8 Questions

I have been asked several questions since becoming a teacher that have completely left me speechless. These aren't the kind of questions I don't feel qualified to answer; they're just the kind I never expected to hear.

1. Can I go out to the parking lot? I left my car running this morning.

2. Can I turn my homework in tomorrow? I got hit by a car yesterday afternoon.

3. Can I go to the office? My tooth just broke off.

4. Can I go get my book? I left it on the wrong side of my locker, so I forgot to pick it up.

5. Can you tell us about your first kiss?

6. Do you know who invented the dog whistle?

7. Where does the peace sign come from?

8. Do you know how to fold those paper chain people who all hold hands?

Needless to say, those of you who think that teachers only need to know about teaching their particular subject matter, think again. I've half a mind to write to the dean of my college and demand to know why the English Department didn't teach me who invented the dog whistle. I'm sure he'd take that into consideration and create a class designed specifically around that. In the meantime, Wikipedia is at my frequent disposal.

We Remember

My AP class is studying Hitler's propaganda ministry and the Holocaust in conjunction with a reading of Elie Wiesel's autobiography, Night. It's a heartrending story of this 15 year old Jewish boy's survival of Auschwitz. Wiesel is an incredible man. Since being liberated by American troops in 1945, he has written and published 47 books, holds several degrees (some of which are honorary), has taught at Boston University and Yale, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, and at the age of 82 is still alive today, shouting from the rooftops, doing all he can to ensure that the memories of so many dead will live on.

Tomorrow (assuming that the meteorologists are crazy for predicting that the blizzard of the century will arrive just after midnight) my students will watch Oprah's 2006 interview with Wiesel. This is an incredible viewing. They actually visit Auschwitz (which apparently Wiesel does on a regular basis -- Can you imagine?) over 50 years after the fact, and as if the feeling of the place isn't intense enough, he refuses to speak above a whisper in order to respect the dead.

While doing this study along with my kids, I have been moved to tears several times. This is a tragedy of mammoth proportions that no one should ever have the luxury to forget. Here in the midst of my rambling, I'm reminded of Elie Wiesel's declaration that there simply are no words. No words to describe the horror and anger and grief. No words. So here, at the risk of alluding to Thomas Bowden's "This page is left blank for you" at the end of Beebe High School yearbooks, I'm going to leave the rest of this post blank for the memories of the dead and the grief of the living. May those six million descendants of Abraham never be forgotten.

____________________________________________________________________

State of the Classroom Address: Room 2 edition

Last night at half past seven o'clock Miss Pruitt of Room 2 delivered this, the State of the Classroom address.

Students, parents, colleagues, friends, I greet you. Tonight, I will inform you all on the successes, failures, and delightfully (usually) random happenings in room 2. We'll laugh; we'll cry; oh, what a time we'll have. I hope that by the end of the address you will all feel that the future of our country is safe (ish) and that at least 50% of ignorance is regularly stamped out.

Three different classes are conducted inside room 2 four days a week, due to Harding Academy's block scheduling on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Sophomores gather to learn and discuss the forms and functions of general English, including language, writing, and reading. So far this year, we've read Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, several poetry selections, and we are currently in the middle of the beauty that is Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. I fully enjoy my 10th grade students. We have a good time together. Last semester, I failed to thoroughly explore writing and language skills to the degree which I would like, so I plan to remedy that this Spring.

Juniors assemble in room 2 daily to discover the complexities of the history of American Literature. So far, we've read Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter, Miller's The Crucible, a large collection of American short stories, poems, and historical documents, and we are currently tackling argumentative research papers on a wide variety of social issues. My regret from the fall semester was that we spent too much time on the selections I enjoyed the most, so we were forced to cram too much material into too little time. I'm hoping to be able to keep things moving at a pace consistent enough to keep that from happening again, while actually making it through all of the material we still need to cover. It's a daunting task.

Some academically excellent Junior students were chosen to participate in the Advanced Placement Language and Composition course. We read and discussed several works over the summer: The Great Gatsby, The Case for Christ, and Ecclesiastes. Since then, we've tackled Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, as well as a number of essay selections. We used these readings as material to shape our writing. We've explored the forms, functions, and development of essays that analyze literature and those that make strong arguments, and are currently in the process of learning to synthesize the two. We've still got great strides to make before we can walk on the moon of the AP test, but these students are exceptionally bright, and I'm proud of the work they've done as well as consistently amazed at their innate abilities to make intelligent connections.

Besides the satisfaction that comes from watching students learn and grow, there is also a very special part of my job that comes from simply sharing in these kids' lives. I never cease to be amazed at their many quirks and the diversity of their many interests. At one time or another in my classroom, I have participated in conversations about what we should do if there is a school shooting, a student's chipped tooth, the disgusting details of stomach viruses, the possibilities of deodorant that smells like cheeseburgers, the fact that Will loves basketball, the details of my contract, plans to set me up on a blind date with someone who doesn't even live in this state, silverback gorillas, the man who invented the dog whistle, Publius, Captain America, yams, whether a woman's place is in the kitchen, the fact that I have two students in the same class who hate the number 4, and efforts to Save the Manatees from large ships because they're too stupid to get out of the way. There is never a dull day in room 2.

Lastly, I just want to say that even on days when I can't believe it's only number 95 because it feels like number 1095, I still can't imagine myself doing anything else. I've had friends tell me that I was born to do this job, and I am more and more convinced of that fact every day. Even when I'm exhausted from pulling teeth and herding cats (which is what my job is a considerable amount of the time), I'm still thinking about delightful conversations about the movies they think I should see and the smiles on their faces when they find out I'll be there to watch them play that game or perform on that stage. All 87 of them have captured little parts of my heart, and I know that it will simply have to grow 2 or 3 sizes in the next few years to add in all the new faces and lives that I will inevitably love.

Teaching is a very special job, and Harding Academy is a very special place. I find it a privilege and an honor to serve my Lord by leading children to new worlds and fascinating discoveries. I hope and pray that I can bless their lives in a small way because they have infinitely blessed mine.

Happy 100th Day of School, Wildcats! Here's to a fun and productive 78 more!

Announcement of State of the Classroom Address

It's 1:36 pm (6th period), and I'm reporting LIVE from Harding Academy Room 2. Today is the 100th day of the 2010-2011 school year. I've officially been a teacher for 100 days (some may think that I've been teaching for most of my life in some capacity or another, but that's a story for another day). In honor of these past 100 days, I am preparing to deliver my address on the State of the Classroom. Tonight, I'll inform you all on our successes and failures and our plans and goals for the future. Stay Tuned.

Things I learned in Room 2 today

1. I learned how to make a paper doll chain, both in a straight line and in a circle.

2. I learned that there are several “causes” that have their own special colors. These are used to promote awareness for the individual situations. The odd thing is that there are a limited number of colors, but a considerable number of causes. So one color may end up representing awareness for two comically unrelated causes. For instance, a yellow ribbon is supposed to raise awareness for support of our military. Great, right? It’s also supposed to represent suicide awareness and the awareness of anal cancer. Hmmm…………

Illness

Today was the first day that I was sick enough to actually call in sick to a real-live job. I feel like death eating a biscuit and probably look like it too. I've got an array of symptoms that I've been fighting off for two or three weeks but lost my power over sometime yesterday morning. My throat is sore, my stomach feels queasy, and I've got a headache the size of Montana. So, I called our precious secretary this morning and asked very politely, and very pathetically, for a substitute. She was gracious and caring, but the bad news was that I had not planned to be absent today. As a first year teacher, I do almost all of my planning one day ahead. If I've got a full week planned before Tuesday afternoon, it is a most productive week. Needless to say, I did not have written lesson plans when I requested a sub at 7am this morning, so I had to go to school in my jeans with my wet hair to create lesson plans and make copies for my poor sub.

Don't get me wrong and assume that I'm a terrible teacher who never plans anything but just shows up and sees what happens. That's not at all the case. I'm just the kind of teacher who too often makes all the plans in her head (and sometimes in the morning in the shower), so they aren't the kind of plans she can pass on to another at a moment's notice. However, after about 25 minutes at school this morning, where I am sure plenty of people thought I was completely rude because I reciprocated their polite "Good Morning"s in a unenthusiastic manner, I finally made it back home to my chair where a large glass of ginger ale, a box of saltines, several chloraseptic lozenges, my ugly quilt, and the first season of Jed Barlett's White House awaited me. I enjoyed my morning as thoroughly as I could with Montana between my eyes, but the worst part about today, that I forgot to mention earlier, was that today was the day that final grades for the 1st quarter were due. At 3:25. I had finally finished reading and scoring all of the AP rewrites last night, but I hadn't put them in our online gradebook to be finalized yet, so I actually had to do a bit of work today. The sad news is that I, as a poor single private school teacher, do not yet have internet access at my home. So I was forced to venture out. Knowing that I did not want to have to be seen by people, my sweet Rob-Bob let me hijack her laptop in her office(after also bringing me lunch). Those of you who know Rob know how big of a sacrifice this really was for her. Fortunately, I was actually more caught up on grades than I thought , so it didn't take long for me to finalize things. Now, I'm back to resting and consuming fluids at a nearly alarming rate. I hope and pray that I feel better tomorrow and will be able to return to Room 2 at full capacity.....or at least a capacity where Montana has shrunk to New Jersey and I can think about something besides the activity of my intestines.

I never cease to be amazed at how quickly time passes when I'm sick. After lying around all day, I have no idea how it ever got to be 4:35 in the afternoon. I have done almost nothing productive all day. Wow.

Anyway, I'm not sure that this was of any interest to all of you, but I've felt rather lousy and lonely today and needed to at least pretend that there were some people out there who might at least like to read about my illness. At least from your computer screen, you aren't likely to catch it.

Musings from Room 2

It is no secret to those who know me that, although, as a teacher I'm not technically supposed to have favorites, the sophomores in 5th period are pretty special. I don't know what it is that makes that class so different from all the others. Maybe it's the personalities. Maybe it's the time of day, just before lunch. Maybe it's Memphis. Who knows? Nevertheless, there is an abundance of enjoyable moments and memories made daily in Room 2 during 5th period. I often wonder if these kids love me as much as I love them. Probably not. But some days they say things that just make my whole week. I could live on comments like "This class gets me through the day" for a lifetime. I don't know what I'm doing right with these kids, but they feel safe with me, and that is my #1 goal as a teacher.

Today was a day not unlike other glorious Wednesdays when I get to have all my sophomores for an hour and a half. There was random chatting and fun being had by all in the midst of grammar and learning and writing. It was heavenly, as you can imagine. But, for some reason, after several weeks of school, this class began to ask a plethora of questions about me and my life that they had not yet asked.

Are you married?
Do you have a "manfriend"?
Will you write a book? ( I later found out that they want me to write a book about them. Good thing they don't know about this blog.)
Do you have any siblings?
What is your favorite football team?: college and NFL

These are just the ones from today. I've also answered questions that range anywhere from what sports I played in high school to what my favorite movies are. I'm seriously considering creating an autobiography to share with them all. Since the readers of the pickle jar are among my greatest friends, I'm asking you for particular stories, facts, or parts of my life that should not be neglected, should I choose to tell my students about my life. Maybe I'll even dig out the ancient Facebook note on my 16 things for inspiration. The phone lines and comment boxes are now open.

A week in the life of a first-year English teacher

This week has been pretty crazy so far. I'm surprised by my own ability to miraculously shrug off the embarrassment and stress that have come from certain incidents. Things have happened this week that would usually have meant the end of the world as I knew it, but somehow I've had an attitude that has allowed me to simply laugh at myself. Don't get used to it.

1. I have been in charge of after-school detention this week. That is by no means the end of the world on its own, but when you combine it will all the other things I needed to do, staying for an extra hour after school every day was slightly overwhelming.

Bright Side: I was able to get some work done that I didn't have to take home or stress about the next morning.

2. Tuesday was.........um...........eventful. We only had school for half a day, and most of those 25-minute classes were taken up by school pictures, so the teaching aspect of the day was a complete wash. After the students went home at 12:30, the teachers ate a catered lunch from Pasta Grill, which is a new restaurant in town that I'd been meaning to try. I will definitely be eating there sometime in the near future. The lasagna was excellent, and as it's not my favorite pasta dish, I'm certain that the others must be even better. After lunch, I was able to rest a bit and make a trip to the grocery store to pick up a few snacks for the evening. At 3:00, parents arrived for my first ever Parent/Teacher conferences. I met with 23 parents in 4 hours. While that really isn't many considering the fact that I'm a brand-new teacher, it was still overwhelming. And the sheer business of being at school until 7:00 was exhausting.

Bright Side: The parents were gracious and sweet, and no one was angry with me.

3. Wednesday was the funny day. I'll set the scene: Wednesday is block day, so I only have odd-numbered classes for 1 1/2 hours each, plus 8th period. After my 3rd period planning, I made my way back to my room, where Coach L teaches Bible during 3rd period.
He hung around, talking to a student longer than usual. My students began to arrive and after my hourly trip to the bathroom, I re-entered my classroom to find everyone frantic. I immediately heard a very loud beeping alarm clock, but none of us could find its source. Coach L stayed to help. We even had a student standing on my desk to check the ceiling tiles because someone had placed an alarm clock in the ceiling of another classroom last year. Eventually, Mrs. S from next door and Coach M from the hall had also come to help with the investigation. Coach M pretended not to hear the sound so that the girls in my class would feel that they were going crazy. It worked for a while. Then he told us that he had played a prank and put the alarm in the ceiling. He was, again, joking. Eventually, Mrs. S and Coach M went to their own classes, and Coach L volunteered to get a ladder because we were all sure it must be coming from the ceiling. About the time he left, Dean M, who is my principal and boss, showed up. I'm not sure who told him about the situation, but he came to see what was going on. I was trying to just continue with class, but my efforts were mostly in vain. As I began to teach, or at least to get my students under control and Coach L went for the ladder, Dean M began to search my room. All of a sudden, I looked up, and he had picked up my teacher bag and put it on my desk as if the sound was coming from my bag. The only thing I could think of that might be making that incessant sound was my cell phone that I knew was on silent. Nevertheless, I got it out of my bag to check, and it was silent. Then we heard the noise again, and I discovered what had happened. The button on the side of my phone that adjusts the volume was being pushed inside my bag continually. It had been my cell phone and my fault all along. There's nothing like having your boss be the one to figure out that your cell phone is incessantly beeping and preventing you and others from having class. Still, after apologizing profusely, I was able to laugh it off and continue with what was left of my class. Coach M caught me in the teacher's workroom this morning (Thursday) to ask about what had happened and to share with the other coaches present the embarrassment of my Wednesday.

As if this alarm incident wasn't enough, I was also caught making grammatical mistakes in my Facebook status by my mentor and department chair, Mrs. S.

Additionally, during the Round-Table discussion in my AP class, I was hit by a paper ball that my students had been using to play a game that they thought I didn't know they were playing. The truth is that I was just happy they were actually talking to me and thinking critically.

Bright Spot: After our daily prayer in 5th period, one student told me that our prayers got her through the day. Another student extended her thought by declaring that my class got him through the day. Those are the comments we live for. I can live on that one for months.

4. Today (Thursday) was the day that Mrs. S had planned to come and observe my class to begin preparing me for the Praxis III observation that I will complete in the Spring in order to recieve my offical teaching license. The bad news is that she makes me nervous, even more so than when I had my offical principal's evaluation. So I had been slightly stressed about her coming to visit the class that is composed of the most unfortunate combination of personalities, abitilities, and circumstances imaginable. I'd spent several fruitless hours trying to be sure that I would not embarrass myself, yet again. But she had to leave school early this afternoon and was unable to come. That's a relief for the day, but it means that I'll just be postponing my stress until sometime next week.

Bright Side: I'm beginning to actually enjoy this class of poor, unfortunate misfits.

Incompetent Hand-holders

Disclaimer: I, by no means, wish to convey by the bitterness and frustration of this post that I dislike my chosen profession. I love teaching. I love kids. But God never said I always had to like them.

I ask myself (and my cooperating teacher) every day: "What is wrong with people?" "Why don't my students think they have to do anything?" "Why are there no real consequences, either at home or at school, for refusing to put forth any effort?" Like that gum you stepped in last Tuesday and still can't manage to get off of your shoe, so are the questions of our lives.

My greatest frustration thus far as a teacher has been that my students simply believe that they do not have to do anything. Detention is not a motivator. F's are not motivators. Calling their parents or sending them to the office is a joke because everyone knows neither of these options are going to make any difference anyhow. There are no consequences. Refuse to turn in your work for weeks on end and find yourself failing the class during the last week of the semester? No worries. The principal will force your teachers to allow you to turn in late work for full credit, so you'll pass regardless. Actually show up for school fewer than 50% of the school days required by State Law? No worries. You'll be able to make up all your work when you finally return, and your teachers will catch all the heat when you do poorly on the Benchmark.

I've spent a considerable amount of time pondering this situation in my last 8 weeks or so of student teaching. I'm convinced that it is a generational issue. OK, before you get all "people everywhere and for all time are lazy and stupid" on me, let me clarify. My theory of generational laziness comes from the fact that it isn't just a handful of students I struggle with daily to get them to turn in work. It's a handful of students who I don't have to fight. The overwhelming majority of my students have this attitude, and I would like to take this space to point the finger at the parents. If you spend your entire lives coddling your children and never allowing them to do anything for themselves, they are going to assume that their teachers (and God forbid! their employers) will do the same. This Just IN: They won't. Holding your child's hand through everything, laying out his clothes every morning (until he's 35) and calling/emailing his teachers every time his homework is too hard for you to do for him is not doing him a favor.
So, this is to you parents: Whether your child is an adult, a toddler, or an glimmer of hope in the future, please let go of his bicycle once in a while and give him the chance to fall. He'll thank you for it in the long run, when he learns to get back up on his own. And so will his educators. And his employers. And his future wife.

Things about teaching that I never expected

This is a list of several lessons I've learned, either through my own mistakes or from the anecdotes of other teachers, while student-teaching. They are things that, although I grew up with a teacher in my house and have gone to school all my life and have friends who are teachers as well, I never thought about having to deal with. It just goes to show that no matter how educated you are, you don't always know everything. Sometimes there's a whole basket of muffins.

1. Writing on the board is hard.

Unless you have some sort of super powers, actual eyes in the back of your head, or a special mode of contortion that allows you to face the students and write on the board at the same time, you'll most likely have your back to something like 25 young people who are always looking for the opportunity to do something stupid like remove their prosthetic legs and hit others with them, light fires inside desks, or crawl out of windows. So you spend all of your time actually writing on the board doing everything you can to listen to what's going on behind you and make sure that they are all still present, intact, and paying attention. As you can imagine, all of that pressure makes the actual writing process rather difficult. Forget trying to write in straight lines on a giant blank white board. You'll most likely be more concerned with actually spelling everything correctly. The first time you spell "shirt" without the "r," you might as well just forget the rest of the lesson because you may never get their attention back.

2. You will know more about other people's bodily fluids than doctors do on a daily basis.

I cannot count how many times in a day students ask to leave class to go to the restroom or to step into the hall to blow their noses. But that is a legitimate need that I expected to have to deal with, and, honestly, it's not a big deal. I never expected, however, to have students announce that they "need to pee" in the middle of class with nothing like a question attached. I never thought about how many times I'd have to open a window because someone in the back row passed gas that was so foul no one else could concentrate. I can honestly say that the need to spit sunflower seeds into the trash in the middle of class was not something I considered having to deal with. Perhaps some of these things have something to do with the school district. I'm afraid that most of them have to do with teenagers.

3. Technology is wonderful, but incredibly unreliable.

Always have a back-up plan. Computers, smart boards, classroom televisions, projectors. All of these things, and many more resources, are wonderful and helpful in the classroom setting. They help make teaching and planning easier and more convenient and provide teachers for a wide range of outlets for their creativity. However, the first time you plan a whole lesson around a Powerpoint presentation in which you need, not only the presentation to load, but also the projector and the Smartboard to cooperate, at least one of those technological advances will fail you, and you'll be left with nothing. Always have a back-up plan.

4. Make friends with the custodians. They know all the secrets.

Custodians know where all of the extra hidden supplies are. They tend to be some of the first to find out about things that are happening in the district. Sometimes it's just gossip, but often times there are things that would be nice to know before the district deems it necessary to tell teachers. Custodians can be some of your best friends. Additionally, they are also the people you generally get the least respect in the building. If you treat them like Jesus would treat them, you'll not only be shining your light, you'll also get your room cleaned and your trash taken out more often than anyone else.

5. You may think that, as an English teacher, you'll never need to use math again.

Until there's a stack of essays you have to grade based on a rubric you must create and then assign points to and then calculate the percentage of. Consider yourself warned.

6. Your supervisor/principal/etc. will always come into your classroom when you least expect him. All too often it's the one minute you've sat down in your chair all class period.

A Day in the Life of a Student-Teacher

The last semester of a college student's life feels a bit like limbo, especially for a Student-Teacher. The world expects you to take on a lot of the responsibilities of a real-live grown-up, but in so many ways, you're really still a college kid. It's really weird, and pretty frustrating sometimes. The good news is that I love being a student-teacher. For the first time in a long time, I am 100% certain that God created me to teach and that I am right where I belong. It is such a blessed and peaceful feeling. It makes all the hard stuff a lot easier to deal with.

For those of you who may not really be able to understand just what I mean about the ambiguity of a student-teacher's life, here's what a typical day looks like. I'm afraid that it looks more and more like the real world every day.

6:00 am Awakened by vibrating cell phone alarm. Removes ear plugs, crawls out of bed, and staggers into the bathroom to be further awakened by warm morning shower.

6:15 am Checks email and Facebook. Packs breakfast, lunch, and daily snack.

7:10 am Leaves dorm room dressed "professionally."

7:30 am Arrives at High School 15 minutes before cooperating teacher, adjusts the thermostat in classroom, and gets herself ready for the day.

8:00am The day officially begins 2hours after she woke up, but 1 hour before it used to begin.

9:40am Teaches 9th graders Language Arts concepts they should have mastered at least 3 years ago.

10:30am Conferences with cooperating teacher during planning period, has quick snack and bathroom break before next class begins.

12:03 pm Blessed lunchtime

1:35 pm Daily hall duty: aka "Make sure the crazy kids don't kill each other."

3:15 pm School day ends

3:25 pm Leaves school

3:50 pm Arrives back on campus, picks up Rob-Bob to go shopping for Monica's lingerie shower this weekend.

4:45pm Arrives back on campus, goes to dorm room to check email, eat dinner, and begin work on lesson plans for this week's official evaluation.

5:50pm Goes to the Reynolds for Spring Sing Vocal Track practice.

7:30pm Goes to gym to work out.

8:20pm Arrives back in dorm room to take a quick shower and work on lesson plans.

8:55pm Goes back to the Reynolds for Regina club meeting.

9:35 pm Back in dorm room to finish lesson plans, read Bible, decide on tomorrow's wardrobe choice, blog, and chat with friends online a bit.

10:30pm Gather things for tomorrow and begin nightly routine.

11:00 pm Lights out

6:00 am Do it all over again.

Occasionally other teachers at my school will ask me if this is still really what I want to do, what I want my life to be like. Some days it feels like way too much to handle. But, most days it's practically perfect.

Top 10 Books Every High School Graduate Should Have Read

I was searching for a topic for my next blog post earlier this week, and my good friend and compulsive list-maker suggested this Top 10 list. I was too insecure in my own ability to create a list from scratch, so I consulted a few of my best English Student-Teacher friends and have compiled a list in no particular order (which is one of my greatest downfalls as a maker of lists).

1. Something by Shakespeare
This was on everybody's list. There are obviously several choices for high school readers in Billy's repertoire. I only read three of his plays in high school: Julius Caesar, A Mid-Summer Night's Dream, and Othello -- all of which I enjoyed. Othello is still my favorite, but those surveyed also suggested Twelfth Night and Hamlet -- both of which I liked, but did not read until I was in college.
Some may complain and wonder why Shakespeare is such a given and must be so widely-read. It usually isn't difficult to get me to join the "we shouldn't necessarily do things just because that's how we've always done it" bandwagon, but I've got to support Shakespeare. I believe that his work should be canonized almost entirely because it has lasted so long. His words are still influencing the way that educated people speak and think nearly 4 centuries after his death, because he understood how people work and wrote honestly about human emotion and interaction. Getting high school students to read is 1/2 a literacy issue and 1/2 an issue of creating educated citizens. Shakespeare helps accomplish both of these, because, after all,
"...there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before..."

2. 1984 by George Orwell
This is one of my favorite works of all time. I read it for the first time in high school, and I remember all of my friends liking it too. As high school students, we probably enjoyed reading the risque business and felt empowered to "stick it" to Big Brother. Later, I came to be wary of all I heard about my government. But, now, it seems to be more important that George Orwell wrote the book in 1949, contemplating how the world would be 35 years later. The fear that was so pervasive at that time is shocking. Now I realize how many good lessons can be taught from this book....lessons that I had to learn on my own much later.

3. Night by Elie Wiesel
This short work brings the horrors of the Holocaust home, and hits people right where they live. Once again, Wiesel's book has so many lessons to teach to high school students who have a difficult time seeing beyond themselves. This kind of experience can really broaden their worldviews.

4. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
This is a beautiful "coming-of-age" story of racial (in)justice in the deep South. High school students have been hearing about civil rights and racial inequality for their entire educated lives. Books like this show them the situation from a personal point of view, forcing them to think about what it must have been like to really deal with extreme prejudice. In many cases, it can make them think about prejudices in their own lives and show them how they may be treating others.

5. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I didn't read this book until I was in college. It's a bit long for my taste, as far as a general high school read goes, but I think that it's important in the same way -- but perhaps not to the same degree -- that Shakespeare is. Twain is a Southern American classic that all educated people should read. When I was in high school, we took the Mark Twain shortcut by reading his short stories instead, which is a viable option when under a time crunch, but Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer are classic stories with their own lessons to teach. They can also be easy introductions to dialect reading.

6. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
This is my favorite book of all time. Period. The End. I read it in high school, but not for class. It is the perfect introduction to romantic British Lit. and can really stretch a high school student's mind with varied diction and syntax. I think that it can make teenagers feel like they are reading something a little "high brow" because of the language without being too far over their head. Plus, it's just a beautiful story, for which I'm a sucker.

7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
I know several people who did not enjoy this book and wonder why in the world it is so widely read in high school English classes. I liked the book, but that's just personal taste. I think it's a perfect representation of the "Roaring '20s" and a satirical critique of the "American Dream." It asks the hard questions about what Americans had always prioritized and shows that when people, especially a whole nation, are short-sighted there are consequences to be paid. It's a great lesson in preparation.

8. The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
This is another period piece about the strict societal rules in 17th century Puritan New England. This kind of work can beautifully highlight a history lesson on early America while providing a backdrop for difficult discussions about morality in the present.

9. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
I did not read this book until I was in college, but I think that it can be perfectly suited for a high school classroom as well. Hurston's beautiful story of an African American woman's struggle to see herself (and have others see her) as a person, a woman, and a worthy creature of God evokes compassion and sympathy in its readers. Especially for students who will not go on to college, Hurston's easy-to-read fiction is the perfect tool to expand a world-view.

10. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
This may have been one of my favorite books that I read while in high school. I think it is very interesting that no one the consulted panel mentioned this one. To some, Steinbeck is an acquired taste, but I love his writing. He has such an ease with words that it's no wonder he's been named as one of the greats. The plight of the Joad family and their 1930s westward journey is a classic story for teaching a wide variety of moral lessons along with literary devices and the exploration of literary merit.

What books did you read in high school that I've left out of this list? What books would be on your Top 10 list? If you were teaching High School English, what works would you be sure not to leave out?

Refrigerator Poetry

I'm in the process of learning to be a teacher, and one of my favorite "methods" for teaching writing so far is an activity that I have personally deemed "refrigerator poetry." Now, this may remind some of you of a haiku that goes something like this:

Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator

But that is not at all what I mean.
This activity earned its name from its similarity to those refrigerator magnets with words or pieces of words on them that are used to make sentences, or in the case of someone I know, to exhaust one's life supply of creativity. Students are given several sheets of paper with lists of random words on them, scissors, construction paper, and glue. They will do nothing except cut out words for a certain period of time -- perhaps 15 minutes. Then they have to write a poem using only the words they've cut out. The rules can be adjusted a bit to allow for trading between students and cutting words apart to create other words that they may lack. Then the poem is glued down to construction paper.
We did this in my "Teaching English" methods class last week, and it was wonderful. I'm a language lover, but poetry and I are not generally on very good terms. I have a difficult time really understanding and loving poetry. I tend to find my own imagined "meanings" in it and read things that aren't there. I am terrible at writing poetry, generally, because I feel constrained by the structure and pressure of doing it the "right" way. But this activity was a great stress-reliever for me. The day that we did it in class, I really enjoyed it and was able to create completely uninhibited. I'm pretty proud of the product, but I can't share it with you here because we had to put them up on the bulletin board in our classroom. I promise to share it when they let me bring it home.
In the meantime, I can confess that I'm such an English nerd that I used the words I had left from class and wrote another refrigerator poem on Friday afternoon while I was snowed in. And, although I am terrible at receiving feedback on my writing (either good or bad), I'm going to share this with all of you in blog-dom. Be kind.

Quiet
Woods fill
Up with
Smooth
Snow

Twinkling
Free
Under the
Hush

The universe
Wanders
Away

Billows
Sliding
Down the
Willow
Breathing Deep

Sounds trailing
Sandman
Smells
A dream


Morning
Sweeps
In around
A forest bower

Inside
The dry flame
Roaring hot

Curled inside a
Sweet cocoon
The easy laughing
Wrinkles His nose
and
mine

When
Comes
Music

Just for us