You may know me as the following:
Tooter, v. 1) One who toots. Especially in her office when nobody else is around so it echoes a bit off the walls, and also sometimes in her sleep; other times in her sleep when other people are in the room--in this instance, the toots are drowned out by hack-like, fake coughs. See also: Christina. 2) One who blows upon, or toots, a horn. noun 3) A short sniff of Cocaine.
Tudor, n. A member of the royal family that ruled England from 1485 to 1603. Often one who tooted in the palace when nobody else was around so it echoed a bit off the walls.
and now you may know me as a:
Tutor, n. 1) One whose roommate saw a sign at the gym that said English tutor for high school and middle school students needed, please call--507-XXX-XXX--and then didn't take just the number, but the entire sign off the wall to give to her as a gift; one who then called that number and met the students she'd be tutoring from her own school even, and their family and their dog; one who will be paid a hefty, decent amount of money per hour, two hours a week, to tutor in writing and also general awesomeness (but who throws that last extra part in for free, as part of the tutoring package).
Same shit, different outfit.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
my new least favorite word (a conversation)
[MS. P is at the front of the classroom, second hour, sitting at the table in the front of the room. The freshman are working in groups, and she is grading papers while they work. MR. O is sitting to the left of her, at the computer near the window, and he is working on a document for the juniors.]
MR. O [to Ms. P]: Is marginalia a word?
MS. P: Um, excuse me?
O: Marginalia. Like, writing in the margins.
P: That's disgusting.
[The freshman are sort of listening.]
O: [laughs] No, no, I bet it's a word.
P: It's not a word. It sounds made up. Can't you just say "marginalize"? That's a word. ... I don't like any words that end in "-alia."
O: Yeah, marginalize is a word, but it means something else. ...It's a word.
P: [laughs] Wanna bet?
O: No, but I'm looking it up. [looks up word] Yup, it's a word. Comes from Latin. From "margina-us."*
[P scowls]
O: I don't like any words that end in a-us.
P: I don't think it's a word still. It's too gross.
*That's not how you spell it. I wanted you to get the joke.
MR. O [to Ms. P]: Is marginalia a word?
MS. P: Um, excuse me?
O: Marginalia. Like, writing in the margins.
P: That's disgusting.
[The freshman are sort of listening.]
O: [laughs] No, no, I bet it's a word.
P: It's not a word. It sounds made up. Can't you just say "marginalize"? That's a word. ... I don't like any words that end in "-alia."
O: Yeah, marginalize is a word, but it means something else. ...It's a word.
P: [laughs] Wanna bet?
O: No, but I'm looking it up. [looks up word] Yup, it's a word. Comes from Latin. From "margina-us."*
[P scowls]
O: I don't like any words that end in a-us.
P: I don't think it's a word still. It's too gross.
*That's not how you spell it. I wanted you to get the joke.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Your whole fucking family has cholera, and they were all bitten by snakes, and they tried to ford the river and lost 2 oxen and a yoke.
Morale is low.
Mr. O just came back from a budget meeting. I didn't go, because I'm not paid and thus not part of the budget. Mr. O said that they're giving teachers more work, a lot more work, but that they're not giving them any more money. So is life, so is it everywhere.
Last night I dreamt about Obama. Odd to dream about the President, I suppose, as though we've met and had one of those close conversations you sometimes have with people when you comfortably meet their eyes for a second too long and then smile together. I dreamt he and I were cuddling. And that's all. I dreamt that Obama was lying next to me, under the red comforter, and I was resting my head in his little nook, and every time I tried to fall asleep or disagree with the cuddle and turned away, he said, no, no, now and held me a little tighter. He smelled good--and what a huge goofy grin, like little picture shows could play on each of his white-screen teeth--and I've never felt a body so warm in my life, and I like the feeling of mentally trying to get out of something and physically being held back for it. Like being shook into sense. I would like to have this dream every night, but only if I could never wake up.
Because then you wake up and your outfit this morning is a disaster and you had to make some changes from the initial outfit you'd planned the night before--because your clothes are too tight, and you look fat, and you are fat, and is there anything else in life other than being fat or not fat? Well, there's the winter, the cold, the ice cold bra you have to slowly put on each morning, both cups to the boobs at once to get over the shock more quickly, like jumping in a cold pool after the hot tub. There's the cold toilet seat, because the roommate still keeps the house at 50 degrees all night and then when you wake up, and then there's the cold floor in the bathroom, and the cold wind outside, and then there's the cold car, of course, which doesn't start because it's too cold, but then it finally does start because you hold the gas pedal to the floor, and it makes you feel all strong and womanly because you're doing it with your 3 1/4 inch heel, but damn those shoes make your feet cold.
Then there's school. No reason, whatsoever, that you should be having a bad day, that you're drained, that you're depressed and mopey and long-faced, that you feel like you're a horrible teacher, that it comes to 8th hour and you want to crawl under a desk and die, then there's the budget meeting that you don't go to, but when you hear the feedback about the meeting you're reminded that there are no jobs in this district and that there are no jobs anywhere, anywhere, anywhere, and then you think about John Updike, now dead, and now you think you're only gonna read more Updike because he's dead, and not just because you should've read Updike in the first place. And then you sort of want a sandwhich, and then you sort of want to lock yourself in a coffee shop and write something that means something, for once, because your head might explode if you don't prove you exist by putting some sharp images or ideas on paper in the form of stanzas.
Whatever. What is any of this? Fuck you, stupid Tuesday. Who the fuck do you think you are, stupid.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
just because you haven't heard about mice doesn't mean they aren't shitting in my cupboard.
We have another mouse, James. I went to eat my wheat thins and there was a tiny turd in the bottom of the box.
No. Really? Guess I'll set the traps again.
Did I tell you about the Chex Mix mouse? We saw that one in the living room. James' mom had sent him some homemade Chex Mix in a care package, and James spilled it on the floor. A day later, because he didn't clean that up right away, a little gray flash in the living room. A gray ball of fur running along the sideboards in the living room, going behind the TV, behind the loveseat. If we had curtains, behind the curtains.
James' plan was to leave the Chex Mix on the floor, but since that's what the mouse was going for, to place three mouse traps around the Chex Mix. So he'd go for it, but there'd be no surviving. There was no way in without death for this mouse. We didn't even bait the traps; he just walked right into them.
I woke up the next morning to a mouse in the living room. I'm getting used to dead mice. I'm getting used to their curled paws and their thin, pink tails, and their buck teeth sticking out of their half-open mouths.
And I don't care about dead mice. I know I should care about mice, care that they're dying, care that all they're trying to do is eat, but I don't care. I should, but I don't. I should because it's the nice thing to do, to care about all creatures, to put myself in a position of just wanting to eat and survive, and finding that difficult with larger predators in the house. I know mice don't know better.
I do care when James insists that I look at them so I can learn, (about what, I don't really know) so that I just see what it looks like. This is a man thing, yes? The reason Ryan would be so proud of a shit he took he'd ask me to look at it, the reason my dad blows his nose in his hanky, his snot rag, in church, and then looks at it before shoving the thing back into his coat pocket. Men are disgusting. My stomach is queasy. James put on his gloves and grabbed the mouse trap--the one of the three that caught the mouse--and walked upstairs to show me the mouse, after I'd run upstairs to get away from it. I didn't forgive him for the rest of the day.
Two days ago, after I warned him about the new mouse, the shit in my cupboards, the skins from white beans with the meat of legume missing from the inside, he set the traps again and we got another one. This one wasn't clean. I'd missed it in the morning, woke up at five, dragged myself through the kitchen to the bathroom without turning on the light. Even left the bathroom after my shower and went through the kitchen again, got dressed, went back through the kitchen to the bathroom--all without seeing the mouse. How I missed it, I don't know, because as I was putting on mascara, James knocked on the bathroom door and said something along the lines of did you see all the blood?
I made him describe it. A pool of mouse blood. I screamed in the bathroom, closed the door, and planned for escape--a simple plan of walking out of the kitchen with my eyes averted to the right, as the mouse was to the left, right next to the refrigerator. The plan became more difficult when James hollered he chewed off his own leg from the other room.
Eventually I looked. I had to get some things out the kitchen before school, and I leered over the breakfast bar and saw the spray of blood. It was like spray paint, the globs of blood turning into into progressive dots of blood. He wasn't in the trap anymore, his head was smashed in from the metal bar. A head wound.
James cleaned it up when I was at school, sprayed the blood with cleaner and let it congeal when he was in the shower. He said the blood had turned green, as in Secret of the Ooze green.
No. Really? Guess I'll set the traps again.
Did I tell you about the Chex Mix mouse? We saw that one in the living room. James' mom had sent him some homemade Chex Mix in a care package, and James spilled it on the floor. A day later, because he didn't clean that up right away, a little gray flash in the living room. A gray ball of fur running along the sideboards in the living room, going behind the TV, behind the loveseat. If we had curtains, behind the curtains.
James' plan was to leave the Chex Mix on the floor, but since that's what the mouse was going for, to place three mouse traps around the Chex Mix. So he'd go for it, but there'd be no surviving. There was no way in without death for this mouse. We didn't even bait the traps; he just walked right into them.
I woke up the next morning to a mouse in the living room. I'm getting used to dead mice. I'm getting used to their curled paws and their thin, pink tails, and their buck teeth sticking out of their half-open mouths.
And I don't care about dead mice. I know I should care about mice, care that they're dying, care that all they're trying to do is eat, but I don't care. I should, but I don't. I should because it's the nice thing to do, to care about all creatures, to put myself in a position of just wanting to eat and survive, and finding that difficult with larger predators in the house. I know mice don't know better.
I do care when James insists that I look at them so I can learn, (about what, I don't really know) so that I just see what it looks like. This is a man thing, yes? The reason Ryan would be so proud of a shit he took he'd ask me to look at it, the reason my dad blows his nose in his hanky, his snot rag, in church, and then looks at it before shoving the thing back into his coat pocket. Men are disgusting. My stomach is queasy. James put on his gloves and grabbed the mouse trap--the one of the three that caught the mouse--and walked upstairs to show me the mouse, after I'd run upstairs to get away from it. I didn't forgive him for the rest of the day.
Two days ago, after I warned him about the new mouse, the shit in my cupboards, the skins from white beans with the meat of legume missing from the inside, he set the traps again and we got another one. This one wasn't clean. I'd missed it in the morning, woke up at five, dragged myself through the kitchen to the bathroom without turning on the light. Even left the bathroom after my shower and went through the kitchen again, got dressed, went back through the kitchen to the bathroom--all without seeing the mouse. How I missed it, I don't know, because as I was putting on mascara, James knocked on the bathroom door and said something along the lines of did you see all the blood?
I made him describe it. A pool of mouse blood. I screamed in the bathroom, closed the door, and planned for escape--a simple plan of walking out of the kitchen with my eyes averted to the right, as the mouse was to the left, right next to the refrigerator. The plan became more difficult when James hollered he chewed off his own leg from the other room.
Eventually I looked. I had to get some things out the kitchen before school, and I leered over the breakfast bar and saw the spray of blood. It was like spray paint, the globs of blood turning into into progressive dots of blood. He wasn't in the trap anymore, his head was smashed in from the metal bar. A head wound.
James cleaned it up when I was at school, sprayed the blood with cleaner and let it congeal when he was in the shower. He said the blood had turned green, as in Secret of the Ooze green.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
feelin' good about somethin'
This is outright, total, blatant bragging. But I'm documenting all of the positive remarks on my evals from this semester. Then when things suck ass for me in the upcoming months, I'll just take a look at 24 January and feels myself some better.
P.S. I love your shoes (and tie) Ms. P.
I like the way this class is run. It's fun to go and I look forward to it.
I really love this class! I laugh all the time and still learn.
[What should I keep doing?] Activities with Ms. P.
Keep being funny.
[Ms. P. care about how much I learn.] Very much so.
Ms. P. makes up things that relate to what we are learning about to make it easier to remember.
Keep making class fun.
Ms. P. makes activities fun.
Ms. P. does a great job!
I feel good when I get a good grade because because I had to work hard for it!
Fun class games and discussions!
Ms. P is a very good teacher. I like her teaching style and she has great shoes!
I like the ideas and activities she does, they help a lot.
I like the environment in this classroom. It's very comfortable, creative, and funny!
This is a fun class.
I can tell you want me to succeed.
Great job as a teacher! You rock!
My wonderful amazing teachers [made this my favorite unit].
Ms. P. is awesome.
I [heart] Ms. P.'s shoes.
She's fun!
Adding humor to the class makes it fun and something to look forward to.
Great teacher! I wish she could stay here at CHS!
I liked them all [the activities] because they were different than what I had in the past.
[What should I keep doing?] Being funny.
She makes an effort to help!
[What should I keep doing?] Being funny. And having fun activities to do that help us learn.
She always does a great job explaining more difficult concepts.
The Big Fat Revision Day material was great!
The criticism always helps, and I like how everything is explained. For example why I received the grade I did.
I love Ms. P.'s shoes with a fiery passion.
She explains things to make sure everyone gets it and is willing to answer questions fully.
The variety in what we do is nice. [You] make learning about literature insteresting and fun.
She truly cares about her students, and I wish her the best when she goes and teachers the classes on her very own!
Love the shoes!
Everything was really good. You would push us but you wouldn't have us overwhelmed. Just keep going what you're doing, there's nothing in particular that I'd like to see 2nd semester.
[What should I keep doing?] Being funny.
[What should I stop doing?] Nothing, you're perfect. : )
Ms. P. and Mr. O. are really good at teaching.
Ms. P. is one of my favorite teachers I hav ever had.
She mixes class up. It's not just taking notes.
I'm comfortable with these people.
Do the same stuff. You guys are great as is.
Ms. P. does an awesome job, and makes learning fun.
I love Ms. P! She's one of my all time favorite teachers (besides Mr. O).
Ms. P., I love your shoes.
Keep helping us have fun. You wake me up in the morning most of the time.
Ms. P. is obviously very committed to help us learn. SHE'S AWESOME.
[What should I keep doing?] The creative writing project. I thought that was so much fun!
Being open-minded is awesome.
She does a lot for us, it seems.
Many activities are done and some are wierd [sic].
Your [sic] very picky on grading but that's how English teachers are.
I would say she cares a lot, but not like it's helping (just kidding).
When I asked questions she would always answer so it was easy to understand and remember.
The different activities kept me from being bored.
Honestly, I like it all. Keep class discussions, though!
She teaches well and goes back if we don't understand something.
She is a fun teacher and easy to pay attention to.
Ms. P. is really nice. I like class discussions and she teaches well.
[What should I keep doing?] Writing essays. I've really improved!
[What should I keep doing?] Monday morning trivia!
[What helped you learn in this unit?] Ms. P.'s and Mr. O.'s undestanding personalities.
You should keep dressing nice so I still have something to look at while you're babbling. [That was a joke from the eval form.]
This class was really fun to be in!
The teachers helped us delve deeper into the stories to better understand them.
She always goes above and beyond to help me better understand the difficult things.
She always has fun little things to do like acting out of Romeo and Juliet scenes.
You go over everything, which is awesome.
[Ms. P. cares about how much I learn in this class.] YES YES YES
The funny ones [activities] stick in my head better.
[What should I keep doing?] Just being you. I like everything the way it is.
She's a good teacher, and makes class funny.
That's right. I'm the most vain person you've ever seen in your life. But let's keep in mind a couple of things here:
#1: These were directed at both me and Mr. O;
#2: We gave them candy when they filled out these forms;
#3: I'm not going to put the bad comments on my blog!;
#4: The first semester, if I remember anything anything about MSU, is like this--you're all excited. After awhile, things go downhill;
#5: Didn't give this eval form to the Juniors, who would've had very, very different things to say.
Look. I'm not trying to be a stuck up asshole. This is just getting me through the weekend, okay? Okay.
P.S. I love your shoes (and tie) Ms. P.
I like the way this class is run. It's fun to go and I look forward to it.
I really love this class! I laugh all the time and still learn.
[What should I keep doing?] Activities with Ms. P.
Keep being funny.
[Ms. P. care about how much I learn.] Very much so.
Ms. P. makes up things that relate to what we are learning about to make it easier to remember.
Keep making class fun.
Ms. P. makes activities fun.
Ms. P. does a great job!
I feel good when I get a good grade because because I had to work hard for it!
Fun class games and discussions!
Ms. P is a very good teacher. I like her teaching style and she has great shoes!
I like the ideas and activities she does, they help a lot.
I like the environment in this classroom. It's very comfortable, creative, and funny!
This is a fun class.
I can tell you want me to succeed.
Great job as a teacher! You rock!
My wonderful amazing teachers [made this my favorite unit].
Ms. P. is awesome.
I [heart] Ms. P.'s shoes.
She's fun!
Adding humor to the class makes it fun and something to look forward to.
Great teacher! I wish she could stay here at CHS!
I liked them all [the activities] because they were different than what I had in the past.
[What should I keep doing?] Being funny.
She makes an effort to help!
[What should I keep doing?] Being funny. And having fun activities to do that help us learn.
She always does a great job explaining more difficult concepts.
The Big Fat Revision Day material was great!
The criticism always helps, and I like how everything is explained. For example why I received the grade I did.
I love Ms. P.'s shoes with a fiery passion.
She explains things to make sure everyone gets it and is willing to answer questions fully.
The variety in what we do is nice. [You] make learning about literature insteresting and fun.
She truly cares about her students, and I wish her the best when she goes and teachers the classes on her very own!
Love the shoes!
Everything was really good. You would push us but you wouldn't have us overwhelmed. Just keep going what you're doing, there's nothing in particular that I'd like to see 2nd semester.
[What should I keep doing?] Being funny.
[What should I stop doing?] Nothing, you're perfect. : )
Ms. P. and Mr. O. are really good at teaching.
Ms. P. is one of my favorite teachers I hav ever had.
She mixes class up. It's not just taking notes.
I'm comfortable with these people.
Do the same stuff. You guys are great as is.
Ms. P. does an awesome job, and makes learning fun.
I love Ms. P! She's one of my all time favorite teachers (besides Mr. O).
Ms. P., I love your shoes.
Keep helping us have fun. You wake me up in the morning most of the time.
Ms. P. is obviously very committed to help us learn. SHE'S AWESOME.
[What should I keep doing?] The creative writing project. I thought that was so much fun!
Being open-minded is awesome.
She does a lot for us, it seems.
Many activities are done and some are wierd [sic].
Your [sic] very picky on grading but that's how English teachers are.
I would say she cares a lot, but not like it's helping (just kidding).
When I asked questions she would always answer so it was easy to understand and remember.
The different activities kept me from being bored.
Honestly, I like it all. Keep class discussions, though!
She teaches well and goes back if we don't understand something.
She is a fun teacher and easy to pay attention to.
Ms. P. is really nice. I like class discussions and she teaches well.
[What should I keep doing?] Writing essays. I've really improved!
[What should I keep doing?] Monday morning trivia!
[What helped you learn in this unit?] Ms. P.'s and Mr. O.'s undestanding personalities.
You should keep dressing nice so I still have something to look at while you're babbling. [That was a joke from the eval form.]
This class was really fun to be in!
The teachers helped us delve deeper into the stories to better understand them.
She always goes above and beyond to help me better understand the difficult things.
She always has fun little things to do like acting out of Romeo and Juliet scenes.
You go over everything, which is awesome.
[Ms. P. cares about how much I learn in this class.] YES YES YES
The funny ones [activities] stick in my head better.
[What should I keep doing?] Just being you. I like everything the way it is.
She's a good teacher, and makes class funny.
That's right. I'm the most vain person you've ever seen in your life. But let's keep in mind a couple of things here:
#1: These were directed at both me and Mr. O;
#2: We gave them candy when they filled out these forms;
#3: I'm not going to put the bad comments on my blog!;
#4: The first semester, if I remember anything anything about MSU, is like this--you're all excited. After awhile, things go downhill;
#5: Didn't give this eval form to the Juniors, who would've had very, very different things to say.
Look. I'm not trying to be a stuck up asshole. This is just getting me through the weekend, okay? Okay.
Monday, January 19, 2009
i have a headache and i haven't showered today; i took two Advil, but i'm gonna stay smeeeeelly
The last couple of days were so killer, but now today sucks. Nay, sux.
Both loans fell through. No private loan to help me make it. That means that I only have about $3000 to live off until June, including ridiculous credit card payments and car insurance and everything else that humans have to pay for. I'm sort of losing it. Like I sort of don't know what the fuck I'm going to do to live.
To live, I'll have to get a part time job, and this really won't help because I can't work more than 10 hours a week without running myself into the ground and tiptoeing around the work I'm doing here. Any sacrficies to this program, to my teaching, for some stupid part time job defeats my entire purpose of being here. I work 60 hours a week on a good week. Where do I find time for work? My head is going to explode.
On the plus side, I'll stop eating so much because I can't afford it.
I was going to sit in a coffee shop and write poems all day. Instead I sat in my own filth and rewrote my resume. P--uke.
Also, to show I'm up on the times:
*Bush is gone. 18 hours. Thank you. Now, Democrats, give my poor ass some more financial aid. Help a middle class white girl out.
*OH MY GOD DON'T EAT PEANUT BUTTER OR YOU WILL DIE.
*Is your TV digitally ready for the changeover? IS IT? IS YOUR FUCKING TV READY? BECAUSE WE'VE BEEN ASKING YOU SINCE LAST FEBRUARY AND WE STILL DON'T KNOW.
I don't know, asshole. Are you ready to get fucking punched in the throat.
Both loans fell through. No private loan to help me make it. That means that I only have about $3000 to live off until June, including ridiculous credit card payments and car insurance and everything else that humans have to pay for. I'm sort of losing it. Like I sort of don't know what the fuck I'm going to do to live.
To live, I'll have to get a part time job, and this really won't help because I can't work more than 10 hours a week without running myself into the ground and tiptoeing around the work I'm doing here. Any sacrficies to this program, to my teaching, for some stupid part time job defeats my entire purpose of being here. I work 60 hours a week on a good week. Where do I find time for work? My head is going to explode.
On the plus side, I'll stop eating so much because I can't afford it.
I was going to sit in a coffee shop and write poems all day. Instead I sat in my own filth and rewrote my resume. P--uke.
Also, to show I'm up on the times:
*Bush is gone. 18 hours. Thank you. Now, Democrats, give my poor ass some more financial aid. Help a middle class white girl out.
*OH MY GOD DON'T EAT PEANUT BUTTER OR YOU WILL DIE.
*Is your TV digitally ready for the changeover? IS IT? IS YOUR FUCKING TV READY? BECAUSE WE'VE BEEN ASKING YOU SINCE LAST FEBRUARY AND WE STILL DON'T KNOW.
I don't know, asshole. Are you ready to get fucking punched in the throat.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
there are 2 steps to planning
The first step is the calendar. The calander is not a new concept to me, as the calander is a staple of all teachers. I think back to the Compie days when I printed off a February and a March and an April and filled in the blank squares with begin research underlined thrice and library day and discuss fallacy and SPRING BREAK! and then showed it to the Compies. Now I'm planning calanders by the quarter. Last quarter, the Drama Quarter for the freshman, I used Mr. O's Romeo and Juliet calander as a guide. This quarter, nonfiction. Nine weeks. I divided the calander into 45 squares, nine weeks from January through March. I started filling shit in--the documentary project at the end of the quarter, alongside my persuasive speeches that I have to teach so the Communication experience missing from my portfolio can fit in and I can leave here with a license--literary journalism...
I crossed off literary journalism. Too hard for freshman. We'll instead look at newspapers, objective writing, get into a little discussion about the relevance of them in the 21st century. Make fun of the feature articles in a Southern Minnesota newspaper. Did you know the Star Tribune filed bankruptcy last week? Shit like that. And there are terms I have to meet in the unit, concepts they have to master...
I called Mr. O after filling in a couple of weeks. Imperative he tell me where I'm fucking up before I fuck up too far and find myself inevitably fucked up with a useless calander on my desk. For instance, he had to remind me that Bowling for Columbine was rated R. Ah, yes, not showing it. Found something better. At first, the NF unit was divided based on person, place, thing and then idea. Thought it was cute, practical. That failed miserably, except for the "idea" part, which we're using to discuss "education." Everything kids might find interesting about it. We'll read Op Ed articles, we'll read creative essays about the high school experience (hey, do you know any appropriate for high schoolers that are funny? Any of you? Did Alexie write NF that mimicked his main themes in Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian?) We'll watch the documentary. It will lead up to our big final project, the persuasive speech. There are a lot of problems in high schools. Identify one, tell us your opinion about it, and most importantly, give us a solution to it. Your speech is five minutes long. Please don't suck ass.
I'm proud of this plan. Of course, I got to school today to work and I called Mr. O and said I have this idea, and this idea and such and such and he said oh, yeah, I've done that before I have an assignment sheet for it. And then I don't feel so awesome and innovative anymore. I work on the calander, the part one, for a solid five hours today, sketching and brainstorming, and notes and notes and so many notes (all on goldenrod paper so I can stay color-themed) and I burn out a couple of erasers and leave little pink eraser boogers all over my desk. Then I show it to Mr. O and we talk about it, and he says what are your objectives and I read them off for him because when I called him two hours ago, before he got to school, he said stop looking for essays and work on your objectives first and I'm mad because this makes sense and I just secretly want to reread a bunch of favorite essays. I'm wasting my time, because he and I both agree that the essays I want to teach are not the right level for high schoolers (if you think about it, most of them will never be able to read Joan Didion, he says). And I know that deep down, but I still brought my copy of Slouching to school today as one of the "page-through" books because it makes me think of workshop and my superior intelligence to Reedo.
But I get to teach nonfiction, and even though just a small chunk is creative, this will be a good quarter. The students identify it as their least favorite--but we're changing that. Because--how fun are solution-speeches? And graphic organizers that help you determine the validity of your online sources! Talk about amazing, and I've left the sarcasm at the door...
Anyway, part one of planning is that calander, those devil squares of passing time. You're not thinking of the small stuff yet, how you'll get them to write about place (but it doesn't matter because after 5 seconds of thinking--after you've thought about it for three hours--Mr. O says just have them do this, and it is, of course, the perfect thing to do and you play that game again where you don't understand how you just don't get this stuff that comes so quickly to other people, so you write down what he says and furl your brow and end the sentence on your clipboard with a sharp, stabbing dot! of your pencil to show this frustration).
That's part one. That's the calendar. Part two of planning is the implementation. The I-know-what-we're-doing-today-but-what-are-we-doing-today part. The individual lesson plans, the homework, the smaller assignment sheets, the changes when the first plan didn't work, the photocopies for class, the reading and re-reading of the material so you know what you're talking about when it comes time to talk about it.
Which one is better. The calander has so much ambition, so much promise. Everything is fresh, you're not sick of talking about individual essays, you're not sick of stupid solutions to impossible problems. And it's first empty squares, but then it's full. But the lesson plans--that's where you really see yourself teaching, where you see the students doing the work, where you're grading their silly little paragraphs with their comma splices, where you're thinking of you "anticipatory set" to hook those little bastards in, where you find Simpsons clips because you just can't resist. Which one is better. Whenever you're doing one, you wish you were doing the other. They both suck and they are both awesome. Good thing there are 2 steps to planning.
I crossed off literary journalism. Too hard for freshman. We'll instead look at newspapers, objective writing, get into a little discussion about the relevance of them in the 21st century. Make fun of the feature articles in a Southern Minnesota newspaper. Did you know the Star Tribune filed bankruptcy last week? Shit like that. And there are terms I have to meet in the unit, concepts they have to master...
I called Mr. O after filling in a couple of weeks. Imperative he tell me where I'm fucking up before I fuck up too far and find myself inevitably fucked up with a useless calander on my desk. For instance, he had to remind me that Bowling for Columbine was rated R. Ah, yes, not showing it. Found something better. At first, the NF unit was divided based on person, place, thing and then idea. Thought it was cute, practical. That failed miserably, except for the "idea" part, which we're using to discuss "education." Everything kids might find interesting about it. We'll read Op Ed articles, we'll read creative essays about the high school experience (hey, do you know any appropriate for high schoolers that are funny? Any of you? Did Alexie write NF that mimicked his main themes in Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian?) We'll watch the documentary. It will lead up to our big final project, the persuasive speech. There are a lot of problems in high schools. Identify one, tell us your opinion about it, and most importantly, give us a solution to it. Your speech is five minutes long. Please don't suck ass.
I'm proud of this plan. Of course, I got to school today to work and I called Mr. O and said I have this idea, and this idea and such and such and he said oh, yeah, I've done that before I have an assignment sheet for it. And then I don't feel so awesome and innovative anymore. I work on the calander, the part one, for a solid five hours today, sketching and brainstorming, and notes and notes and so many notes (all on goldenrod paper so I can stay color-themed) and I burn out a couple of erasers and leave little pink eraser boogers all over my desk. Then I show it to Mr. O and we talk about it, and he says what are your objectives and I read them off for him because when I called him two hours ago, before he got to school, he said stop looking for essays and work on your objectives first and I'm mad because this makes sense and I just secretly want to reread a bunch of favorite essays. I'm wasting my time, because he and I both agree that the essays I want to teach are not the right level for high schoolers (if you think about it, most of them will never be able to read Joan Didion, he says). And I know that deep down, but I still brought my copy of Slouching to school today as one of the "page-through" books because it makes me think of workshop and my superior intelligence to Reedo.
But I get to teach nonfiction, and even though just a small chunk is creative, this will be a good quarter. The students identify it as their least favorite--but we're changing that. Because--how fun are solution-speeches? And graphic organizers that help you determine the validity of your online sources! Talk about amazing, and I've left the sarcasm at the door...
Anyway, part one of planning is that calander, those devil squares of passing time. You're not thinking of the small stuff yet, how you'll get them to write about place (but it doesn't matter because after 5 seconds of thinking--after you've thought about it for three hours--Mr. O says just have them do this, and it is, of course, the perfect thing to do and you play that game again where you don't understand how you just don't get this stuff that comes so quickly to other people, so you write down what he says and furl your brow and end the sentence on your clipboard with a sharp, stabbing dot! of your pencil to show this frustration).
That's part one. That's the calendar. Part two of planning is the implementation. The I-know-what-we're-doing-today-but-what-are-we-doing-today part. The individual lesson plans, the homework, the smaller assignment sheets, the changes when the first plan didn't work, the photocopies for class, the reading and re-reading of the material so you know what you're talking about when it comes time to talk about it.
Which one is better. The calander has so much ambition, so much promise. Everything is fresh, you're not sick of talking about individual essays, you're not sick of stupid solutions to impossible problems. And it's first empty squares, but then it's full. But the lesson plans--that's where you really see yourself teaching, where you see the students doing the work, where you're grading their silly little paragraphs with their comma splices, where you're thinking of you "anticipatory set" to hook those little bastards in, where you find Simpsons clips because you just can't resist. Which one is better. Whenever you're doing one, you wish you were doing the other. They both suck and they are both awesome. Good thing there are 2 steps to planning.
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