Category: Learnin’ ‘Em Kids

I teach. Most of these posts are password-protected.

Peguses

My Facebook friends will remember that, a month ago, when I was teaching Greek mythology, I asked a student which god or goddess she wanted to do her character poster on and Haley responded, “Hepatitis.”

I said, “Hephaestus?”

She said, “Yeah, OK.”

After the character poster, I required that each student choose a myth and create a comic or graphic novel (minimum eight panels). I told them that I was less concerned with their artistic ability and more interested in whether they could break the story down into its elements, which we had studied earlier in the year: exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, solution.

Here’s Maryah’s:

How peguses was born, p.1 (Click for bigger.)
How peguses was born, p. 2

There are more where that came from.

Hail to the Brightest Star of All

I made my entrance to this bright world in a little hospital in Blowing Rock and grew up listening to Cove Creek gurgle by.

I rode Old Highway 421 to Boone to take ballet, tap, and jazz weekly at the Dancer’s Corner and made out with Robbie in his Volvo in Foscoe every chance I could get.

I attended the University of National Champions in Chapel Hill, camping out on the hard sidewalk outside the Dean Dome for basketball tickets, ordering Greek grilled cheese at Hector’s at 2:00am, and sweating my way through eight shows in the Lab! Theatre.

I flew away to Italy, Mexico, and New York Fuckin City, but I kept finding my way back to the Tar Heel State.

For five years, I taught fourth graders how to lose at tetherball on Seawell School Road, then wended my way out to my little mill house in Hillsborough and ran my dogs all over Occoneechee Mountain.

These days, I work out, go out, and tell stories in Bull City. I drive up Roxboro, down Mangum, and across Club Boulevard.

I’ve been to Asheville and Kure Beach and a lot of places in between, and I love. This. State.

I love North Carolina.

But today my state government voted to put hate on the ballot and bigotry on the map on May 8, 2012, and I just couldn’t be more ashamed.

Frakkin’ Praxis

A month ago, you may recall, I took the Praxis II, to see if I could get meself certifiable for high school English. I studied quite hard for a month or so and then got sidetracked when I got a job. For ten days before the test, I edged in readings here and there, but I was concerned. I felt like there was so much I didn’t know, but whatever, there was nothing I could do—I couldn’t get my money back, and it cost a shit-ton to change the date.

I went to NC Central’s campus at 7:00 on a Saturday morning, checked in, and sat in the frigid air conditioning, staring at my sharpened #2 pencils until Go Time.

The first test was two hours long, 120 multiple-choice questions. I took the whole time to complete it, but I felt OK. That wasn’t the part I was worried about anyway. It was the essay portion that was giving me agita. Funny, right? I mean, I write all the time. It’s just I nightmared that, of the list of 8-10 works I would be able to choose from, I would know none of them. Like, not even have read the Cliffs Notes.

Also, the second test was two essays, with three parts each, in one hour. One hour! That’s not much time, especially considering we had to hand-write it.

So it was with no small amount of trepidation that I broke the seal on the second test packet and scanned the list of works.

Holla! There were, like, five that I could’ve written about. I chose Grapes of Wrath. I had developed and outlined the three parts of the essay for a bunch of different works in my study sessions, so I jotted some notes and starting blazing through the composition.

About twenty-four minutes into it, I was finished with the first essay. And it was good oh yes it was. Woot! I turned the page, expecting to find the second essay question there; instead, on the top of the page, it said, WRITE PART TWO OF ESSAY #1 HERE.

Guhhhhhhh.

I flipped the next page. WRITE PART THREE OF ESSAY #1 HERE.

That’s right. I had written all of essay #1 on the pages for part one. That’s when I metaphorically shit my pants.

I took several deep breaths and tried to do damage control. I decided I would write essay #2 and then go back and see what I could do about the first one.

The second essay was an analysis of student writing. I made sure to write each of the three parts on the correct pages, but the tuning forks in my ears weren’t letting me concentrate very well, and my handwriting was totally fucking jacked. The poor scorer must’ve been like, “How did this person develop brachial palsy mid-exam?”

I got done with essay #2 with five minutes to spare and tried to copy parts 2 and 3 of essay #1 into the correct spots, but there was just no way. So I wrote something like, “Please see page 5 heh heh,” on those pages and turned it in.

So for a month, I’ve been alternating between, “Goddammit, I’ma have to pay another $80 to take that part again,” and, “Maybe the standardized test people will, for once in their lives, grow a soul and see that I actually know the material and I’m qualified and they’ll give me a break.”

They didn’t give me a break. Because they’re rotten backstabbing souls. It’s clear from my score report that they gave me full credit for part 1 of essay #1 and that I did really well on essay #2, but they didn’t give me ANY points for that erudite, eloquent shit I wrote on the wrong pages.

BUT the multiple-choice and the essay test scores are combined, and guess who blew the ever-lovin’ roof off the multiple-choice and is therefore certified to teach high school English.

Ms. Scott.

Actual Conversation I Had With a 12-Year-Old Today

As the kids were lining up, a girl who’s not even in my class (she’s supposedly Limited English Proficient enough to be with the ESL teacher for language arts) said, “You don’t look old enough to be a teacher.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I’ll be 36 next month,” I replied.

“You take really good care of your body though. Do you eat lots of fruits and vegetables?” she asked.

I nodded.

“That must be it,” she said.

This is funny to me on many, many levels.

 

What Did the Angel Moroni Say About This Situation?

You may not know this about me, but I love dogs. I know! We all have our secrets.

Last weekend I had my two babies, plus Barley, their best friend who is sorta transgender AND Katie the Beagle Dog, who weighs about 15 pounds and has Cleopatra eyeliner. Barley had to go home, but for this weekend, I still have Katie the Beagle Dog AND Moby, a skinny, neurotic Shepherd mess who belongs to a former student of mine. He’s so sweet and crazy! I yub him!

My student and her mom and brother dropped Moby off this afternoon, and for about fifteen minutes, it was a cacophonous tumble of canine greetings. When the family left, I was pretty sure I could still make it to the gym by 5:00, so I quickly peeled off my work clothes. I had my workout pants and socks on when I heard a knock at the door. I figured Moby’s family had forgotten to give me his leash or something.

Now there are women in this world who can go braless. Alas, I am not one of them. It’s really unpleasant for all involved parties. But I thought, I’ll just sorta hide behind the door, and threw on the first thing I could get my hands on: a holey, old, too-tight, no-longer-totally-opaque T-shirt. I turned the locks and peeked around the door to find two Mormon missionaries smiling at me from the stoop.

I said, “I’m just running out to the gym,” but then one of them proffered a card, which I had to reach around the door to take. That was the moment Redford decided he needed a better look at his new friends so he bashed the door open with his body. I stood there in all my braless, partially see-through glory.

Those poor boys. I wonder if they reconsidered the whole “mission from God” thing at that point.