A Change in Direction

I was pretty pumped about my new plan for this year. It's all gone now. But after a few days of sadness about the work I did all summer, now I am refocusing. This year I will be teaching short stories and poems. Hopefully with that change my students will have better comprehension if the stories are short and conquerable in 2 to 3 days.

If you have recommendations for short stories, please send them my way!

This Gas Situation

My car manual says that it holds 14.5 gallons. This is how much I had to fill up tonight. Sooooo scary when I was by myself on the country roads!!

Now Love of a Song

Sara Bareilles, King of Anything

Super obsessed right now.

Who cares if you disagree? You are not me.
Who made you King of anything?
You dare tell me who to be?

Major High

Look at this picture... closely. Look in the background... closely. Those are my friends...

Labor Day Success

...and it hsn't even been Labor Day yet!

Some highs and lows from this weekend:
1. High quality caravans
2. Tom "Go Hard" Dobberke
3. Some girl walking up to me at a bar and saying "DO YOU TEACH IN ARKANSAS? Were you here for Mardi Gras? I MET YOU BEFORE." Ridiculous
4. Football team killing it on Friday night
5. Running into every person I know that lives within 500 miles of Nola...including some DALLAS friends! :)

lows:
1. Not having conditioner for my hair
2. my Anthro necklace breaking on Beale Street
3. flat tires

Football and Nola

Friday Night Lights - Starting this week! First regular season game at the end of this week. Surprisingly this, and my pending trip to 'Nola are getting me through! :) Oh yah, I am traveling to New Orleans again this weekend! Here are some memories of past trips - should be another fun weekend!

Blahhhh

Kind of down today. I found out my kids are, on average, at between a 5th grade reading level and a 6th grade level. This is significantly lower then my kids from last year (they were at about an 8-9). I am not sure what to do about it.

I was excited to teach a lot of novels, but now I am seeing that they are even having trouble breaking down a short story written in complex vocabulary. I think I am going to have to scratch the unit I already planned (4 weeks of planning.... down the drain), and just start with simpler things. Then at least they will have foundational skills to work from.

How do certain (ie entire CLASSES) slip through the cracks like that? How does an entire grade function at such a lower level then others? It's an interesting pattern you can begin to notice amongst the different groups within the school. It's a frustrating moment for me, as this is a pivotal year for these students-they must pass my End of Course exam at the end of 11th grade. But really, how can I expect them to truly pass that exam, if they can not even read NEAR a high school level?