Overheard during groupwork

Student 1: He's a carpenter.
Student 2: What does a carpenter do? Make carpets?
Student 1: What are you, stupid? (Mini commotion as the rest of the group proceeds to mock Student 2).
Student 2: Then what do you call someone who makes carpets?
(Silence.)

This is why I Teach For America

Et tu, Brute?

So the latest adventure for my classes has been ancient Rome, to a time when Caesar was king and Ms. Chen tried really really hard to invest her children in the idea of murder, backstabbing, and betrayal. That's right, we are riding the Julius Caesar Shakespeare train, and the kids are on the trip whether they like it or not. It's such a varied group of passengers too:

• Kids that hate the train but don't want to lose their lives by jumping off, i.e. they hate Caesar, think it's boring, but take it because otherwise they would fail my class and be put in ISS (in-school suspension).
• Kids that fall asleep once they get on the train (pretty self-explanatory).
• Kids that were first in line to buy tickets for the train, but then were kind of disappointed by the train ride ("Caesar's boring...they talk too much!")
• Kids that were reluctant train riders at first, but now absolutely love the train, want to know more about the train, and ask to drive the train (my favorite type of passengers!!). These are the kids that either A) become their characters; B) actually ask questions because they are actually curious; and C) shriek "Oh, my god, is Caesar going to die????" when they see the picture at the beginning of Act III.

Yes, that last group gives me the happiest feeling inside, and the many of my 3rd and 4th period fall into that category. We finally arrived at the climactic murder scene, so I decided to spice things up a little by having them act it out. I was excited for this lesson - I even colored masking tape to represent Caesar's blood and was planning to have them "stab" Caesar by sticking the tape on him.

And of course, my B day classes absolutely butcher the activity. Serves me right for trying something "fun."

In 5th period, "So-Icey Boy" (his self-created nickname) throws a hissy fit when the girl playing Cassius got on him for not following along. He then proceeded to cuss her out, and they instead had to sit down and read while I had a conference with him.

In 8th period, we were able to get through most of the scene; however, the boys (my entire class is full of boys) were more concerned with the inappropriate staging of some kneeling in front of Caesar. Ultimate chaos ensued, culminating with Tim parading around wearing someone's art project mask. Fail.

So B day ended with a hoarse voice, extreme tiredness, and a feeling that the day was just an enormous waste of time and energy. Then I ran into another teacher, who assured me that it may have been a chaotic day, but the question is: did they learn?

That thought drove me to attempt the activity (against my better judgment) with my A day kids again today. Armed with the idea that chaos does not necessarily equal bad, my 1st period sort of got it (while they all hate me, they are at least concerned with their grades).

3rd and 4th period? Chaos once more, but it was good, even AMAZING chaos. Yes, the hall monitor had to come in to see why it was so loud, yes, I almost got in trouble when kids almost started cussing each other out for not reading the right parts, but at least THEY GOT IT!

In 3rd period, they all got really into the idea of Mark Antony being two-faced and betrayal going on up the wazoo. "Hey, Brutus stabbed Caesar in the back. LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY!" They wanted to see more pictures of the Roman forum ("But Miss, what did it look like before? You should put a picture of it before it got all ruined!" "Remember, this is ancient Rome...there were no cameras..." "Oh yeah..."). After "stabbing" Caesar, one of my conspirators said witheringly (not part of the play, but just her getting really into the character), "I only did it because you were getting too much power. The power was gonna get to your head."

4th period got into it, and my Caesar died a slow and painful death, absolutely hamming it up, lying on the ground with red pieces of masking tape all over him. Marco, my Caesar, had never been so into a reading before. He used to never do anything. Now, he comes into my room and participates the most in my class, answering all the questions, volunteering the read. They also got into a heated discussion about Antony. "Miss, it's like, you know, if some crew I don't know gone show up and kill my homeboy, of course I'm gonna be all nice to them, you know what I'm sayin', and then I'm gonna get revenge for my homeboy, 'cuz that ain't right, you know what I'm sayin'? There's gonna be blood, you know what I'm sayin'?"

So while I end the day with almost no voice and tired feet, at least I have learned a lesson of my own: chaos is not always bad.

And also, don't use marker to color masking tape and assume that the red will not get on your hands. Caesar's blood is on my hands too!

TAKS essay prompt: A time you were encouraged by someone

Yesterday evening, a couple colleagues and I met up at Starbucks to go over our copies of the students' TAKS essays. While that may not seem like the most exciting activity for a Saturday night (ok fine, who am I kidding...I have no life), it actually ended up being a really enjoyable chat - mainly because it was a lot of gossip. Things that I found out included: unethical strategies (like failing all the students) that will make that teacher look better later on; a lot of married teachers are having affairs; another English teacher (who obviously wasn't there) dated a student's older brother and then took out her anger over the break-up by failing the student; insight into a lottttt of politics. Also, apparently the math department has this big beef with the English department, for a lot of petty reasons, and are just waiting for us to fail. Wait a second, isn't this job supposed to be about the STUDENTS...?

Besides the gossip, I just have to say I am really lucky to be working with these two women. Mrs. H. is like that really caring mother-figure who takes care of everybody. She also has this great vision of how the department should be organized and is also genuinely there to TEACH the STUDENTS. Ms. M., my department chair, is this wonderfully blunt Caribbean girl with a hilariously dry sense of humor and fierce attitude. She's like my really cool big sister that enlightens me to the "real" stuff, and isn't afraid to speak her mind.

While my kids' TAKS essays still do not necessarily live up to the expectations of a 10th grader's writing, I have to say...I was impressed. I have never seen so many paragraph indentations, proper usages of punctuation, correct uses of subject-verb agreement, and examples of figurative language. Ha, that's the one message I realized my students took to heart: use figurative language to make your writing more interesting!

Some hilarious examples to come....

Excerpt from Andrew's essay:

"A time someone encouraged me was six weeks ago. When I was getting ready for my TAKS test. My teacher Ms. Chen keep me going in class with the work so I could pass the test with flying colors.

I had started to hate going to her class because of all the work she started to give us. but it was paying off because I was getting better at writting and better going my stories. it was just going good. I was going to Saturday scoool and after school work with Ms. Chen nothing could stop me from passing that test. I just knew I was gone pass because I worked so hard and many of my teachers were pushing me and the other kids in the school."

Spring has sprung

Spring break has come and gone. I was able to go back to LA for 5 days. Ahh, California...

How I miss the city! More pictures here.

The best love note I ever got

What I found on my desk this morning (name has been edited out to protect the innocent...):

Celebrate

...because TAKS reading & writing is done with!

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!