Classroom Arrangements

I finally love the setup of my classroom this year.

The rows of desks are now diagonal, and because of that I have much more whiteboard space. The whiteboards are magnetic, so I clip up extra papers, handouts, and syllabi instead of laying them on my limited counter space. My book shelf is packed with novels and non-fiction and has a cute sign out notebook resting there. Black and white pictures of Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway, Twain, Longfellow, and Kate Chopin sit framed and meet a student's wandering eyes. Iconic posters (The kissing sailor in Times Square, Audrey Hepburn, and the Casablanca movie cover) are posted above ample bulletin board space. My projector is interactive. When we listen to anything with it, there is surround sound. There are blankets for when the air conditioner blasts, and a large filing cabinet for units and for previous student work. There are homework trays and return trays, three stools, stacks of extra books, old editions of encyclopedias and Hemingway novels. And now we each have classroom computers (7-9).

The atmosphere may be perceived to be a lesser factor when it comes to teaching the material well, but if, without words, I can motivate readers, writers, and thinkers, then a crafty classroom setup matters.

On assigning and grading freshmen essays

It may be a little known fact that being an English teacher is time consuming. In order to alleviate the paper load many teachers may assign fewer writing pieces, especially papers. Some teachers can effectively get students to write without assigning a great number of papers, and still others say that a teacher must assign many papers, because we need our students writing often and wring well.

I agree with both ideas...to an extent. A teacher must assign writing, but relevance is the key factor in getting them to write,  let alone to write well. If I simply told my students that we would be writing a story one day and the next that we would write a letter, they'd probably question my intent. Hey, I would question it. There will be a blog to come on what it looks like in the eyes of a student to write irrelevantly. Students need context, generally speaking. There are those students who don't need it and those who love to write no matter what. They are God-sent.

Relevancy means that the writing is embedded in context. Context is not only improtant to them, but it is important to a teacher, too. It is what helps teachers keep their content connective, and it forces them to answer that ever-looming question, "So what?" So, teachers, if you find that you have too many piles of papers or that you sit for too long trying to figure out how to grade what you've assigned, maybe that's a sign that the paper load isn't worth the fight. If you are struggling to keep up, maybe the students are too. I'm definitely still learning this lesson!

As far as formal writing units go, I cover a few during the fall semester.

• Effective journaling (we do this throughout the semester)
• Essay writing (argumentative, persuasive, and informative)
• Autiobiographical incident
• Much, much more writing is covered, but I take specific time for these. 

We just finished the autobiographical incident piece, and I'm about a week late in getting them back to the students. (This post is as much of a direction for me as it is for other teachers!) 

But beyond that, what made this writing so connective what that student immediately had a wealth of knowledge about their content--themselves.  They take the ideas of journal- type writing and the formal structure and create it while I give them examples from others students, my own examples, and as we cover a number of writing strategies. 

What I love about this writing is that it is automatically theirs. Ownership isn't something a teacher must force. It is just...there. 

Comments. I had a very helpful professor who said the most beneficial corrections were those that the student sees himself, which many times are encouraged by the comments in the margin, not the grammatical red marks. We want them to want to write. 

Gothic Short Stories

I assigned my American Literature students to write a short Gothic story, 1 page double-spaced, that must be written  in non-sequential order, much like Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is written. To respect the writing they do, I decided to write one of my own.

Whether it makes complete sense has yet to be evaluated. I'm turning it in on Monday to be assessed by my up-and-coming Gothic writers.


The Last Door Knocker


"That's just fibs, Miss Avery. He's just trying to scare you."

"Papa ain't no lying man, mister; he's upright and honest. He said it was Hank's work."

"No."

"Same year. Same day," Miss Avery smiled for a moment, then upon deeper reflection frowned. "I don't think Papa was lying. Three people went missing that year, he said, and on that same day the tally appeared, that young woman was gone."

* * *

The sun shines today. In the fields casting straw in the midst of Angus, I see it, an old loosed piece of metal, embedded underneath clay and grass. I pick it up and pull away the dirt. The top hole of it has a screw still loosely placed. Unsurprised, I place it in my pocket. I find a number of trinkets in the fields, mostly deer horns or old hammers and socket wrenches, so I don't think much of it until I find another smaller curved piece of metal. The farmer's daughter Miss Avery mentioned a while back her father used to tell her stories of an old shack back in the woods where he'd play as child.
* * *
"He once went there." Miss Avery was weaving a piece of wheat strand through her fingers and shuffling her feet from side to side. "It was not fifteen minutes before he was supposed to be back home for supper. He said he wouldn't have thought twice about the dusk that was encroachin' except that odd noises seemed to creep up on him, and the place just wasn't the same, not at that time of the evening."

Miss Avery looked up expectantly. By then she had captured my attention, but I distanced my interest as best as possible.

"This shack was known for having markings on it all around the base of the interior. It was empty of course, but he said he'd never forget the twenty tallies engraved in the base of it. As he remembered there had been twenty that year, and that night when he went back, there was twenty-one."

"No."

"Yes, sir. Said he ran all the way home and didn't ever return. Said it was Ol' Hank's stomping grounds. Said now he knows why there was an old door knocker on the door of that old shack."

The most imaginative of her father's daughters, Miss Avery was hard to believe. Perhaps she too had spent time out in the shack in the back of the woods and perhaps it had let her own mind run wild. Anyway, I had an itch to figure it out - the date I mean - whether her father had been there at that shack the same day Ol' Hank got his last victim and made his last mark. Whether his truth was real. Whether this story wasn't just created to inspire fear. And then there it was:

Thursday, February 23, 1922

21 Murders Linked: Hank Arnett Arrested

They call him the door-knocker killer. Hank Arnett, 74, 

of Coral, Illinois, has been caught and admits to all

21 cases of murder, including the abduction of Ella McGavern,

24, just two weeks ago. 

Allegations were confirmed when a neighbor was reported 

to have found door knockers of each murdered person over the 

span of 30 years buried beneath the neighboring fence in the 

back corner of his yard. Each door knocker includes

tallies, numbering 1 through 20. The 21st door knocker has yet

to be found.

Police searched Arnett's home and found the bodies of 

McGavern along with 17-year-old Truella Jameson and 

27-year-old Andy Rickers, both of whom went missing 

earlier this year...

* * *
As I stand I take out the metal slab from my pocket and flip it over again, the back now clear from my thumb having rubbed away the dirt. There on the back are twenty-one notches, and I believe, thought it cannot possibly be true, I behold it - his last door knocker.

Third Year Teaching

The first year was a ticking time bomb, a fraying rope, a loose caboose...you get the point.

The second year, I had paved a path--thank goodness--but it was bumpy, and there are still some serious pot holes.

This year, the third year, is much better. And this year [breathes calmly] is my year to make my English classroom matter for students.

I don't want to be just proficient. I don't want my students to be average if they are not. I want them to find a way to matter and to use the language arts to help them. So, in this blog I'll be researching the following:

1. Technology - we sincerely need better computers and more devices for students to use. I don't want 8 students to sit to the side while the other 20 get to learn how to use a computer program.

2. Methods - sometimes I teach what I teach. Sometimes I get to choose. Sometimes my students get to choose. It has changed every year. I want to cement some methods while others should continually change.

3. Professionalism - what professional development am I currently studying? I'll be updating you.

4. Integrated biblical standards - I teach in a Christian school and too often we tack God on at the end (I was careful not to do that in this blog!). How do we consider God first, and how do we do it with purpose?

5. Media - is Media now my most important class to teach? The students spend so much time outside of school consuming all things Internet. I once read about a mother who didn't realize her son's Xbox 360 was interactive. Oh boy.

6. More - there is always more to discuss about education. Watch teachers talk about education sometime. Then you'll understand.

I have begun this blog with the intention of making my classroom outstanding. I want to teach with vigor, with poise, and with consideration for the learner.