Too bad there are three more months left to get them through.
My kids surprised me today. Instead of ungrateful comments about the snacks I so painstakingly personalized for them, they thanked me. "You spent money to stick these notes on every granola bar, Ms. Chen?" Marco asked incredulously. "Yep," I replied. "Oh."
Quan and Marco helping me set up.
Demarkie rockin' those stickers.
He looks worried...Essentially, I was on potty duty from 8:30 AM to 3:30 PM (teaching is such a glamorous job) since I wasn't allowed to monitor the test. When I walked my 10th graders down, they would tell me things like "Ms. Chen, I think I just wrote a four." (As in an essay with a score of 4, the highest score.) "Ms. Chen, I'm trying my best." "Ms. Chen, I'm gonna pass this test."
Some moments that warmed the cockles of my heart:
Every time I stuck a star sticker on a student's face and told them they were a superstar, a genuine grin would spread across their face. A lot of them kept the stars on proudly for the rest of the day. Toshanna stuck my note from her granola bar across her chest the whole day.
Herbert aka Fat Daddy, who wrote about how his baby Victoria encouraged him not to rob a house during writing bootcamp, who cussed me out at the beginning and middle of first semester, was actually trying really hard on his test(I think), since he wasn't even done when school was over (they have all day long to work on it...no time limit). He went downstairs with about 8 other kids to finish it up after school.
Gustavo, one of my favorites, who requested to sit outside to work by himself, held up his packet to show me all the writing he did for his rough draft. The whole page was filled up.
Dernard, as he walked to the bathroom, said, "Ms. Chen, Imma do this, then I'm goin' home, ok? I wrote two pages, and I'm writing one more, then I'm goin' HOME." Said in a happy/relieved/non-antagonizing tone.
So after all that TAKS prep, we're going to start Julius Caesar tomorrow...by watch Mean Girls. Woo hoo!
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