The downside of EXCELLENCE

Yes, there is one. I've been such a fucking Mary Sunshine this last week that it's about time I complain about something. You all might be thinking I'm a pod person or something. :)

I have approximately one hundred students. A little less maybe, 95, something like that. Anyway. All but two of them turned in their weekend homework assignment! (One said they didn't finish, and one said it was left at home, so technically, all of the students completed the assignment.) I was excited and proud. What a great start to the year!

On my prep, I sat down to grade/comment on them--because these is going on the bulletin board--read a few, was rather delighted, but soon enough, I realized:

I have ONE HUNDRED ESSAYS TO GRADE!!

And that sucks. Like, a lot.

I got half of one class done in that prep. Just now, I graded for an hour solid and finished that class plus an entire other one. There's still another class to go. UGH. I don't WANNA read another 30 essays!

Boo.

Today was Monday, our first one of the year, and it went well. My first prep coincided with a grade assembly, so I got to spend time in my room, and at the copier. I copied off 100 assessment sheets, plus 100 four-page language/mechanics/etc assessment tests (I did those double-sided, cause I like trees :) ). Go me!

Plus I got to chat with Mr CuteTeacher a bit. And that always makes my day, doesn't it?

Class today was pretty tame, since I had two single periods. We did the new seating chart, handed in homework, finally got to do a real Do Now, talked about individual and group points to be earned, and finished the fall survey (the one that was supposed to be done on Thursday. Ha.).

For each student, they can earn "Points for PEP!" I explained an acronym and told them that PEP stands for Preparation, Effort, and Participation. Ten points each for a total of 30 daily and 150 weekly. Good job notes for 125-150 points.

For each table, they can earn points for being quick, good group work, doing all homework, blah blah. Those points, when up to 25, 50, 75, etc, will earn them cookies. Yay, cookies! I will swear on oath (to the students) that the cookies are homemade. But--shh!--they are from the cookie dough tub at Costco. Don't tell!

We had grade planning and PD today too. PD was easy; I finished my paperwork thing really quickly. I stayed a bit after to start my bulletin board. Get this: we get a memo today to have them up by Friday. Not too bad, better than today or something. But in PD, Ms AP announced that a super high bigwig is coming on Wednesday morning, so "Mr Principal wants bulletin boards up by, like, yesterday." ....Fun. So far I've got the title, my name, rubric and standards. Once I finish the third class's essays, I'll choose a few (lots of great ones to choose from! some are hilarious) and throw them up there with some construction paper.

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Y'all, I wish I was a good enough writer and blogger to make these school posts more interesting, and actual pieces of writing, instead of pieces of crap. But I don't have energy or inclination for that at the moment. So I intend these posts to be very useful for me in the future, in terms of lessons and things, and hopefully useful/inspiring/interesting for other teachers, to compare/contrast things and get ideas and stuff like that. Thanks for your patience! :)