Day 33: Coffee, Cannibalism, and Cassius

1,2,3 Student will be able to: describe three major characters and their personalities in Act I, Scene 2, and use textual evidence to support these ideas.

4, 6, 7 SWBAT evaluate sources for research use and organize information onto notecards for a research paper.

A teacher taught me a new student threat today: Do this or I WILL EAT YOU.

I started my morning by firing a complaint email off to the Maxwell House department at Kraft Foods for coming out with "new" packaging for my Maxwell House Lite ground coffee.  This new packaging gives me 3.7 oz less coffee and has a stupid new handle you can't hang onto...which results in coffee mishaps all over my counter at 5 AM.  I see 135 fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds on a daily basis - I can't have coffee crises at 5 AM or someone will probably get eaten by lunchtime.  Probably someone whining about having to play Brutus.  Just predicting.  I buy half-caf coffee because I can drink twice as much without getting the jitters, which also might result in my eating someone.  I've seen what my sophomores put into their bodies, I can't imagine they'd taste very good.

Anyway, my kids got a little more into Shakespeare today, still sans-togas.  I had all our "audience" play the commoners, with their line being a chant of "CAESAR! CAESAR!"  My third period Caesar was so vehement in his refusal of the crown of Rome from Marc Antony that the imaginary crown went flying across the room.  The commoners gasped, but loved Caesar all the more. Also, in true sophomore fashion, Cassius was described as a "butthole."  The pursuit of appropriate academic language continues...my afternoon classes attacked their research a little more vigorously than yesterday too, once they got over the shock of finding out their note cards were due tomorrow.  Given that I told them that both on paper and in person Tuesday and Wednesday, I'm not sure why this was shock, but apparently they have an undiagnosed disorder that causes them to mentally add a day to every due date I give them.  I'll have to talk to the psychology teacher about that one.

Tomorrow is Friday!!  I love my students, but... yay!