The end of the quarter.
Where did nine weeks go so suddenly? I’ll miss my sophomore composition classes. This is not always the case. But I was fortunate this year. We wrote seven essays (out of roughly 21 various prompts) and roughly 40 journal entries. So if nothing else, they at least got to write A LOT. They might not get that chance to do that again for awhile.
It’s sad to see some go. After nine weeks, some made great strides (I’m thinking of Zach who began rumbling and stumbling along with randomly organized paragraphs and who ended writing a very solid persuasive paper full of voice and personality), some stayed exactly the same (I’m thinking of one poor fellow who was bound and determined - despite my best attempts and encouragement and (finally) threats to write anything longer than a paragraph) and some who actually began to regress (one young lady in particular began to care less and less about her writing - especially her editing and her writing went from clear and solid prose to error riddled confusion). So it’s time for them to move on.
To end the class we played trivia today. I allowed students to choose from several categories of trivia. If they choose movies, sports, grammar (and no one chose from this category) or general, I read them questions from a sheet I made up last night. If they chose music, I played them a snippet of a song from my massive itunes library on my computer. For prizes I first gave out candy. Then once everyone got some, I moved on to “super duper” prizes. I went to the dollar store and loaded up on chintzy prizes. Then I went home and asked Kristie, Casey, and Koko to donate anything they didn’t want anymore (I was basically looking for junk - key chains, knick knacks, old toys, whatever). Well, Koko (who had a friend over) went nuts with the idea. She rummaged the house from attic to basement looking for old junk to add to the pile.
When I began handing out the ‘super duper’ prizes, the kids went nuts. One girl got a half burned candle from our porch, which now sits in her locker. Another student got some Christmas garland. Another earned some Chinese finger cuffs. The more obscure and odd they prizes were (deodorant, samples of cologne, an Altoids case with two mints left, a lint roller, finger nail polish), they more the kids loved them.
They might not remember much about adjective clauses, but they’ll remember what ‘super duper’ prize they received. Funny how that goes sometimes.
I look forward to starting the whole process over again.
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