today in school...

I wrote my first discipline referral to one of my favorite students.

I found out one of my students was arrested this last week for dealing cocaine.

I taught my first mini-lesson. Kind of. If Go Fish (conjugating the verb tener) counts as a lesson. They seemed to like it.

My mentor teacher was surprised that I'm not nervous to get up in front of the class. I told her, no! not if I have a plan!

Conversation of the Day

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you really need a haircut," said a boy in Sunday School.

"Ummm... ok. What way should I take it?"

"I don't know. Not the wrong way."

"Ok. Don't take this the wrong way, but you need a haircut too."

turning a grr situation into a contented sigh

I discovered today that I have yet to buy a textbook for class. It will cost me $88. Ah well. So I packed up and drove to the college bookstore, only to discover they are closed on Saturdays. Too bad I have to read 100 pages in said textbook before 8 a.m. Monday morning. I drove to a nearby bookstore just in case. They didn't have it.

So, I bought two poetry books instead.

And read Sherman Alexie poems at stoplights.

If you have never read a book at stoplights, you haven't lived.

ooh, a challenge

In English class today, I looked over to see a student beating his head against his textbook.

I asked, "Hey, so, Billy, are you ok?"

"Uh huh."

"Are you bored?"

"Yeah. Really bored."

"You're good at English, though. I read your essay and it was great. Do you like it?"

"Yeah. I almost joined AP, but didn't. It's just this class. It's boring."

"Well, I'll think about it and see if I can come up with ways to make this stuff more interesting."

The next time I'll be in class, we're going over Of Plymouth Blah Blah and a slave narrative of the ship voyage. Both deal with racism, cultural misunderstanding, and perseverance. Ideas?

Creative Writing

I never took a creative writing class. I probably would have liked it. As it is, I'm not really good at it. I can write silly things, but nothing good and meaningful. Anyway, I observed the creative writing class, and the teacher made me participate in this activity:

Pick a topic.

Pick an APPROPRIATE topic.

Write a paragraph about your topic using words with only 1 syllable.

You guys should play this game. It's fun. It's also harder than it seems. I'm looking forward to reading them.

Here's my contribution about my house:

Our old, green house is too good for the likes of us. From the street, you see a cool porch and the warm yard - good thing the rose bush lives on in spite of us. Once through the door you can see that no calm, dull souls live here. The two who live in art - who breathe it in and out - have made their marks with prints and paints and the bright orange chair by the green wall. The one who tries to teach small kids (as small as they come) has her glue and paints and books with dogs that run spread out on the floor. And then there is me - my books, my mac, my school stuff piled on the side so we can dance.