Monday

Monday. Pouring rain. Black as night. Cold. Miserable.

My day hasn’t picked up much since. I chose not to bring ANY work home. Now I’m paying for that.

I planned - according to my lesson plans, which I took care of early Saturday morning - to listen to “Young Goodman Brown” and discuss it. Well, since I have a new student computer in my classroom, which uses my internet and printer cable, I decided to leave my laptop at home. I had transferred all my school stuff from the laptop to my school computer. The only problem - I had the audio version of “YGB” on my laptop. So that’s a no go.

Next I thought I’d jump ahead and listen to the Stephen King tribute to “YGB” called “The Man in the Black Suit.” Only problem - that audio version is on my laptop too. That is quite easier to digest reading on our own than “YGB,” so I thought I’d make copies and have the students read it to themselves. That presented another problem - I couldn’t find the folder. I looked all over. Then I realized I had planned ahead last week (only I forgot that I planned ahead. Go figure. I am the king of planning behind!) and I spotted the folder on my desk.

That means dashing off to the printer. Only there I realize that the original copy I had made was terrible. The left hand column was missing the first word in ever sentence. So that means dashing back to my room and digging around for “Everything’s Eventual,” the book in which the story was originally published. Only I am missing it. I don’t know if I brought it home or borrowed it out or what. That means dashing back to the folder to see if any of the copies would work. Luckily, there was one. But it was the copy I had used to keep notes in so it was unusable.

On to plan C. I thought I’d maybe start showing either the Disney version of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” or the modern remake of it “Sleepy Hollow.” Only problem, I left “Sleepy Hollow” sitting on the kitchen table. I have a computer version, but that’s back home on my laptop. I could show the Disney version but that would only take up about 45 minutes. What to do with the rest?

So plan D roles around. And that is the letter grade I’ve earned for teaching today. Review with the students “The Devil and Tom Walker,” which they started reading after Friday’s test. Introduce Unit #3, which I should be doing anyway, and then give them a short essay to write that will tie into “YGB” when we listen to and read it, hopefully, tomorrow.

Well, things can only improve now. I sure hope so anyway.

***

Okay. So things did get worse. While my juniors were writing their essays, I decided to get some work done for my senior English class. I had them choose a Canterbury Tale to read and then summarize. Since this wasn’t a full fledged essay assignment, or a Writing Workshop assignments as our text calls it, I decided to adjust the weight of the assignment to half. Unfortunately, this somehow wiped out half of all the scores in my computer gradebook. Ouch. So I had to go back to my old red “Class Record Book” and try to find the original scores. And most were there. But it was a lot of unnecessary trouble.

I’ll change my strategy. Maybe things won’t get much worse.

***

Third block. Senior English. We discussed satire. They had previously read “A Modest Proposal,” well most likely read some of it. So today they are working on writing an original satire. The Writing Workshop assignment from the text had a prewriting assignment where students were to determine the form of the satire. In years past I always just had them write an essay. But kids were asking if they could do songs, write laws, devise rules. . . it was great. They took off with it while I quickly got out of their way. It made all of the bungling of first hour worth it.

****

I cannot tell a lie. We have two days of football left, and I’m ecstatic. I love coaching, but it sure gets in the way of teaching. I could never do it full time and be the kind of teacher I want to be. I admire those who can.