This is the first time all year I've had some time to take a deep breath and just enjoy a few moments as my students, College Comp this hour, work on crafting their essays.
All year I've been scrambling to put something together for my Tuesday night UND class, grading papers, commenting on papers via Google Drive, lesson planning, or organizing presentations.
But finally - after giving three presentations yesterday - I have a break.
So I thought I'd take a deep breath again, and explain what is going on so far in 205.
Lit & Lang 9R - We continue to work on short stories and basic reading skills. We read "The Most Dangerous Game," "The Monkey's Paw," "Lamb to the Slaughter," "The Storm," and most recently "The Black Cat." As we read these, we explored plot and irony.
In addition to the stories, we covered main idea the first two weeks, then facts, and now we are concluding context.
This class, as a whole, is not making as much progress as I would like. Many continue to hover just above passing or below it even. This is mainly due to one key trait: their inability to turn their work in.
I'm not saying it's the fault of our middle school, but these kids just do not have the work ethic and diligence to do any type of homework consistently.
Now each struggling student has a MacBook Air in front of them every class period, and the distractions continue to mount.
But I am striving for a solution. Even if it's a tough, old-school solution. Since several of my students are not passing, I outlined my modest proposal today. They have until midweek next week to improve their grades. If not, they will have not computer access. That means every assignment will be done the old fashioned way: pen, paper, and photocopier. I told them that if they don't get their grades up, I don't even want to see their computers in class.
And this isn't because I haven't tried to use technology in class. We had success with a Popplet assignment for "The Storm" and a scavenger hunt on Edgar Allan Poe. The problem comes in the fact that the kids will do the work - or 'try' to do the work - while they have one screen open to Facebook and another featuring some form of game.
So until the work comes in and their grades improve, no computers. At all.
And it's a shame. They could easily use them for recreation. I have no problem with that at all . . . as long as it's after their work is done.
Yet, just this morning I had a student who missed the first day of our Edgar Allan Poe scavenger hunt. He asked if he could have until Friday to get it done. I agreed.
Yet, when he came into class, was he scrambling to find the information on the net? Was he even trying to get it done at all? Nope.
He was playing a racing game on his MacBook Air.
So if he wants to play that game in class again, he better get his work in and improve that grade.
College Comp 2
They just completed their 48 hour cell phone hiatus. Tomorrow they have to turn in their journals on what it was like to live disconnected for a couple of days.
I tell you when I handed some of them back today, I had some very happy students. It was like they could breathe or see again.
Their lives were returned.
But the funny thing is - and I have a student writing an essay on this - that it's the parents who struggle the most.
You'd think that the kids would be grumbling about not being able to text each other or snap chat or tweet or vine. But they weren't. I dare say some even kind of enjoyed the experiment.
But it was their parents who struggled mightily.
Yet, as one parent who thought it was really great that I was doing this put it , "We survived without them."
And I think that's what makes it more difficult for Gen Xers to go without their kids have phones than it is for the kids!
Why?
Well, I think we like to have more control over our kids than our parents had over us. Face it. When I drove to town and my mom was back on the farm, she had no idea what I was up to. Unless I called her from a friend's house or the phone at JP's or a pay phone, she had no contact with me.
Could you imagine?
Parents would have a heart attack today.
Yet, "We survived without them."
But we don't want to. He had to survive without them.
Another reason, we aren't that responsible ourselves. I had several students explain how they told their Mom and Dad how they would not have their phones so they wouldn't be able to contact them and that they had to plan for that.
Yet, when the student came home late from a game, the parents wanted to know why they didn't contact them. It was at that point that the student gets to be the parent and say, "Now, Mom and Dad, I told you that I wouldn't have my phone. And I told you that I'd be home late because of the game . . ."
I honestly believe it would be easier for kids to live without their phones than us. I know for sure I wouldn't want to spend a day without mine.
I'm just being honest.
Now that their cell phone hiatus is in the books, tomorrow students will submit their journals on what it was like to be disconnected.
On top of that, they are into the fourth day of the "Sticky-Note Book report project."
Here's how it goes -
On an index card, I have them list tow topics they enjoy reading about. Then I have them list one subject that they hate and don't want to read about at all.
Then from their suggestions, I select a non-fiction book for them to read in two weeks and to annotate using Sticky-Notes (hence the name of the assignment).
After that, they give a 10 minute talk on their book and then create a blog in which they compose a hyper-text research paper on one topic discussed in their book that they find particularly interesting.
Some of the books the students are reading this semester: Into Thin Air, Money Ball, Night, The Last Lecture, The Digital Divide, Devil in the White City, Imagine, Pirates on the Prairie, Reviving Ophelia, The Haymakers, and Enchantment.
College Comp I
They are finishing their third draft for their how to essay. Their first essay focused on how to improve Lincoln. The second essay focused on how to survive college. This third essay is a how to on any topic they choose.
When they turn this in next week, it will be their third theme (description, narrative, and how to).
Next up will be their final last piece of writing that has a chance for real voice: a braided essay.
This class only has ten students, so I'm blessed with being able to read their drafts easily and return their work promptly.
Things are going so well, that I can't believe I get paid to do what I love!
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