Day 98: Say "Pianist" three times fast
Students will be able to summarize articles in their own words and articulate author's purpose in various contexts/media.
Earlier this week, one of my students had a schedule change and I received a new student into my noisiest, most difficult period. Apparently this particular student (we'll call him Boy B) has history with several other students in that room, and despite a seating chart where they weren't next to each other, "looks" crossed the room that caused tempers to flare and a fight to break out after class.
Today I finally revamped the seating chart, but it was very tricky. My current seating chart has the desks divided into two parts facing a big middle aisle which I pace. This means that Boy A who has a problem with Boy B can't sit on opposite sides because then they can make eye contact. However, each of the sides has desks two rows deep, 6 columns across. Boys A and B must be on the same side but on opposite ends so they are not close enough to talk. However, Boy B used to date girl R and can't sit by her, and Boy A sometimes gets rowdy with Boy C, who also has a problem with Boy B...et cetera. When I was a kid I used to have a book of Mensa word problems with grids, where I had to figure out which girl at the party gave which present, or which kid made which cookie recipe and won which prize in the contest. Making a seating chart felt just like that, but I did it, and today they were angels (of course, the addition of the assistant principal in the room observing may have contributed). Figures.
We also had a fun exercise with a textbook reading summarizing the life of Glenn Gould, a twentieth-centure pianist. By "fun exercise", I don't mean the summarizing. Instead, I mean the class asking Mrs. H to say the word "pianist" 80 times. I thought that the first period just thought it was a funny-sounding word (it is). It wasn't until the last period of the day when a boy yelled, "DID YOU JUST SAY PENIS??" that I realized WHY they thought it was so funny. And was embarrassed for not picking up on it sooner. It's tough as a teacher to realize they are laughing AT you and not with you. Even when it's something so juvenile as the word "pianist" it takes me back to my high school days where nothing was worse than public humiliation. It was one of those days when I realized that maybe the reason my second floor windows don't open is to prevent teachers from throwing students out the windows...one good thing though: a student who I never expected to see came to tutorials after school TWICE this week and made significant progress. That's exciting.
Earlier this week, one of my students had a schedule change and I received a new student into my noisiest, most difficult period. Apparently this particular student (we'll call him Boy B) has history with several other students in that room, and despite a seating chart where they weren't next to each other, "looks" crossed the room that caused tempers to flare and a fight to break out after class.
Today I finally revamped the seating chart, but it was very tricky. My current seating chart has the desks divided into two parts facing a big middle aisle which I pace. This means that Boy A who has a problem with Boy B can't sit on opposite sides because then they can make eye contact. However, each of the sides has desks two rows deep, 6 columns across. Boys A and B must be on the same side but on opposite ends so they are not close enough to talk. However, Boy B used to date girl R and can't sit by her, and Boy A sometimes gets rowdy with Boy C, who also has a problem with Boy B...et cetera. When I was a kid I used to have a book of Mensa word problems with grids, where I had to figure out which girl at the party gave which present, or which kid made which cookie recipe and won which prize in the contest. Making a seating chart felt just like that, but I did it, and today they were angels (of course, the addition of the assistant principal in the room observing may have contributed). Figures.
Today we examined author purpose (to inform, persuade, entertain, express thoughts and feeling) and perspective (values, ideas, beliefs, experiences). I pulled a bunch of websites as media examples. We did a short exercise where we compared the Two Daves: Dave Ramsey the financial guru (persuasive - DO get out of debt! DO make a budget!) and Dave Barry (to entertain - see his weinermobile picture on his bio page). I pulled up a college website to show that they are first persuasive (to get you to want to attend the school), THEN informative, but they just ended up fighting about why the school I picked sucked (it didn't matter WHICH school I picked - they even managed to find an issue with the UW homepage where a girl is sledding on a lunch tray. Why wouldn't you want to a college that does that?)
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| Dave R. looks professional but friendly in his tie-less suit. |
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| Dave B. looks either like he's going to the beach or to bed or, in one moronic student's words, "like he's going to murder someone." Say what? |
We also had a fun exercise with a textbook reading summarizing the life of Glenn Gould, a twentieth-centure pianist. By "fun exercise", I don't mean the summarizing. Instead, I mean the class asking Mrs. H to say the word "pianist" 80 times. I thought that the first period just thought it was a funny-sounding word (it is). It wasn't until the last period of the day when a boy yelled, "DID YOU JUST SAY PENIS??" that I realized WHY they thought it was so funny. And was embarrassed for not picking up on it sooner. It's tough as a teacher to realize they are laughing AT you and not with you. Even when it's something so juvenile as the word "pianist" it takes me back to my high school days where nothing was worse than public humiliation. It was one of those days when I realized that maybe the reason my second floor windows don't open is to prevent teachers from throwing students out the windows...one good thing though: a student who I never expected to see came to tutorials after school TWICE this week and made significant progress. That's exciting.
I love this.
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