Summer Session I

For what must be seven or eight years now, I am teaching summer school.  For only the second time, though, I am doing both sessions.  What can I say.  Glutton for punishment.

My first session is three classes: Literature I (how vague is that?), Science Fiction (could teach that in my sleep), and MCA Reading Strategies (this scares the hell out of me).

Lit I - since I have no guidelines for this class - and in talking with the regular ALC teacher - I figured I would focus this class on the 'best of' literature.  We are starting off with a bang on Monday: "The Lottery" and we won't let up from there - "A Rose for Emily," "The Chaser," "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," "Lamb to Slaughter," "The Penal Colony," "Like a Winding Sheet," "Listen to the End," "The Tell Tale Heart," "Beware of Dog" . . . We only meet for sixteen days, so I have sixteen stories in mind.  It'll probably bore the hell out of the students, but I'll have a blast.  Plus, I'm going to be teaching the classes from my room at the high school instead of at the ALC.  I've always wanted to do this and finally made it happen this summer.  I just feel like my usual self in my room.  Whenever I taught at the ALC, I felt like a substitute.

Science Fiction - one of my favorite classes, but because of the way our schedule works (and the fact that we are down 1.5 English teachers in our department), I don't get to teach it anywhere other than at the ALC.  I'll divide this up into four themes: "What is Out There? (Alien Life)" "Alternate History/What is Reality?" "Dangers of Technology" and "The Mad Scientist."  We should hit one per week.  I also have at least one film to go with each theme, so the kids always look forward to those.  Plus, I get to revisit some old friends here like "The Disintegration Machine," "Herbert West: Re-animator," "A Sound of Thunder," "The Father-Thing," and "The Electric Ant."  Plus the films - I, Robot, The Thing, The Matrix, and Cloverfield. 

MCA Reading Strategies - Oh boy.  I have no clue.  Luckily, I have three huge binders of worksheets and guide books to help me a long.  Plus, I have the binder that we were given after our year-long reading strategies workshops.  That will be invaluable.  Plus, I've got a ton of interesting articles to read and discuss.  My goal, though, is to help students summarize, decode, find main idea and all that jazz, but in the mania of passing the MCA tests, the one thing that gets lost in all of this reading strategies business is one simple thing: the sheer joy of reading.  So I hope to allow the students time to read for their pleasure.