That carrot is huge

So, that carrot I was talking about…it’s this: If you finish that essay by the end of the day, or if you bring it in, complete, at the beginning of class on Monday, I will let you erase one grade from my gradebook.
For many of my students, this is a great opportunity — they [...]

Sorry kids, I just made this too difficult. Let’s fix that.

It happens every once in a while — that monster you spring on the classroom is more frightening than you expected it to be. You planned on turning that monster into a cute, cuddly stuffed animal, and instead you accidentally added another set of fangs, a tail made of glass shards, and chainsaws for [...]

Two things

First: I had my yearly evaluation the other day, and I thought it went poorly. Actually, I thought it went well, but in my previous evaluation with the same evaluator I found that I was lacking in many areas — especially classroom management. This is nothing new. I’ve had problems with classroom [...]

Light speed — NOW

I made an error in my planning. While I think the Caste System assignment was good and smart, and that the students produced some fantastic materials (both written and visual), I did it without thinking about the upcoming paper on the elements of literature.
Every year we teachers have the students write to a common [...]

So, how does this school really work?

After yesterday’s discussion about the Caste system in school, I whipped up a little handout to help the kids get their ideas flowing and in order about how the actual Caste systems that work in our schools.
Click the image below to download the handout, or click here to see the big picture.
See, the [...]

The Caste System in School

As much as I complain about my students, they really surprise me, and today we took that Marxism discussion even further as we compared the characters in three textx by talking about how their class levels influence their actions.
The first story is Born Worker, by Gary Soto, where we meet young Jose and his cousin [...]

Gary Soto and Marxism

I just knew the opportunity to teach a very, very limited view of marxism would come up in the classroom, but I was just hoping to find a way to frame it so that the kids could understand it. That opportunity happened today when we began reading the story: “Born Worker” by Gary Soto.
I [...]

a little explanation

About that last haiku… there are a couple of meanings for me; I wonder if it means anything to you.
Today was a collaboration day for us, and whereas we usually use those days to attend an outlandish number of meetings, or to sit in our classrooms grading papers with other teachers, today’s collaboration day was [...]

Setting a standard for reading

UPDATE: Several people have said the handout below turns out all wonky. A text-only version is available right here.
Today we began reading the short story “Raymond’s Run,” by Toni Cade Bambara, and I knew the kids would like it. I knew they’d enjoy the main character, Squeaky, and that they’d find ways [...]

Lenses and 9/11: walk in someone else’s shoes

I’d like to think just one student’s comments made today’s lesson all the more necessary.
Today I reminded the students about what it’s like to see the world through another lens; that we read a very short poem yesterday, but then took the time to put ourselves into each character’s position. Doing so made the [...]