Um.

So, like, I was totally meaning to write something. I swear. But...

I did laundry and I took pictures and then I had to keep checking for comments, and then finally eat something and then remake my whole bed and half-watch a movie, 3/4 watch a sitcom, and catch up on the Heroes recap before watching the new episode, and keep checking flickr...

and now it's already after ten!

Today I gave a quiz on the poetry stuff from the last two weeks. Even after all my prompting last week about studying, methinks they all bombed. Again. Whatever, dude. It's called LEARNING from your MISTAKES. Look into it, kiddies.

I introduced the final project for this unit, a poetry book. The last two years I've done a group book, but they no longer sit in groups and they can't really be trusted to work together very much, so I'll have to bite the bullet and grade one hundred books of fifteen poems each. Egads.

The rest of this week we'll be learning some new and interesting forms of poetry. Today was tanka, which is similar to haiku but expanded in form and in topic. I handed out old nature calendar pages to give them some inspiration, and they wrote a poem in groups, and then some had time to begin their own.

Later we'll do some odes, and cinquain and diamante (I know, but it'll be something new for them...), and perhaps something called hexaduad (six couplets that tell a complete story! interesting, right?).

The end of last week, we did simile and metaphor poems. To warm up, they had to list five things they felt strongly about and some traits of each. I put a poem up on the overhead and asked them to identify what tool the author used. They got that it was a bunch of similes, and we briefly talked about how the author felt about the topic, and how they knew. Then I put up another poem called "I am a Sword." It took awhile for them to realize that the topic of that poem was not, in fact, a sword. But they did see it was a metaphor.

Their task was then to begin writing simile and metaphor poems of their own. Easy peasy! It continued into the next day, and some of the kids' work was amazing. I really want to put some up here, but this great work doesn't always get collected, and I have next to no memory.

The field trip is coming together really nicely and we're all relieved and happy. We've already got transportation and lodging arranged and paid for, and this week we'll pay for our dining and tshirts, and that'll be just about it! Hurrah!

Last night I had this very long complicated dream that a bunch of mobsters were chasing me and trying to kill me. I kept hiding and running away, but they were everywhere. I/we could also somehow fly in the treetops. I got caught at one point and was injected by a bright blue tranquilizer. While I was nearly passed out, when there was a quiet moment the bad guys weren't paying attention, I somehow got the strength to run away and escape.

I think the alarm went off while I was still in mid-dream, so it was another very sleepy morning today and maybe that's why this stupid post is so disjointed and poorly written. At least that's the excuse I'm claiming for today. As always, check out the flickr for some neat photos.