Farewell to Manzanar...no really...

I am just sitting here tonight, Sunday night, right before Thanksgiving week, thinking of ways that I can finish teaching my novel in two weeks.  Yes, that's right, two weeks left of teaching time in the semester and that's not counting the two days I have to give TLI tests.  We are reading Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, which is a book about a young Japanese girl struggling to find herself while living in an internment camp in California during World War II.  This novel deals with racism, alcoholism, family abuse, historical facts, a little geology, and overall, many literary qualities that come in handy when teaching English; such as, juxtaposition, simile, metaphor, polysyndeton, symbolism, etc.  My problem is that we've only made it to chapter ten, and the novel has twenty-two chapters.  I was thinking that I could read excerpts from the work that dealt with the most important factors of the novel, just to teach what I really want them to know.  That way, I'm covering everything I need to cover for the students.  I'll be glad when I can really say...farewell to Farewell to Manzanar.

Watching Movies in the Classroom: Yay or Nay?

So, it's right before Thanksgiving holiday, and several of my students have already said that they would be absent the Friday before.  I was trying to think of a lesson that wouldn't put too many of them behind, but that would still relate to what we are doing in the classroom and be fun at the same time.  I decided to show a movie that is full of figurative language, and somewhat relates to the novel we are reading since there isn't a movie based on this novel: Farewell to Manzanar.  I decided to show Chronicles of Narnia:  The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.  Both are during World War II, both have small girls as the heroine, and both include allusion, hyperbole, metaphor, symbolism, etc.  I have made out a question and answer sheet that uses all levels of  Marzano's questioning in hopes that my students can find the figurative language within the movie without my spoon feeding it to them.  My question to all of you teachers out there is...Are movies okay to show in class?  I don't want to be THAT teacher who "shows movies to her students."  But if they are having to think, is it okay?  If the movie is based on a book, is that okay since it is sort of an introduction to a classic that they may want to read on their own?  I want your opinion.

I'd like to invite everyone to my classroom web page!

I've been keeping up with a classroom web page, and I'd like to invite all of my followers.  The address is http://www.mrshalls9thenglish.webs.com/ This web page includes pictures of projects, daily assignments, a calender, a homepage with many links, and classroom rules.  I hope all of you will check it out and give me some feedback on what I could add to make it better!

Let's talk books, people...ones our kids will actually like...

    This summer, I was trying to figure out what kids in the ninth grade actually like to read.  I already knew about the vampire craze:  Cirque du Freak, Twilight Saga, Vladimir Todd.  I had already read books like Emily Strange, and Gossip Girl.  I wanted to read something that wasn't fantastical.  Something that teens could read, in the pg-13 range.  After weeks of searching, I finally found one, albeit one that only girls will probably be interested in. Tee hee. ;)




Young adult novel



Falling is Like This by Kate Rockland is a contemporary story about a female journalist still living at home, who falls in love with a famous punk rock star, but finds her independence in the end.  The protagonist is about twenty-two, so I was worried about students connecting, but in the end, I realized that reading about someone who was older who makes not so great decisions might be an eye opener for some of my students who are struggling to find who they are.  Some iffy situations occur in the novel that may not be so great for students; such as, drinking, allusions to sexual content, drug use, and language, but Huckleberry Finn, The Awakening, Catcher in the Rye, and Of Mice and Men are all classics and have all been used in the school systems for literary purposes.  I don't think that this book could be categorized as a "classic" just yet, but I do think that it should be on every high school English classroom library shelf.  :)  Courtney Love's caption on the front cover of the novel in and of itself will attract those students who don't normally read to think twice.  Maybe they'll think, "Hmm, books can be cool."

This is what I wish my classroom looked like...

Unfortunately, I have a little tiny room with little tiny but heavy desks that I have to move around everywhere when I want to do cooperative learning.

Using Classroom Strategies

This past week I have been using "Perspectives on Characters," a classroom strategy that I completed for my second mini lesson.  My students didn't really catch on at first, but after many model sessions and five chapters of the novel we're reading, Farewell to Manzanar, they finally caught on and began to think for themselves and empathize with their character.  Our story is about a Japanese family in an internment camp close to Death Valley.  I felt like we as a student/teacher team were penguins in that desert, but when we finally caught on, we found our way back home.  It was a nice metaphorical feeling.  We finished the graphic organizers up today, so it was on my mind.  One of my students danced around the classroom when I told them we were finished.  I called him, "Happy Feet."  It was rather funny. 

Papers and Meetings Up to My Ears! HELP!

I feel like I have a jagillion papers that haven't been graded.  I grade every day and never get through.  It just seems like all I do is grade papers.  On top of all that, during my planning period, I have meetings, and more meetings, and then guess what?  Oh yeah, more meetings.  I guess I just didn't realize I'd be so busy all the time.  I had more free time when I was a student in college taking 21 hours.  What does that even mean?