Day 55: Fixing Problems

Agenda-
Homeroom
Class: Creative Writing
Class: Pre-AP Sophomore English
Class: AP Senior English
Lunch
Study Hall

Creative writing was spent doing more work on our quest stories. Meg and I went around today to see how close everyone was to being done. They are close. Most are just editing. We are going to give them until Thursday to get it posted. Then over break they will have to read an outside book, compare the dialogue in their quest story to the novel they read, read two of the quest stories, and leave comments on the discussion page. Then when we get back we will give each group feedback on the story. The first story they will read will probably be ours since it is 18 pages long. Not sure how it got so long. But that way the class will have time over break to read it. Also, we noticed that the seniors will be graduating soon and I will be leaving soon. There isn’t enough time left between now and the end of the year to write another quest story. It is time to get to the big battle with the big evil villain.

I decided that the sophomores will be picking their seats every day. I want them to sit with someone different every day. After the outburst from Tori on Friday I think it will be good for them to mingle with people they wouldn’t pick to work with. I also decided that I needed to have a conversation with Tori. After everyone was settled in their seats, I took Tori out in the hall and talked to her. I asked her about what happened on Friday and if she was ok. I explained to her that I know she doesn’t usually act like that and that I wanted to make sure she was ok. She told me she just feels very strongly about it. I explained to her that what I was saying wasn’t meant to be a personal attack on her and she said she knew that. I asked if she understood what I was trying to say and she said she did. I told her that we were going to talk in class about propaganda of the time period and how people were labeled and stereotyped. I asked her if she thought she would be ok with that. She said she would be. I’m not sure if my talk with her in the hall accomplished anything. I know it definitely didn’t change her opinion. It also didn’t explain to me why she is so attached to labels and feels so strongly about it. What is the point of labeling people? I decided that she and I were on better terms since talking though and I didn’t want to push the matter any further. So we went back into the classroom, we watched the presentations and then I talked to the class about propaganda. The class was very serious and very quiet as I gave my little lecture that I had given the class before. I hope it makes some difference.

The seniors were awesome as always. We talked about Aurora Leigh and then we talked about meter. They seemed like they were grasping the basic idea. We scanned a few lines together and by the third line scanned they knew which syllables were stressed and which weren’t without my help. I went over what to call each number of feet in a line and what each grouping of stressed and unstressed syllables means. I showed them the rhyme scheme for a sonnet. I made a deal with them. If they write me a sonnet they can use that as both their poem with meter and their poem with a rhyme scheme. But then they need to write an extra free choice poem. I did this because sonnets are hard to write. Some of the students asked if they could work on writing poems once I was done. I let them. Many of them immediately started trying to write a sonnet. Some of them got out other poems and edited those. This class is always very productive when I give them time to work on their poetry portfolio. I really don’t mind letting them work on it at all.