Grades are in!

And sadly, that does not mean I can now rest.

Turned them in this morning, and already got back paperwork to fix one grade. But only one, that's pretty good.

Found out that there are a lot more procedural lessons for literature circles than I'd thought. I'll either to have to leave some out, or do them as we begin the circles, or just take three weeks to get through them all.

I think I had about twenty-five kids lined up outside my door at lunch. I was really taken aback. I want to keep them engaged and have them learn something, but they just want to sit and chat and make noise. And the noise just gets on my nerves, so I have to be really patient about it. Today we had a bit of a homophone review, and had an idea about doing a spelling bee.

Ho hum, I am tuckered out. I really want to just sit and watch tv and then go to sleep really early. But I need to figure out how to tackle tomorrow. We've had interesting talks about Dr King and civil rights and stuff the past two days. But I've been planning to start talking about the elements of fiction.

In the next ten weeks, my students will need to produce a literary letter and a narrative. The literary letter will be related to the author study/literature circles, I think. Or maybe I should start that before we start the circles? Can I have them working on their own stories and literary letters at the same time? Argh, see, I need to figure this out NOW, because, hello, I have to do something with them tomorrow. I suppose I might try to extend the civil rights/black history stuff a few more days. But I don't really know what to do with it.

Anyway, lots of kids turned in homework today. And several extra credit speeches turned in too! Cool! I should probably take a look at it tonight. Then I can give it back to them tomorrow to publish for the bulletin board this month.

I get a lot of hits from book searches. Recently, "To Sir With Love," but also "Stargirl" and "Adam's Navel." Those are all books I have on my reading list on the right, so I feel bad that the visitors don't get what they're looking for. Today someone searched for 'paula redhead acupuncturist' and I was the first one up. Weird.