they don't have to take notes. Today we covered the teacher strike in Chicago, mob mentalities, and quitting smoking. All of them had something to do with chapter 11, I think. We differentiated between a mob (the men who wanted to kill Tom Robinson in jail) and a flash mob (doing the Macarena at 11:42 AM in the cafeteria). We compared Mrs. Dubose quitting morphine to anyone they knew quitting cigarettes, and how people aren't exactly at their nicest when going through withdrawals. I had one brave student ask what morphine was - I can never assume they know something. I discovered that the first week when we talked about lynching. Most of them knew it involved killing someone, but few knew how or why.
...lynching, mobs, morphine addictions...I swear my class is more optimistic than I make it sound.
It started raining around lunchtime, and by seventh period we were in the middle of a massive, lightning-filled thunderstorm. I had to stop class to let everyone go look out the windows, because they were getting whiplash every time it flashed outside. It was like they had never seen rain before. I was only fifteen minutes behind, but distraction due to rain added the extra five minutes. I was glad it didn't get too bad though, since I haven't actually looked at my emergency weather map and don't know where I'm supposed to lead my class...
I took a phone today from one of my athletes who was texting very surreptitiously behind his copy of TKAM. It was impressive - I didn't even see it, and I feel like I'm pretty good at spotting, as I did it myself. He said he was texting his girlfriend. I wanted to know what class she was in, and he was like, "Oh, she graduated last year - it's her lunch break and it's one of the only times I get to talk to her during the day." He told me he was still involved in class - and it was true, he did add significantly to the discussion today. I informed him I was a military wife, and while I sympathized with his separation, he was distracting others in the class - even if he was still paying attention. I'm not positive this will work on him, but I've noticed kids seem to respond better when I show how their behavior affects other students; they all seem positive their behavior never affects their personal learning. I want this kid to buy into my class; I think we're on our way, but it's hard to tell. So many of my athletes seem to have decided it's not cool to participate, which seems silly as they need the grades to continue to be athletes. There seems to be a break in that student-athlete circle somewhere...perhaps a tangent line could close it up?
Wait.. Was there a flash mob in the cafeteria at 1142?!? I need to know!
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