Advanced 10

I have dislexia.

I was in classes that helped me with reading from 2nd to 5th grade. I tested out of RSP when I went to middle school but still struggled with reading. My 8th grade English teacher refused to let me go into advanced English or Spanish when I went on to high school.

Now I teach advanced English. This is insane to me. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE it. I've had advanced 11 for a few years now and l.o.v.e. it.

This year in my mail box I got the memo that I would be teaching Advanced 10. I was a little shocked and then progressively excited.

I found out what the books are and now I'm interested in adding two more supplemental books to the list. We have four books for supplemental reading and I would like to be able to let students choose four - these are the four that are already on the list

Joy Luck Club
Native Son
All Quiet on the Western Front
Things Fall Apart

Core Lit:
Of Mice and Men
Night
Julius Caesar
Animal Farm

If you were going to add two titles what would they be?

It's world lit - I was kinda hoping for a good piece with a latino/a background.

Thoughts?

No Teacher Left Behind

Now I know we have heard of NCLB. But this week it was N-T-LB around my neck of the woods.

178 were on "The List" - this became a curse word around our campus for the last month and a half or so. I was not on "The List" - but a lot of my friends were. 8 in my department alone. And let me tell you - the tone on my campus was "No way - No how" - we were not going to lose any of our amazing, fantastic, stupendous*, down right cool teachers.

So the district and the union 'battled' it out. (They didn't have swords or anything - but that may have been amazing to watch) And to our delight gave us the option to vote early this week. 95% of the teachers in the district voted to keep our 178! And so all is well in the land.

It felt so good to know that our department would stay intact. We will be taking 7 furlough days next year. 3 teacher and 4 student days. That does make me think - now how am I going to teach all of this in 4 less days - but then again, homework isn't always a bad thing.



*I feel like the word stupendous is not used enough. It really is a great word.

A wild 4 day week.

So first let me start by saying that 8 years ago today - life changed.

Here is where I was in 2001.
Living in Flagstaff - loving college life. I was late for my desk shift early that Tuesday morning. I was supposed to sit at the desk from the hours of 7am to 10am. I ran down stairs and sat reading my book. Then I heard two people walk past me and say "We are all under attack - when will it stop". So I turned on the radio and began to listen. For three hours I could only imagine what was going on. I heard the announcers talk about a plane, and the World Trade Center, and how the towers fell. How it appeared that this was not an accident. So I continued to sit there in awe.

At 10 I went to my Spanish class. The TV was on in the classroom and so I was able to see what had happened. I didn't know how to think. I still don't know what to think. It is an experience that may not ever make sense. My professor told us to go home and call our families - to make sure everyone was okay and that we would progress as normal the next day.

I walked back to my dorm room and noticed that the sky seemed so quiet. Everything was just so quiet.

It's hard to put down in to words what that day was like. Today my students and I discussed the after affects of the 9/11 attacks. It was interesting to hear how they remember the day. These kids were around the age of 8 when this happened. So strange to think about it.

So this week we had Monday off. We did some laundry and got ready for the week.

• Tuesday was back to school night
• Wednesday was a late start and we had to work in our PLC (professional -learning - community) and that didn't go as well as we hoped. There is one person who is "in charge" of us and that person came in and sent us all into a tail spin.
• Thursday was a rally day so the kids were all excited about life - and not so much about learning.
• Today I felt like there was not enough time in the day. That and after lunch I felt ready to go home. I sometimes wonder if there was a way for me to grade papers in my sleep. It would be so nice to just wake up and have a nice little pile of graded essays.

This weekend I need to grade heeps of papers. HEEPS! but I do plan on enjoying time with the hubby and meg the cat - so it should make for a good weekend.