English Class Moments of Awesomeness

More Old Stuff

2011-09-20T22:13:00.000-07:00

Like I mentioned in the last post, I'm cleaning my classroom. Just today I found a bell schedule from 2007 in my podium. I recycled it. The good news for you is that I'm finding more old English Class Moments of Awesomeness. Enjoy!

From spring 2011:
(These were near the top of a pile of papers.)

Honors English II while reading Julius Caesar:

Student 1: "It's in the 1700s!" (On why Brutus and Caesar wouldn't have played Wii together.)

Student: "When is Caesar's birthday? Is it July?"
Havig: "I don't know."
Student: "Because he totally seems like a Leo."

Still Honors English II, but a more random conversation:
Student: "There's nothing wrong with animal nudity!"
On Mickey Mouse's and Donald Duck's partial nudity in a conversation of the incompatibilities and questions that SpongeBob SquarePants raises.

More Honors English II:
(If you don't know this yet, my partner gave birth to our daughter, Abby, in September, 2010. I may have talked about my kiddo off and on with my students.)

Student 1: "You haven't told a baby story in a long time."
Student 2 (singing to a Justin Bieber song): "Baby, baby, baby story."
Student 3: "No Justin Bieber. Ever."

That's it for this round. I have some gems from the spring of 2009 to share with you including the infamous "water cage" moment.

Stuff from Years Gone By

2011-09-08T13:29:00.000-07:00

I'm cleaning my classroom. No, I'm REALLY cleaning my classroom. I came across an attendance roster from March, 2011 with some MOA scribbled on them.

Here they are:

As the ASB Advisor, I help the ASB students organize events including Mr. Prairie. In previous years, Mr. Prairie has utilized young girls (ages 4-8ish) to act as escorts for the high school guy contestants. Yes, the little girls are really adorable all dressed up in fancy dresses. And yes, the notion creeps me out. The kids were deciding if they wanted to use the young girls once again, and they kept referring to them as "little girl escorts."

Havig: "Can we not call them little girl escorts? It just doesn't sound right."
Student 1: "What's wrong with it?"
Havig: "Doesn't it sound a little disturbing to you to call them little girl escorts?"
Student 2: "No, our minds aren't polluted like that."

Reading a little Julius Caesar in Honors English II, and we were talking about Caesar's full name.

Student 1: "So his real name was Gaius?"
Havig: "Gaius. G-a-i-u-s, I think."
Student 2: "Gaius? How embarrassing. It's like Gary. No one wants that name."

December 2009-ish

2011-07-17T21:51:00.000-07:00

Here are some moments that made it into the notebook from the school year before last. Enjoy!

Honors English II:
Student: "I'm going to marry Lady Gaga, and we're going to have beautiful babies."
Havig: "Isn't she a bit old for you?"
Student: "Maybe she's a cougar, and when I'm 18, she'll pounce."

For whatever reason, we were discussing Disney movies and the number of characters who have been orphaned or who have lost one parent.
Student: "They're not orphans if they have one parent. It would be like half. They're an orph."

We were working on Paragraph Writing Strategies which involves a lot of note taking. One of the example paragraphs was information about turtles.
Student: "If a turtle lost its shell, would it be naked or homeless?"
Havig: "Yes."

Creative Writing:
Student 1: "Have you seen the Blue Collar Comedy Tour?"
Havig: shakes head
Student 1: "Well, they have this thing where they use words to make sentences..."
Student 2 interrupting: "Dude, everyone uses words to make sentences."

It's Back!!!

2011-07-17T21:40:00.000-07:00

Alright sports fans, people have been hounding me about putting some moments up, and I found my stash from last year. As in the 2009-2010 school year.

First I have some from the year before that, so these are my froshies who will actually be seniors next year.

These were from when we were finishing up the year with a little Romeo & Juliet.
Student 1: "What is an example of dramatic irony in Act IV?"
Student 2: "Friar John. When we learn that Friar John didn't get the message to Romeo because he was held up by the plague."
Student 3: "And ninjas."
Havig: "Not ninjas."
Student 1: "I figured that part out."

Student: "So she (Juliet) sucks his lips to get poison?"
Havig: "She kisses him. She doesn't suck his lips."
Student: "I would. He's hot!"

On to an Honors English II moment when they were working on their Julius Caesar and Macbeth video projects. In short, they pick one of the plays, rewrite the script and film it.
Student: "So people die in both plays."
Havig: "Right."
Student: "How accurately can we portray the deaths?"
Havig: "Well, don't actually kill anyone...please."
Student to other group member, "Uh, Student 2, we might need to re-shoot that scene."

It's Been Too Long...

2010-08-23T21:37:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone -

I have been quite the slacker when it comes to posting. Honestly, my system for documenting awesome moments kinda failed last year. That and ASB was keeping me really busy. However, you my loyal fan(s?) (love you, Mom!) have been asking when new moments will be posted. I had no idea that you all really read this thing. Awesome.

I do have more moments from last year that I'm going to post, and the new school year is right around the corner. Look for updates in the near future. Enjoy the rest of your summer!

- Havig

ECMOA for the Week of May 25 - June 5, 2009

2010-01-15T23:25:00.000-08:00

It has been well established that I am a slacker. However, I promise to post the rest of last year’s moments this weekend. I’ve also been piling up the moments for this year.

Enjoy!

We’ll start things off with a little Romeo & Juliet.

“See? They use a rope ladder. It is just like using her hair.”
- this particular student was convinced that R&J was just like Rapunzel.

While looking at a picture in the textbook from the 1963 version of the movie:
Student #1: “This is like a horror movie.”
Havig: “Oh, the picture?”
Student #1: “There’s a squid in that jar.”
Havig: “No, that’s just the liquid spilling over.”
Student #2 to Student #1: “What is wrong with you?!”

When Juliet “dies” and Romeo visits her tomb to die by her side:
Student #1: “How can that not tell she’s not dead? You just have to listen to their stomach.”
Student #2 “Their stomach?”
Student #1: “Y’know, their breastal region.” (said while circling his hand over his breastal region)

“You said that Lady Montegue died of grief, but really she was assassinated by ninjas.”

“That’s a lot of suck.”
- on the ending of R&J

“Jesus loves you, so it’s okay.”
- reasoning that it would be more logical for Friar Laurence to kill Juliet instead of sending her to a nunnery.

Student #1: “So it’s like the Prince and then Safeway and Fred Meyer.”
Havig: “Exactly.”
Answering another student’s question about who rules Verona and how the two families fit in.

Vocab moments:
“When I wrote it down, I wrote turdious.”
- instead of tedious

At some point I appointed a student (student #4) to be my minion and told her how she had to do my bidding. Later in the semester, minion was one of their vocab words. For their vocab assignments, they draw a picture to help them remember the word.
Student #1: “I drew a picture of Student #4 for minion.”
Student #2: “So did I!”
Student #3 “Me too!”

Other freshman moments:
Student #1: “Why would you eat raisins when you could eat chocolate?”
Student #2: “Why don’t you like raisins?”
Student #1: “They’re disgusting and taste like old lady.”

“Don’t, or I will punch you in the face. Twice.”
- one girl jokingly to another about the second girl putting her hair up.

ECMOA End of the Year Shenanigans for the month of May

2009-07-29T18:56:00.001-07:00

I’m being lazy and am just going to break this down by month. By the way, as I write this, it is like 109 degrees outside, and 92 degrees inside my non-air conditioned house. I am that dedicated. I’m also watching Sex Decoys: Love Stings on Hulu. I feel like a unpaid advertisement for this TV show judging by the number of people I have told about this show. It is an absolute train wreck of a show. It follows Sandra Hope who runs a private investigator business which specializes in catching people suspected of cheating on their significant others.

Sandra uses her three daughters as decoys in the stings and wants her agency to be a family business. The older two daughters, Kashmir and Jasmine are part-time strippers. The youngest daughter is not a stripper probably only because she is not old enough to get into a bar. Oh, by the way her name is Xanadu. XANADU! ! ! Seriously! ! ! For those who don’t know, Xanadu is the name of the gigantic house/estate in Citizen Kane where the main character, Charles Kane, lives out his final days and where the infamous Rosebud sled is burned up at the end of the film. Citizen Kane is actually a really good movie, but like The Godfather, it’s best to be kind of doing something else while you’re watching it like ironing or writing thank you cards. For children of the 70s and 80s, Xanadu is the title of a supposedly horrific—as in horrible, not horror—film from 1980 staring Olivia Newton-John. I haven’t seen it, but everyone says it’s terrible. There are a bunch of muses, Gene Kelly is in it, and I can’t fathom why. Here’s the plot summary from IMDb:

The Greek muses incarnate themselves on Earth to inspire men to achieve. One of them, incarnated as a girl named Kira, encounters an artist named Sonny Malone. With the help of Danny McGuire, a man Kira had inspired forty years earlier, Sonny builds a huge disco roller rink.

Sometimes I miss the 80s. I want to see a movie with a culmination of the construction of a giant disco roller rink. Excuse me while I add it to my Netflix queue. I do believe I need to figure out a way I can justify showing this in class. It sounds kind of terribly awesome. Anyway, XANADU! I’m guessing that Sandra named her daughter after the Olivia Newton-John movie, not after the symbolic Xanadu from the greatest film of all time, as least according to every “Greatest Films of All Time” list that has ever been made.

Alas, I have digressed. Watch the show if you want to see a woman with scary amounts of collagen in her lips whore out her own daughters for the sake of catching really sleazy guys cheating on their girlfriends. I am warning you though, it just might suck you in. It’s a vortex of brain-numbing, why-am-I-watching-this-crap? awesomeness.

On to the moments!

Moment 1:
My Honors kids had a portion of their Julius Caesar exam which asked them to identify who said a quote and the context of the quote. Here are some excerpts from brilliant answers.

“Cassius, in his typical fashion, is having himself a pity party.”

“Murellus is disgusted by how the Romans quickly turned their backs on Pompey and followed Caesar’s new reign—SHINY!!!”

“This shows how ADD and childish the people of Rome are.”

“Caesar is talking to Antony about the kind of men he wants on his council. He doesn’t want men who think for themselves, rather ones that sit back and agree with his ideas. Like Hugh Hefner and the Playboy girls.”

Moment 2:
This time around in the Shakespeare unit, the students were asked to write a paragraph explaining whether or not they had any sympathy for the characters of Macbeth by the end of the play. More excerpts from their answers.

“Well, I guess I really feel sorry for Macbeth because his wife is a crazy woman that is udeserving and likes to kill for her own sick pleasure. I’m also happy that Lady Macbeth dies and has to suffer. So basically, I feel like you. (me, Havig) Ahahahahahaha.”

“I feel zero sympathy. I have a heart like Havig toward Macbeth.”

“He’s (Macbeth) a big boy, and he should act more like it.”

Moment 3:
Here are some freshman quotes:

“So it’s like bedazzling?”
student on the pinking of shoes in Romeo & Juliet. Pinking is punching little designs in one’s shoes.

Havig, handing out R&J packet: “I have a present for you.”
Student: “Can I re-gift it?”

Moment 4:
Here are some sophomore moments:

My third period class decided that Macbeth, the last piece of literature that we read this year was the perfect culmination of the class because it incorporated prostitutes and dead babies. Nearly every piece of literature that we read had a hooker in it, and for some reason we had some on-going dead baby joke conversations. I love my job.

I was chatting with my third period class about the movie I had seen the night before, Premonition staring Sandra Bullock. The movie itself isn’t really all that great, but the gag reel offers one of the best moments recorded on film. I really wanted to show the clip to the class, but I had already sent back the movie. Fortunately, a student’s mom loves the movie, and they had it at home. Thanks to Kelly, the class was able to watch the clip.

It is worth a rental just to watch the clip. I don’t want to spoil your experience in watching it, but imagine this: Sandra Bullock running toward a flaming car accident yelling for her husband + prop which is basically the head of her dead husband + CPR = hilarity. It made me love Sandra Bullock even more than I had before.

I’m still trying to get the awesome pictures that the students drew to upload. I’ll try to get those up soon.

Try to stay out of the heat!

You Have to Watch This

2009-06-08T21:11:00.000-07:00

I would be a terrible person if I did not expose as many people as possible to this amazing video. The idea behind Literal Videos is what would videos be like if the lyrics matched what was actually happening in the video. Not only do I love, love, LOVE Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart, but the video is hilarious. It is one of those epic, this-doesn't-really-make-any-sense-to-me-at-all video concepts. (I'm calling you out Meatloaf and Celine Dion and your running around in the pseudo-castle with way too many candles video movies.)

Credit those who brought us this example of awesomeness: dascottjr

Remember, only 7 days left!

ECMOA for the Weeks of April 6th-17th

2009-06-05T23:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, I will admit that I am a total slacker when it comes to posting on the ol’ blog. I promise you, however, that the wait will be worth it as I have some incredible moments coming up from the months of April ‘till June. I even have some student generated illustrations and some comics that are absolutely amazing. Enjoy!

English I
Moment 1:
The freshmen had just finished reading A Separate Peace by John Knowles, and they were completing a little end of the unit art project where they draw what they think would make a good book cover for the novel. As part of the assignment, they had to put the title and author’s name on their drawing.

Student 1: “What’s the author’s name again?”
Havig: “John Knowles.” (Writing it up on the board.)
Student 2: “Ooh, is he related to Beyonce?”
Havig (with back still turned to the class): “Yes.”
Student 3: “Really?!”
Havig: “No.”

Moment 2:
A student in 5th period was talking about the neighborhood that her dad lives in which is apparently not the greatest neighborhood.
Student: “With all the crackers everywhere…”
Havig: “Did you really just call people crackers?”
Student: “Did I? Crackheads. That’s what I meant, crackheads.”

Later in the same conversation, I after I explained that I don’t live in nicest of neighborhoods either…
Student 1: “So do you seem normal in your neighborhood? Like everyone is so weird, you must seem normal.”
Student 2: “ish.”
Havig: “Thanks for that.”

Moment 3:
We were just starting a new assignment.
Student 1: “Is this going to be fun?”
Havig: “I think so.”
Student 2: “That means it won’t be.”

Honors English II
Moment 4:
Upon starting the Shakespeare unit.
Student 1: “Wait, it’s (Julius Caesar) a play?”
Student 2: “Shakespeare tends to be plays.”
Student 3: “That’s how he rolls.”

Moment 5:
A student was telling another story about her family’s odd happenings. Keep in mind that she has a particularly interesting family set up.
Havig: “Wait, your ex-stepmother’s fiancé?”
Student: “Yep.”
Havig: “Just checking. Please continue with your story.”

Moment 6:
Student 1 was talking about a foreign film she had seen.
Student 1: “It’s not a chick-flick, but it’s a romance.”
Student 2: “If it’s a romance, it IS a chick-flick.”
Havig: “Not necessarily. You can have romance without being all, Where the Heart is.”
Student 3: “Like James Bond.”
Havig: “Exactly!”

Moment 7:
The students had just started reading Julius Caesar, and we were talking about the character Cassius. One student thought Cassius was a woman for the first part of Act I. A second student pointed out how Cassius butters up Brutus to join the conspiracy by complimenting him and such.
Student 2: “Guys don’t do that. That’s a total girl thing to do.”

Moment 8:
The Julius Caesar portion of the Shakespeare unit happened to occur over mid April.
Student to Havig: “Beware the Ides of April.”
Havig: “Wait, isn’t that today!?”
Later in the same period after the student’s proclamation, another student leaned back against the bar that attaches the chair of her desk to the desk top and broke it clean off. Spooky.

Stay tuned for vocab quiz drawings. I've got some great ones to share.

ECMOA for March 16-27

2009-04-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

Phew, it's been quite the month. Here are the moments leading up to Spring Break.

Moment 1:
Student 1 had some kind of wound on his ankle, and he peeled off the gauze during class. For some reason unknown to decent humanity, he started smelling the gauze.

Havig: “Did you just smell that again?”
Student 2: “You’re smelling that?!”
Havig: “Twice!”
Student 3: “Ugh, that’s disgusting.”
Student 1: “It smells like mentholatum.”
Student 2: “Why do you keep doing that?!”
The conversation calmed down a bit.
Student 2: “There is nothing worse than seeing someone pick off their own scab.”
Havig: “It’s worse if they eat it.”
Student 2: “Ahhhh!!!”
Havig: “Little kids do that.”
Student 3: “Thanks a lot. (putting down food) I was going to eat some craisins, but not any more.”

Moment 2:
These are all from my 5th period English I class.

“It was supposed to be nice today!”
Student wearing shorts while it was snowing outside in response to comments from other students.

“Can you use Law & Order as an example instead? I like that show better.”
Student after I used CSI to explain their vocab word, latent.

Student 1: “Hey, I heard you used to be a bit of a chunkster.”
Student 2: “Who me? (smiles sheepishly) Yeah.”

Havig: “So I’m going to read chapter nine to you.”
Student: “You are? Shut up! (pauses) Not literally.”

A kid switched schools from our district rival school. He was proclaiming that BGHS was way better than Prairie. The student in front of him turned around, looked at him, and swiped his soda bottle onto the floor in response. I just thought it was pretty funny.

Moment 3:
And not to be outdone, these moments are from my 1st period English I class.

“Did you fart? ‘Cause you just blew me away.”
This, apparently is a pick up line. No word yet on how well it works.
“What are you trying to say? Use your words. You’re not five.”
One student to another student who was gesturing to another student.

Moment 4:
One student in my 4th period class uttered these words of brilliance in an explanation of me.
“I think I figured you out. You have two emotions: sarcasm and annoyance, and that’s it. No sympathy, sadness, depression, anger. Well, annoyance can lead to anger. But still, no happy or anything. Just sarcasm and annoyance.

I have to say, I have never heard anyone so succinctly explain me. I’m not sure if my mom knows me that well.

Wish us all luck as we tackle the last few WASL tests for the year. Have a great week!

Prairie Talent Show

2009-03-22T19:06:00.000-07:00

Here are the videos from my comedy routine for Prairie's Key Club Talent Show.

Part I

Part II

Part III

ECMOA for February 16 - March 13, 2009

2009-03-15T19:38:00.000-07:00

There are only two weeks until Spring Break! Not that I'm counting...

Moment 1:

My freshmen completed an assignment called the Who Am I? box where they share important objects or photos that tell the class more about them. My fifth period class was talking about what kinds of objects they were going to include in their boxes, and a few girls were talking about the Bratz Dolls of their childhoods.

Student 1: They (Bratz Dolls) do not dress appropriately.”
Havig: “Not a lot of meeting the dress code.”
Student 2: “That’s because they don’t dress. The don’t wear clothes.”
Student 3: “I don’t like Bratz Dolls. They’re ugly.”
Student 2: “And they used to try to be Barbies. Oh wait, that was just me playing.”

Moment 2:
“Can I borrow a Band-Aid, but forever. Like not give it back?”
Personally, that’s the only kind of borrowing of Band-Aids of which I approve.

Moment 3:
One of the students in 4th period made a future life plan for another student documenting her future marriage and children. There was some conversation while one student was trying to explain it to another student. At some point in time, the student whose life had been planned mentioned her cousin getting married. Another student responed:
“What? You’re marrying your cousin? I know you’re from Amboy, but seriously.”

Moment 4:
Sophomores are reading Don Quixote at the moment, and one student was talking about a quote in the novel.
Student 1: “I don’t speak French. I speak normal.”
Student 2: “It’s in Spanish.”
Student 1: "Oh."

Moment 5:
I’m trying to convince my 5th period freshmen that The Office is really funny and worth watching. They do not agree with me.
“Oh, is that an inside joke from The Office? That’s why it’s not funny to us.”

Moment 6:
I showed my freshmen the opening clip from Dead Poet’s Society as part of background information for A Separate Peace. There are bagpipes playing at the opening ceremony.
“Oh, the music of my people!”

Moment 7:
Now, my 5th period class is quite the bunch of distractible kids. One student asked which of two students who sit up by the front are more distracting.
Havig: “I think Student 1 is more distracting than Student 2.”
Student 2: “Thanks, I think. Wait, did you say attractive?”
Havig: “No. (laughing) I said distracting.”
Student 2: “Oh, I thought you said attractive.”
Havig: “That would be a little weird, wouldn’t it?”
Student 2: “Yeah, I guess it would.”

Moment 8:
Student 1 is in a marketing class, and had made an advertisement for Cheerios.
Student 1: “If you say this walking down the hall, would you buy Cheerios?”
Havig: “Well, I like Cheerios anyway, so I wouldn’t need much convincing.”
Student 2: “Ooh, me too. I love Cheerios. I took the 6-week challenge, and my cholesterol went down.”

Have a fantastic week!

ECMOA for the Weeks of February 2-13th, 2009

2009-02-15T19:47:00.001-08:00

Late starts can be a beautiful thing. Not having to go into work for two hours simply because the weather is bad is seriously one of the major perks to being a teacher. We had a late start on Tuesday, and 10th, and it was marvelous. The only that could have made this particular late start even better is that they didn’t announce it until I was already eating breakfast. On a perfect late start, I get to sleep in a bit. Ce la vie. I did get into school year well before the students showed up, and one of the things I did was bleach wipe all of the student desks. There is some nasty illness going around, and I don’t want to get sick.

Moment 1:
My sophomores just finished reading some Arthurian Legends, and in one of the class discussions, it was noted that Guinevere is basically the Yoko Ono of Camelot.

Moment 2:
Student: “You know how when cows eat other cows, they get mad cow’s disease?”
Havig: “Yeah?”
Student: “Does that happen when people eat people?”
Havig: “Well, Mad Cow is when they eat the brains, so it’s a little different. (Pause.) Are you interested in a little cannibalism?”
Student: “Um, no. My sister was talking about it.”
Havig: “Is she?”
Student (hesitantly): “I don’t think so.”

Moment 3:
My students tend to draw pictures or write random things on the back of their vocab quizzes. They are a pretty creative bunch overall, but there was one this week that led to a moment of awesomeness.

Next to a large smiley face: “My grandmother hated smiley faces because she thought it was a gang symbol for drugs.”

Havig: “That reminds me of my mom. I like to wear baseball hats on occasion. Now, I grew up in White Salmon which has about 2000 people, so of course we had a huge gang problem.”
Student (with a lot of seriousness): “Really?”
Long pause with several students snickering.
Havig to student: “That was sarcasm.”
Student: “Oh.”

Have a good Week!

ECMOA for the Weeks of January 16th-30th, 2009

2009-02-03T21:47:00.000-08:00

This entry finds us ending first semester and beginning a brand new semester. This also means that the school year is officially over half way through. Not that I’m counting.

Moment 1:

In the process of teaching detail sentences to my freshmen, I may have made the mistake of telling my 5th period class about my questionable wardrobe choices that I made in the fifth grade. The short of it is that I do not have any concept of “matching” my clothes. As a friend (hey Catherine!) pointed out on one of my Facebook pictures, my “shades of crimson do not match. Not just me and Erinn (the other person in the picture), but me and me.” The details of my 5th grade wardrobe shenanigans go something like this: Sweatpants in a variety of colors EVERY DAY along with this mostly royal blue flannel shirt which I wore nearly every day. Here is where the whole “matching” concept that is not in my brain really got me into trouble. The flannel shirt in all of its plaid glory had a mixture of colors. My “matching” logic: In the flannel shirt, there is a little stripe red, so I can wear red sweatpants. There is also a little stripe of teal in the flannel shirt, so I can wear a teal shirt along with the red sweats, and the flannel shirt ties it all together. I have pictures. No, I will not post them. My mother used to lament that people would think that I was an orphan who was unloved if she let me go to school like that. It still doesn’t “look wrong” to me, but enough people have made valiant attempts to correct my wrongs that I take their word for it.

In continuing to explain how the detail sentences of a paragraph should support the topic sentence, I said, “So if I was writing a paragraph about my horrendous wardrobe in the 5th grade, I wouldn’t mention what a snappy dresser I am now.”
Student: “Did you say, ‘snappy?’”
Havig: “Yes, I did.”

I told my students some of the rules, including one of my personal favorites, your belt should always match your shoes.

Moment 2:

Havig: “Are you meowing again?”
Student: “I don’t meow. Cats meow. (Her actual name) talks, but you may call me Violet.”
Early in the year, I kept calling her by the wrong name, so she tried to get me to call her Violet. Just for a fame of reference, this is the same student who used to bite her brother and his friends in the car.

Moment 3:

Back to my 5th period class.
Student 1 and Student 2 have the same name, although they each spell it differently.

Student 1: “That’s cliché.”
Student 2: “What’s that mean?”
Student 1: “I don’t even know. (to Havig) What’s cliché mean?”
Havig: “When something is said so often, it’s not original anymore, so it’s considered cliché. Maybe you two shouldn’t sit next to each other.”
Student 3: “So, if someone copies your clothes, that’s cliché?”
Havig: “Ah, not really like that.”
Student 4: “Like with clothes not matching, like clashe, cliché?”
Havig: “That’s clashing. Clashing and cliché have nothing to do with each other. I’m trying to figure out a way to explain it. Okay, using the phrase “el oh el” in your texts is cliché because you’re not really laughing out loud, and everyone uses it, so it’s not original anymore.”
Student 5: “Ha, el, oh, el.”
Student 2: “Can we get back to English now?”
Student 6: “Let’s not.”
Student 3: “But (Student 1 & 2’s name) wants to learn.”
Student 1 pointing to Student 2: “Not me, that one!”

Moment 4:

My students are in the middle of a social justice unit, and one of the first stories we read was an excerpt from the biography of Susan B. Anthony. I had them define justice the best they could, and then we talked about the different kinds of justice.

Havig: “Have you ever heard the expression ‘eye for an eye?’”
Student: “Yeah, eye for an eye, pinch for a pinch, cookie for a cookie.”
Havig: “What on earth are you talking about?”

Later in the period as we were starting Susan B. Anthony’s biography…

Student 1: “She’s scary looking!”
Havig: “Yeah, she’s a bit frightening.”
Student 2: “What’s wrong with her eyes?”
Student 3: “How come she’s frowning?”
Student 4: “She looks scary.”
Havig: “Well, we’re not admiring her for her aesthetic appeal.”
Student 1: “Yeah, she did a lot of good things (cracking herself up) you have to look on the positive side.”

The pictures of good ol’ Susan B. are not flattering.

Moment 5:
(Two days after Moment 1.)

Student: “Hey! Your belt does match your shoes.”

I do follow the rules people!

Moment 6:

“How can you say that without puking a little bit in your mouth?”
Student in response to another student’s story about some killer who carried around the eyeballs of his victims in his coat pocket.

Moment 7:

“That’s awkward. It’s not incest, but it’s awkward.”
Student on the idea of a guy’s divorced mom hooking up with the dad of his wife. (So if John and Mary were married, and John’s mom later married Mary’s dad. Creepy.)

Moment 8:

“What about the love of food?”
Student in response to one of the Rules of Love (we’re talkin’ King Arthur, courtly love and chivalry) which implies that love impacts people in love not being able to eat or sleep.

Moment 9:

“Ms. Havig, you’re making me a failure at life.”
Student’s comment after I wouldn’t let her leave class early to go get her history textbook for her next class.

“Wow, that’s harsh. It’s not crying like you want, but that’s still pretty good.”
Other student commenting on the statement above. I may have told them about my teaching goal of having a student cry from feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work they get in my class. It has yet to happen.

I have the feeling that my reformed 5th period English I class is going to provide a lot of moments this semester because they have been cracking me up all week.

ECMOA for January 5-16, 2009

2009-01-17T20:48:00.000-08:00

Holy crap it’s a brand new year!

Before we get on with the moments, there is a You Tube that you should check out. Just to warn you it’s really disturbing, but in a funny kind of way. One of those, you’re a teacher—you shouldn’t find that funny kind of funny. However, I am the kind of teacher that loves Family Guy and Robot Chicken and all of their amazing inappropriateness. Anyway, go to YouTube and search for “The Count Censored” and watch the video. It really makes you wonder what the original Sesame Street people were thinking when they wrote that song.

Moment 1:
We were discussing Count von Count from Sesame Street and how awesome he is when my random student in 3rd period randomly said, “3 is the best. 1, 2, 3.”

Moment 2:
“You just compared God to the WASL.”

Student in my third period class in response to my commentary on Leo Tolstoy’s “Work, Death, and Sickness.” In this short story, a god figure wants man to work together, but never lets man know. He just makes them suffer in different ways in hopes that they would learn to work together. The mysterious end goal combined with seemingly unnecessary suffering reminded me of the WASL—the WASL is Washington’s mandated state test to measure Annual Yearly Progress in order to comply with the No Child Left Behind legislation.

Moment 3:
I started teaching another teacher’s Honors English II class since she went on maternity leave at the beginning of January. For whatever reason, those kids (6th period) were freaking out a bit about having me as their teacher instead. Something about they thought I was going to overload them with work. My fourth period class decided that I should perpetuate my reputation by being slightly crazy and creep them totally out.

Here are some of their suggestions:
- relate everything to death
- don’t ever smile
- don’t even use sarcasm
- any time some one laughs tell them, “it’s English class time; it’s not joke time.”
- make them do what ever the English class equivalent is of running laps

From this last suggestion, a student said that writing sentences would be the English class equivalent of running laps resulting in the following conversation.

Student 1: “I will not tell lies.”
Havig: “Yeah, make them write in their own blood.”
Student 2: “WHAT?!?!?!?”

Student 2 had not been paying attention to the rest of the conversation and thought we were still talking about what I should do to further freak out 6th period.

Moment 4:
This is connected with the above suggestions from 4th period. A student suggested making them read aloud, and another upped the ante by saying I should have them read aloud in unison. I pointed out that having students read aloud in unison was really creepy and was very cult-like.

This related to an earlier discussion the class had about infomercials, and one of the current favorite infomercials is the one for Snuggies. The students decided that they wanted to all get Snuggies in matching colors and wear them to class. It was further decided that they could get the hearing amplifier that looks like a blue tooth head set to look even more like a cult.

Moment 5:
Student: “I learned the difference between oceans and seas today.”
Havig: “That’s good.”
Student after some thoughtful reflection: “If it actually comes from the ocean, why isn’t it called ocean food?”
Havig: “I have no idea.”

Moment 6:
In Honors English II class, we are reading Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoesvsky. Now this is a tough read, especially since the first part is basically the narrator rambling on about all that is wrong with himself and with society. In my new acquired 6th period class, they were asking if the second part of the novel got any better.

Havig: “Well, there’s a hooker.”
Student: “Hasn’t there been a hooker in everything we’ve read.”
Havig, thinking back on the last three novels we’ve read, “Why yes, actually.”

For the record, the presence of hookers was completely coincidental.

Moment 7:
My freshmen just finished reading The Odyssey this week. Last week I was explaining the complex character that is Odysseus. I was telling them to look for the decisions that make Ody a good leader and the ones that make him a poor leader. I also described how he is a physical phenom when it came to battling.

Student 1: “That sound like me.”
Havig: “What, good decisions, bad decisions?”
Student 1: “Well, yeah, and strong.”
Havig while doing a little mock Hulk Hogan pose: “You going to pose a little for us?”
Student 1: “Nah.”
Havig: “Did you get your tickets?”
Student 1, laughing about the reference: “Yeah.”
Student 2: “Tickets?”
Havig: “Your tickets to the gun show.”
Student 2: “That’s like some 80s pick up line.”
Havig: “That’s not from the 80s.”
Student 2: “Well, it sounds like something my dad would say.”

Moment 8:
A student put a fake parking violation on my windshield afterschool one day. For the record, my truck was perfectly parked; however, the ticket was for having an “abnormally large” vehicle. Now that I cannot argue with.

Moment 9:
“How long do you think it would take to clean up all of that blood?”
Student in response to Book 22 of The Odyssey with is appropriately titled “Death in the Great Hall” where Ody slaughters 100 men.

Moment 10:
After we finished reading The Odyssey, we started watching the 1997 movie version which begins with Ody running to where his wife, Penelope, is in active labor.
Student: “I thought she (Penelope) was supposed to be pretty.”
Havig: “Dude, she’s in labor. Give her a break.”

There is only one week left in first semester. That in itself is an awesome moment.

Have a good week!

ECMOA for the Month of December, 2008

2009-01-04T21:27:00.000-08:00

December was a very short month school wise. Winter break was only part of the lack of school days. Due to Arctic Blast 2008, we had three snow days to close out the week before winter break. No complaints here.

Moment 1:
Okay, this is totally about me, but since the occasion was my 30th birthday, I think it’s okay to put my moment first. I turned 30 on a Saturday, and on the Friday before, a few of my colleagues (Riedel, Truelove, and Muller) decorated my classroom in celebration. The Happy Birthday signs were fantastic. However, I was a little frightened by the shear amount of pink that inhabited my workspace. It seemed a few giant pink elephants ate a few too many pink Hostess Snowballs while drinking pink lemonade and then threw up all over my classroom. There were numerous princess tiaras stapled to my walls. The best (worst?) part was the infinite amount of pink metallic tinsel covering EVERYTHING. My desk, my podium, my overhead, all of the shelves, the counter, all of my desk drawers, my cupboard were all covered in the stuff. That and confetti in the form of little Happy Birthdays, stars and dime sized Barbie stickers. Again, these were all over my desk and podium. In my desk drawers, I also found a Barbie doll and a My Little Pony named Pinkie Pie. Absolutely horrifying. When I asked the culprits about the theme of the décor, they admitted that when they were planning my room décor, they asked themselves, what says Havig? They decided that pink and princesses was the answer.

Moment 2:
Students in my 4th period class were swapping stories of their childhood. Once again, I’m not sure how the topic came up, but I swear it had to do with what they were reading for class. Anyway, one student was recounting how when she was little, her older brother (who is two years older than her) and his friend would fight over who had to sit next to her in the car. Apparently it was a huge deal and not just the typical calling shotgun. She couldn’t figure out why neither of them ever wanted to sit by her. She was feeling quite slighted by the whole ordeal.

Then, as her story continued, she got a little quieter and admitted, “and sometimes, in the car, I would bite them…hard.”

Moment 3:
A student in my 3rd period class said “reading” as a weird past tense way, pronouncing it like “redding” instead of “reeding.” Then we got into a discussion about it, and I shared a little gem about a professor I had who used the read (present tense) and read (past tense) thing to point out how important context is when reading. He wrote READ on the board and asked a student to pronounce the word. Which ever way the student said it, he said it was wrong. The student in my class was adamant that the way he said it could be correct. At this time, another student pointed out that, “it’s not ‘slepting’” as an example of why he was wrong.

Moment 4:
One of the students in my 3rd period class set up a blog to keep track of the win/fail points that students have earned in class. One student earned numerous fail points for bringing in a bag of cookies and sharing them with the class. The fail points were because he later admitted that he had found the cookies in his garage, and he wasn’t sure how old they were. Fail points indeed.

School starts up again tomorrow. Wish us all luck.

ECMOA: Special Snow Day Edition 12-17-08

2008-12-17T10:05:00.000-08:00

Happy Snow Day! I live in Vancouver, Washington which is sometimes considered as part of the Portland-Metro area. Something that I’ve learned in my seven years of residence in this fair city is that a tiny bit of snow makes the entire region shut down. I grew up where we got snow every winter, usually around a couple of feet or so. Sometimes we got more (6 feet was the record in my lifetime); sometimes we didn’t get snow at all. However, snow didn’t paralyze the entire community. People know how to drive in the snow in my hometown. Very few people know how to drive in the snow around here. Long story short, we’ve had a dusting of snow. Seriously, I can still count individual snow flakes lying on the ground. And school has been canceled. Full disclosure, I live in Vancouver, and Vancouver School District is open today. I’m sure that the upper elevations in Battle Ground where I work has some decent snow. I’m currently watching news reports of “Arctic Blast 08.” My cat, Baxter, LOVES these kinds of days because he likes to attack the ticker running along the bottom of the screen. He’s a giant cat, so he has not problem standing up on his hind legs to bat at the screen with both paws. He has worn himself out and is sleeping next to me on the couch.

I’m actually kind of glad. I brought home some work to do just incase we didn’t have school today. Plus while I generally like my students, two consecutive days of late start makes them exhausting and nearly unbearable. I have to remind myself that they don’t get snow very often, so it’s a big deal to them. Whenever we get snow around here, and the kids are confident that the two inches accumulated on the ground means that they will be sent home early (for the record, that has never happened in my 7 years in the district), it makes me have one of those “back in my day…” moments.

So, here is my own winter weather tale:

My sophomore year of high school, I had to walk to school because my dad was at an outage with the truck. My dad was branch manager for the White Salmon branch of Klickitat County PUD, so when the weather was nasty, he was usually at work coordinating the restoration of power to the outlying areas. We hadn’t heard of any closures, so I got ready to walk to school in about a foot of snow. The walk wasn’t that far, a little less than a mile and a half, and one that I had done since I was in the 5th grade. The walk to school took me up the road to the top of Strawberry Mountain (a very deceiving name—a hill at best), then down through an orchard to the school. I got all bundled up and headed out to school only to find the doors to the high school locked. I walked around to the front entrance which was open, and saw a sign that said “School is 2 Hours Late.” I decided to go ahead and walk the mile and half back home instead of sitting around at the cold school for two hours. After enjoying some hot chocolate, I trudged back to school. Another sign greeted me: “School is Canceled.” Crap. By the time I made my fourth trek through the orchard it had snowed another few inches. My mom just laughed at me when I got back home. She told me that she had heard on the radio that school had been canceled about 20 minutes after I left home the second time. I thought the whole thing was kind of funny as well, though I was disappointed that I didn’t get to sleep in on the snow day. I believe these kinds of experiences are filed under “Character Building.”

ECMOA for the Month of November, 2008

2008-12-09T15:40:00.000-08:00

November is the 4th best month to be a teacher. June, July, and August getting the top three spots, of course. Why is November so great? Lots of days off. Between Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving Break, I get a random four days off from work. Plus it usually starts on the tail end of a week of half days for parent/teacher conferences. While we do get two weeks off for winter break, the chaos of dealing with amped up teenagers for the first two weeks of December counterbalances the joy of a two-week vacation.

It’s a short installment this month, but it doesn’t make it any less awesome. Enjoy!

Moment 1:
Two students were talking by my desk.
Student 1 (to several students): “Do you like spaghetti? Do you like spaghetti? Am I like the only person who doesn’t like spaghetti?”
Student 2: “Why not?”
Student 1: “Well, I choked on a noodle, just a plain noodle, when I was little.”
Havig: “Were you attacked by a pack of spaghetti as a small child?”
Student 1: “Yeah, spaghetti killed my father and raped my mother.”

The timing was hilarious.

Moment 2:
From a student’s paper regarding parental advice:
“My mother drives me insane. She likes really disgusting things, which is probably why she is a dental hygienist.”

The opening line from another student’s parental advice paper:
“You know nothing of granny squares!”

She later explained what granny squares were, but I still think it is one of the best first lines I have read. I am going to start using it as my “you’re an idiot!” phrase.

Moment 3:
“I’m sure your bladder will make friends some day.”
- student in response to my explanation that I have a very shy bladder, and thus do not like using the restroom when other people are in the restroom. It wasn’t just the comment, it was the really creepy way the student made the comment that made this awesome.

Moment 4:
A conversation with my freshmen about parents:
Student 1: “How old is your dad?”
Student 2: “He’s like 30.”
Student 1: “So he had you when he was 16?”
Student 2 (slightly perplexed): “No, my mom was like 20.”
Havig: “I think you mean that he’s in his 30s.”
Student 2: “Yeah, I didn’t mean he’s 30.”
Havig: “’Cause I’m going to be 30 in a few days, and I don’t feel like I’m old enough to be your parent.”
Student 2: “Yeah, I think you’re old enough.”
Much laughter from the class ensues, and I mock hurt from being called old. Another student explains to Student 2 why what she said was so funny.
Student 2: “Oh, I meant that you’re were old enough to have kids.”

Moment 5:
“Oh, crap! I just killed that hooker!”
- one small child’s parroting comment after watching some teenagers play Grand Theft Auto according to one of my third period kids.

Moment 6:
So, my third period class may have been discussing serial killers. Okay, I was telling them about a great moment in an episode of Criminal Minds where this guy (the un-sub) chops up his victims and puts pieces of them into the chili that he’s serving to the volunteers who are searching for the victims. How messed up is that!? There is this great line from this episode. A priest and one of the investigators is questioning the un-sub about one of the victims whose body has not been found. After way more searching on the World Wide Web than I’d like to admit, I found that the character’s name was Tracey Lambert. Anyway, they keep asking "Where is Tracey Lambert?" The un-sub goes on a tangent about God. The priest states, “God is inside all of us.” To which the un-sub replies, “So is Tracey Lambert.” Then a bunch of clips run showing the volunteers eating the chili con Tracey Lambert. Awesome! As I was telling them about this episode--which had everything to do with what we were discussing in class at the time, I swear--the following exchange occurred:

Havig: “So this serial killer was hacking up bodies, as serial killers sometimes do.”
Student: “Hacking, like (cough, cough)?

It took me a few minutes to regain my composure after that one. I guess from this day forward, I must differentiate between the hacking that serial killers do with knives and the hacking that my cats do to get rid of hairballs.

ECMOA for the Month of October, 2008 Part II

2008-11-30T20:04:00.000-08:00

Here’s the second half of awesome moments from the month of October. By the way, if you are extra bored or have some time, you should check out my other blog, Stupid Baby Names and Other Things that Bug Me. You can find it at stupidbabynames.blogspot.com. I have quite a few name rants in the works plus I’m reviewing the best and the worst of holiday songs.

I’m going to break them up by the classes as opposed to individual moments just for kicks.

From the freshmen:

One student had forgotten to write his or her name on a vocab quiz, so I took it around the classroom to find the owner.
Havig: “Does anyone want to claim this?”
Student: “There’s no name on it…oh.”

Student 1: “Ms. Havig, who do you think would make a better president, McCain or Obama?”
Havig: “Well, since I’m a teacher, I’m not really supposed to share my political views with my students.”
Student 2: “Did you say a llama or Obama?”
Student 1 (sarcastically): “Obama. Yeah, who would make a better president, McCain or a llama?”

Student: “How do you spell, climb-ed?”
Now this may be one of those kinds of things where you had to be there to really appreciate the humor in this situation. After this student asked for some spelling assistance via exaggerated enunciation, it became an on-going joke to over emphasize the ed ending to most words.

From the seniors:

A student had this as part of a journal entry.
“You calling the kettle black is what old people usually say, which is funny because the metaphor doesn’t really make any sense.”

And finally from the sophomores:

“This is where they all hate each other.”
- in reference to the characters in second section of Joy Luck Club

It think this next one is my personal favorite from this round. The students received progress reports awhile back, and one of my students’ progress report was printed with the watermark on the paper upside down. Basically, the school printed some of the progress reports with the paper going the wrong way. Ah…education.

There are more on tap for November, so stay tuned.

ECMOA for the Month of October, 2008 Part I

2008-11-26T16:36:00.000-08:00

Okay sports fans (that’s a colloquialism that I got from my dad), let’s be realistic. I am not very good at posting once a week like I used to be. I’m hoping for at least bi-weekly postings, but monthly postings may be what you get. To the four of you that actually read this blog, I thank you for your loyalty.

I’ve noticed that the majority of the moments these days are simply quotes from my students or conversations that I have overheard or have had with my students. I do miss the days of a particular student’s stories about how she broke her glasses or how she lost them (one apparently shouldn’t tape one’s glasses to one’s cat’s head). I’m realizing that the students who I had as freshmen when I first started the English Class Moments of Awesomeness are now seniors. How time flies.

On to the awesomeness!

Moment 1:
“Pale is the new tan.”
- one student to another student as they compared their tans, or lack there of

Moment 2:
“It’s like homework, you can only use it once.”
- student response to an assignment question regarding parental advice

Moment 3:
This was a side conversation that I had with one of my freshmen, and the seriousness of the question totally cracked me up.
Student: “Your tongue’s a muscle, right?”
Havig: “Yeah.”
Student: “So could you pull your tongue like if you really got into a piece of cheese cake?”
Havig: “I have no idea.”

Of course I spent the rest of the day craving some tasty cheese cake.

Moment 4:
If you don’t know me, let me summarize my personality for you as briefly as possible. Sarcasm is my personal dogma. I was also raised in a staunch Norwegian household where not only was crying an unacceptable form of communication, but expressing emotions of any sort was highly frowned upon. In fact, it was a sign of weakness. Needless to say, I’m not the teacher that students run to with their little teenage drama episodes. My fourth period class even had a conversation about my lack of touchy-feeliness. With that in mind, enjoy this next moment.

During a vocab quiz, a student made a bizarre sound like a cross between dry heaving and a hic-up. I looked in her direction looking between her and another student inquiring what the noise was and who made it.

Student 1: “I hic-uped.”
Student 2: “Don’t judge. We all hic-up.”
Havig: “Not like that.”
Student 2: “Oh, harsh.”
Student 1: “Way to be a supportive teacher.”
Havig (with a sigh): “We’ve gone over this.”

Moment 5:
My 4th period class was out of control on a Friday a few weeks ago after we had an assembly. They were all fired up and couldn’t really control themselves. After showing them my great annoyance with their behavior, they tried to convince me that they weren’t annoying, just really spirited. They were trying to claim that they made my day more interesting.
One student who I had as a freshman last year tried to make her point.

Student: “Remember how last year you would tell a joke, and no one laughed except for me?”
Havig (skeptically): “Right.”
Student: “Well, isn’t this much better? Everyone laughs at you. (awkward pause as she realizes what she said.) Not like that.”

Ahh, in the immortal words of Bill Cosby, kids say the darndest things.

ECMOA for the weeks of September 15-26

2008-10-16T15:23:00.000-07:00

The Best of the Rest of last year:

There is one moment left over from last year, so here it is:

When the students get their yearbooks every spring, they obsess over them pretty much until the end of the school year. One student was adamant that people look at the picture of one student.

Student 1: “Okay, there’s a girl who growls in her pictures. She did it last year, and I was hoping she wouldn’t do it again, but apparently that’s her smile.”
Student 2 looking at picture: “She does look angry.”

Done with the old, on with the new…

There are a few moments from the new school year thus far. It takes awhile for the kids to get used to my warped sense of humor. The first few weeks are spent reassuring the students that I am not, indeed, out of my mind.

Moment 1:

My sophomore honors class read two novels over the summer, Ethan Frome and Gulliver’s Travels. The general idea of Ethan Frome is that the main character is in an unhappy marriage with a woman named Zeena when he falls in love with a young woman named Mattie who happens to live with them. Set in the early 1900s, Ethan and Mattie feel like they have few options. They decide to try kill themselves by sledding into a tree at the bottom of a large hill. The students researched marriage and held small group discussions about the novel. The following responses didn’t earn a lot of points for the groups who wrote them, but they still are kind of funny.

“If you didn’t love the person you’re married to, it sucks.”
- in response to: what have you learned from the reading, research and discussion?

“Today, people would’ve divorced Zeena by now.”

“They have better accuracy of committing suicide.”
- in response to: what alternatives do couples today have that Ethan did not have?

Moment 2:

Also from my sophomores:

“I’m going to get me some baby-skin boots.”
- student while reading “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift

If you haven't read "A Modest Proposal," I highly recommend it. Swift's mastery of satire is brilliant. Also, after you have read it, the Chili's babyback ribs jingle will never be the same. Trust me.

Moment 3:

The counselors moved 5 students out of my 3rd period into another teacher’s class because I had 10 more kids than she did. I talked to the 5 kids out in the hall toward the beginning of the period, and then they went down to the counselor’s office to get the paperwork. I was talking to the class about the day’s assignment when the 5 students came back, grabbed their stuff and left.

Student 1 inquiring about the student leaving: “Where are they going?”
Havig: “I’m having them killed.”
Student 2: “You said that with a straight face. That’s really scary.”

Of course these students don't even know the half of it. They haven't even seen my zombie preparedness fighting stance, and they haven't heard about the latch in my basement that keeps the zombies out of my house. They really have a lot to learn.

I hope you enjoyed this installment. I promise that I have more on the way.

Back to School ECMOA 2008

2008-09-18T08:58:00.000-07:00

WELCOME BACK ! ! !

It is another new school year, and overall I’m not entirely hating the fact that summer is now over. The students started school the day after Labor Day, and ever since, I’ve been trying to learn 150 new names. It is always strange how at the beginning of the school year, the kids all kind of look the same. Most of the girls have long, straight hair in shades varying from blonde to dark blonde to light brown with blonde highlights to light brown without highlights to slightly darker brown…well, you get the picture. And for reasons still very unclear to me, the boys are still sporting the “I-need-a-haircut” haircut.

The students are starting to be less frightened by me, and they’re showing their personalities more and more each day. Sometimes it’s through well-rehearsed eye rolling. Sometimes it’s through laughing at my really bad jokes. Who knew literature could be so funny? Or maybe they're just laughing at my story about the time I got a black eye via the screen door handle while I was trying to grab my cat who was trying to go attack a raccoon 8 time his size.

We’re going to start on a note of not-so-awesomeness because, well, because what’s the point of having a blog if you can’t vent.

Back to School ECMON-S-A

So my computer doesn’t work. As in my school computer which I need to enter attendance, enter grades, email, create assignments, print, etc. does not work. I knew this before school started because like a sucker, I came in two weeks before school started to prepare for the start of school. Computer no worky. (That is a Havig familial colloquialism meaning something does not function properly, by the way.) No worries though. I put in a work order, and it should be fixed in no time. My tech-savvy co-worker even took a look at it and did all that stuff that I don’t know how to do, and she said the outlook was bleak. five weeks later, I’m still without a computer. I called IT during the first week of school and left a message. Shortly afterword, the IT people sent out an email to the entire district telling people not to call after they have submitted a work order. I’m sure lots people had requests and were checking on the status of their work orders, but I couldn’t help but feel like the email was directed at me. I’m also pretty sure that my work order was either “lost” or moved to the bottom of the pile.

Enough complaining on my part . On to the awesomeness ! ! !

These are from the end of the year last year, so we’ll consider the Back to School Best of May and June English Class Moments of Awesomeness.

Moment 1:
My honors kids were reading Joy Luck Club, and the class was discussing why the main character’s mother pushes her to succeed so much.
Student 1: “She does it out of love.”
Student 2: “What’s love got to do with it?”
It wasn’t until a few beats later that she realized what she said. Unfortunately, she declined requests to sing the rest of the Tina Turner song.

Moment 2:
Also during the Joy Luck Club unit, one student misread the title “Red Candle” on the board as “Red Candie.”
Student 1: “Red Candle…candy…candle…candy. I guess candy is spelled with a ‘y’ and not ‘ie.’
Student 2: “Candie with an id sounds like a hooker name.”
Student 1: “All artificial sweeteners are hooker names.”
Havig: “I don’t think I’ve ever met a hooker named Splenda. Have you, Student 1? Equal? Sweet & Low?”

Moment 3:
More Joy Luck Club goodness. For each of the families, there is a quiz that the students take. A student had come in to make up her quiz and was about to hand it to me while I was sitting at my desk. She saw a quiz key on my desk and started checking her answers.
Student 1 with growing look of horror: “Oh. Oh. OH.”
Havig: “That’s the wrong key.”
Student 1: “Thank goodness. I only got one right on the first side.”
Student 2: “What happened?”
Student 1: “I was looking at the Ha-su family on instead.” (The name is actually Hsu.)
Havig: “I like how you say the Chinese names like they’re Spanish.” (Earlier, she had pronounced Jong as “Hong.”)
Student 1: “Well, I don’t know Japa…” (She stopped herself realizing her mistake.)

Moment 4:
I don’t remember how this conversation started, so we’ll just go with it. I should point out that Student 2 is a boy, and the others are all girls. Once again this is my Honors English II class during 4th period.

Student 1: “Nancy Drew wasn’t around in 1903.”
Student 2: “Yes, it was. Nancy Drew is timeless.”
Student 3: “Have you ever even read Nancy Drew?”
Student 2: “No.”
Student 4: “What boy would read Nancy Drew?”
Havig: “It’s not like it’s a girly book. It’s not all flowers and ‘I’m so in love.’ It’s ‘I found a skull, and now I’m going to find out where it came from. That’s Nancy Drew. Well, that’s my Nancy Drew.”
Student 4: “Honestly, what high school girl goes around finding skulls?”
Student 5 tentatively raises her hand.

Moment 5:
Student 1: “I spell phonetically.”
Student 2: “As opposed to correctly?”

I have some more from last year, and this year’s batch of kiddos are already contributing there own moments of awesomeness. Stay tuned and have an awesome week.

June 17, 2008

2008-06-17T13:30:00.000-07:00

It's the last day of school! ! !

ECMOA for the week(s) er…month of April 21- May 30.

2008-06-05T14:16:00.000-07:00

It has been very busy the past few weeks with the end of the school year nearing and my lack of motivation to grade increasing with each passing day. There are only 12 days of school left, including two half days for student finals. The kids are getting very antsy as the promises of summer vacation near. I’ll break up that last month or so into a few installments. Here is the first:

Moment 1:
Some random quotes:

Student: “Is allyship a word?”
Havig: “No, but alliance is.”
Student: “Well, a lot of times when I make up words they end up being real words.”

Student teacher Lee conducted her master’s thesis research with my freshmen class. She explained what she had to do for her project to the students, including the 40 page paper. To this a student replied:
“Forty pages? Snap!”

“I love this song!”
- a senior’s response to the bagpipe introduction in Dead Poet’s Society.

Moment 2:
This is actually from quite awhile ago. The students wrote Poe Parody poems by selecting their own topic and imitating the format of Poe’s “The Raven.” The students usually come up with some great, original ideas, and I have them read their poems to the class. The following is a segment of a student reading her poem.

Student: “This doesn’t even rhyme.” (said while she is reading her own poem) “Well, it was ‘pee on the floor,’ but I changed it to ‘chowder,’ so it would rhyme better.”
Havig: “I’m going to read yours to the kids next year as an example.”
Student: “Really?”
Havig: “No.”

Moment 3:
Okay, another English teacher and I have this idea to create stamps of all of the phrases that we write over and over on student papers. We figured we could make more money doing that than teaching, and other English teachers would benefit as well. Some of the phrases that we believe would make excellent stamps include: “How does this connect to your thesis statement?” “Support your opinion.” “Huh?”

I was having a conversation with a student about these stamps, and we were talking about the stamps that teachers wish they could use.

He said: “I like the ‘You suck.’ stamp. It’s more demeaning.”

Moment 4:

While watching the film version of Julius Caesar:
“She’s (Calphurnia) way taller than him! (Caesar).” [Caesar stands up from a seated position.] “Oh.”

Moment 5:
It’s Romeo & Juliet time!

Due to lack of time, I’ve had to run through Romeo & Juliet with the kids this year. Usually there are quite a few R&J moments of awesomeness, but that’s just not the case this year. However, there is quite the gem from one of my freshmen. At the beginning of the play, Romeo is upset about a girl named Rosaline, so he spends his days holed up in his room with the curtains drawn making an “artificial night” while he spends his nights wandering around Verona crying like a small child. I asked the class why Romeo would be upset about Rosaline, to which a student replied, “She talked bad about him on MySpace.”

Moment 6:
Tomorrow is the last day for my 6th period seniors.

That’s it for now. I have more moments, but I also have a ton of grading to do.

Invasion of the Post-it Notes ! ! !

2008-05-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

These moments are from the past few months, and possibly years. I found a stash of post-it notes in, on, and around my desk. I’m including them in this special edition since I’ve been slacking a bit on regular posting the past few weeks.

Here you go. Enjoy!

Those familiar with the blog (or my class) know that I show a really cheesy version of The Pit and the Pendulum starring Vincent Price to my sophomores. Here are some student comments on the film:

“Let’s split up and look for clues, gang!”
-as the characters hear an odd noise coming from the dungeon area

“That’s why you bring a gun!”
- when Elizabeth (who is supposed to be dead) exits the casket

“And shut the door! Are you on crack?! Just for that, I hope he dies.”
- after Nicolas makes a really slow and poorly executed escape from Elizabeth’s corpse

Havig: “If I ever go crazy and start repeating a word over and over again, I want it to be a better word than ‘true.’” (which is what Nicolas repeats over and over as he runs away from Elizabeth’s corpse)
Student 1: “Yeah, like a long complicated word.”
Student 2: “Like parabola.”

“I’d try to fall asleep or something.”
- student on what he would do if he was tortured Pit & the Pendulum style

“A lot of people don’t know this, but he also invented the Care Bears.”
- student on the biography of Edgar Allan Poe

Here are some quotes from my freshmen last year:

“All kinds of ice cream are equal in my eyes.”
- student’s response on his favorite flavor of ice cream

“Otherwise it wouldn’t be called ‘notes.’ It would be called ‘read.’”
- student answering another student’s question of ‘do we have to write this down?”

The seniors even had a quote of their own:

Student 1: “I hate chap stick!”
Student 2: “I know. You always have dry and cracked lips.”

I hope you enjoyed this edition. Look back for a new posting sometime this weekend.

ECMOA for the week of April 14-18, 2008

2008-04-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

We had Math and Science WASL testing all week, so that in itself is awesome because I get to proctor in my own room. This means that I get to work on stuff while the students are testing. The down side is that I’m the one who has to read pages and pages of instructions each morning. Speaking of reading instructions, the instructions are really corny, and you have to read example questions and answers without any background information about the question. One of the reading example extended response—or maybe it was short answer—was about goats, and it made me laugh because it was really, really random. Apparently, according to my first period class, I walk strangely when I’m reading aloud and walking backwards. They said I was skipping backwards. After I went out in the hall to walk backwards to see what they were talking about, I admit that I bounce a tad when I walk backwards. It is not skipping, however.

Anyway, on with the moments…

Moment 1:
The students have been assigned a research project on an author. The students drew author names out of a hat.

Student: “Can we switch authors?”
Lee: “Why would you do that? That’s lame.”
Student: “What if you have a lame author?”
Lee: “Maybe you’re lame, so you need a lame author.”

Moment 2:
English I read A Separate Peace and here are a few student responses to a question about whether or not girls would appreciate the novel as much as boys since there aren’t any female characters.

“I think boys appreciate (the novel) more because girls don’t jump off trees and try to kill each other.”

“I think girls can appreciate this story because they can see how stupid boys can be.”

Moment 3:
I don’t remember the situation, but one student was complaining that something was difficult, I believe.

Student 1: “Man up, Student 2. Man up.”
Student 2: “Maybe I want to be a sissy.”

Moment 4:
With the WASL testing, there was some flexibility regarding when we could let the students go to lunch.

Havig: “The sooner you are quiet, the sooner you can go to lunch.”
Student: “Everyone be quiet!”
Havig: “Wow, no one get between Student and her food.”

Moment 5:
The student from moment 4 was sitting in the front corner of the room during testing, so she was near me when I was reading the instructions. She was asking the student sitting behind her (Student 2) to get something off of the back of her shirt.

Student 2: “Hold still.”
Student 1: “Get it off!”
Havig to Student 1: “What are you doing?”
Student 1: “Student 2 is getting the hair off my back.”

Now she kind of announced this to the whole class, and I couldn’t help but laugh. To top it off, later that day, she drew a picture of the back hair removal process on her vocabulary quiz.

Moment 6:
The tragic news of the week is that I only have Student Teacher Lee for two more weeks. She mentioned something to the kids in 4th period about leaving soon. A student asked if Lee would give out her phone number. Before the student could even complete the request, Lee replied with “absolutely not.” Lee did say that she would give them her email that she never uses. Lee explained that her university supervisor recommended that the student teachers use a professional email address for their resume and correspondence with school districts while they engage in the great job hunt. They shouldn’t use a cutesy email. Lee said that she would give them the professional email address, though her regular email isn’t cutesy.

Havig: “Yes, it is cutesy.”
Lee:: “It’s lyrics from a song.”
Havig: “Still cutesy.”
Student: “What is it?”
Havig (trying to think of something cutesy): “Dancing bear…”
Lee (laughing): “That’s a strip club in Portland.”

Here are some random moments from when I was slacking on the whole posting aspect of this thing.

Moment 7:
“It’s all fun and games until someone gets pregnant.”
Student commenting on the part of the Cry, the Beloved Country movie when the main character meets his son’s pregnant girlfriend.

Moment 8:
“Pirates…the Irish…They’re the same.”
Student talking about the movie the history class next door was watching when I told him if was about Irish immigrants. He thought it sounded like a pirate movie.

Moment 9:
I don’t really remember the context, but it was not food.
Lee: “What were you going to bring?”
Student 1: “Oh, I was going to bring in…”
Student 2: “Pop Corn!”
Havig: “How’s left field, Student 2?”
Student 2 (confused): “Huh? I don’t play sports.”
Student 3: “That just made my day.”

I hope you enjoyed this week's installment.

Have a fantastic week!

ECMOA for the week of April 7-11, 2008

2008-04-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

It’s always difficult to come back to work after Spring Break. What the students don’t realize is that Spring Break is really for the teachers. They give us a week off to help us maintain our sanity. Spring Break also helps keep the student mortality rate down. Hopefully everyone enjoyed their break. Of course if you have a “real” job, you don’t get a Spring Break. And I laugh at you.

Speaking of break, over the break I went to the coast, and I got the coolest bumper sticker. I has a Jolly Roger (skull and crossbones) background with the following quote: “The beatings will continue until morale improves.” It now adorns my white board in the area dedicated to student drawings.

This week’s ECMOA is mostly quotes, and I hope you enjoy them. The initial ROY G BIV color order is in honor of my super cool magnet letters that are currently spelling out the month on my whiteboard. It just so happened that the letters that spelled out APRIL were in rainbow order. After that, the moments are just in colors that I like.

Moment 1:
“You’ve ruined reading for me. You made me an active reader.”
Student announcing that she no longer could read for fun without writing in her book and annotating passages.

Moment 2:
“M&Ms are the hotdogs of chocolate.”
Student Teacher Lee declining an offer of M&Ms.

Moment 3:
This one is actually from awhile ago, but I found the post it note with the quote on my desk blotter when I changed to the new month. It hails back from the King Arthur Unit.

“Yes, getting killed by Lancelot is like fighting Chuck Norris.”
Student responding to how all of the other knights want to die by Lancelot’s sword.

Moment 4:
The staff bathroom in my building is also the staffroom where the printer is located, and I took the stapler to the bathroom to staple some papers together. However, when I left the room, I just told Lee that I was going to the bathroom. Plus I returned without any papers because they had failed to print.

Lee: “Why did you take the stapler to the bathroom?”
Havig: “Why don’t you take the stapler to the bathroom?”
Lee: “I take the tape.”

Moment 5:
“I hate the first few days of school. All you do is walk down to the library and write essays about yourself.”

Moment 6:
While the majority of 5th period went down to the library to pick up copies of Julius Caesar, two students remained in the classroom with me. One student put on some lotion which started a conversation about the smell of the lotion.
Student 1 stated that she thought the lotion smelled like Christmas.
Student 2 said that the lotion smelled like her grandma.
Student 1’s reply: "It doesn’t smell like my grandma. She smells like wine…and cats.”

Moment 7:
“Well, I’m not going to college.”
English I student upon looking at his returned essay 2nd draft which I had corrected. He later decided that he still could go to college after he read the comments on the paper.

Moment 8:
“That’s really nice. He was very thoughtful.”
Student observation on Caesar having the throats slit of the pirates who kidnapped him in order to hasten their deaths. He did this because he admired them, and didn’t want them to suffer too much as they were crucified at his request.

Moment 9:
Lee: “Here is how Julius Caesar is broken down: Acts...”
Student (interrupting): “I thought he was knifed.”

Moment 10:
“I could hold my pee for extra credit.”
Student on why he doesn’t use his bathroom passes. Students get 6 passes and each unused pass is worth a few points at the end of the semester.

Moment 11:
Student 1: “I could do that.”
Student 2: “That’s my special homework, so back off!”
Student 2 was assigned the special homework of figuring out the exact middle of March (to the second) for the whole Ides of March thing.

That’s it for this week. Next week we have math and science WASL testing. Good times!

Have a great week!

ECMOA Spring Break 2008 Part 2

2008-04-02T14:26:00.000-07:00

Special All Jell-O Edition

So, my students put my stapler in Jell-O. If you’re a die-hard fan of “The Office” like me—and like Student Teacher Lee and several of my students are—then you know about the ol’ stapler in the Jell-O ploy.

Two of my students in 4th period stealthily swiped the good stapler on Thursday. It mysteriously reappeared encased in red Jell-O the next day. Apparently, they got the idea because we talk about “The Office” a lot and Lee puts a daily quote from the show every day on the white board. They’ve been plotting for quite some time, and I have to say, I’m impressed.

Here's the Jell-O still in the bowl.

The consistency was not very good even though it had been in the fridge for days.

It kind of oozed all over the plater in a matter of minutes.

It was actually pretty gross.

A close-up of the poor stapler.

The two students who performed this task were kind enough to wrap the stapler in saran wrap, but it didn't protect the stapler from a coating of Jell-O.

For future reference, if anyone plans on stealing any staplers, remember that you don't need as much water for Jell-O molds. Otherwise they ooze all over the counter and make a big mess.

Also, I'm adding "scooping cold, non-solidified Jell-O into the trash with my bare hand" to my list of Some of the Grossest Things that I've Ever Done. It's right up there with sorting boxes of moldy pears.

In a Jell-O related story...

One of my students in 4th period is deathly afraid of Jell-O. She freaks out when it is anywhere near her. Sometimes I bring a little snack-sized cup of Jell-O with my lunch, and if I don’t eat it I put it on my desk or in the fridge in my room. When her desk was kind of near mine, she would wait until I put the Jell-O away before she could sit down at her desk. Needless to say, when there was a giant bowl of not-quite-solidified Jell-O sitting on the stable at the front of the room, she had a little moment of hysteria. I asked her why she was so deeply terrified of Jell-O. She has a pretty legitimate reason for not being a Jell-O fan. The next part is not for the squeamish.

When she was in 3rd grade, she was at a friend’s birthday party, and they had a Jell-O eating contest. Approximately 15-20 girls each had their own large bowl of Jell-O to scarf down in a minimal amount of time. There were all sorts of different flavors/colors. Now each girl finished the Jell-O. And each girl eventually threw up her respective flavor/color of Jell-O. It’s a good thing that they were outside. However, the vision of multicolored piles of Jell-O puke haunts my student to this day. And, honestly, who can blame her. Me being my twisted self thinks that’s an awesome story, but I have to wonder, who on earth thought that serving puke prone (as all kids seem to be) 3rd graders copious amounts of Jell-O was a good idea?

Do you have a Jell-O story? Please share in the comments.

ECMOA Spring Break 2008

2008-04-02T10:40:00.000-07:00

If all goes well, there should be two special Spring Break Editions of ECMOA. Here’s the first.

As noted in last week’s ECMOA, my student teacher, Ms. Lee, gathered 11 “words” from various student homework assignments. The sophomores were to come up with their own definitions for the words, and overall, the students were very creative. Here is your chance to come up with some definitions and post them in the comments. This has a very Washington Post-y feel to it with a touch of student mockery. Next week, Lee and I will judge the student responses, and I will post the best ones from each class.

Here are the words:

1. desitions
2. eggageratting
3. discripimantion
4. merimior
5. influneal
6. aborigrncules
7. emboys
8. dillusans
9. rasse
10. juliaus
11. widdling

Post your own definitions in the comments section.

ECMOA for the week of March 24-28, 2008

2008-03-28T11:29:00.000-07:00

It's what you've all been waiting for. . . a brand new, extra shiny edition of English Class Moments of Awesomeness. Enjoy!

Okay, it snowed today. On the Friday before Spring Break we had snow. As if the students weren’t already hyper and unfocused. Plus our administration insists on waiting to do our required monthly fire drill at the last possible moment, we are scheduled to have a fire drill today. In the snow. Ah, enough complaining, it’s almost Spring Break!

By the way, I'm experimenting with color. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Honors English II

Moment 1:
The students had an assignment where they selected a quote from the novel the read, draw a picture to go with the quote and write a rationale of why they thought the quote was important. A conversation arose about corn.

Student 1: “Corn doesn’t grow on trees, Student 2!”
Student 3: “Student 4 (a student with a lot of artistic ability) draw a corn stalk, so Student 1 can see what it looks like.”
Student 5: “Haven’t you ever been to a corn maze?”
Student 1: “Yes, but I don’t pay attention to what it looks like.”

Moment 2:
Ms. Lee (my student teacher) explained to the students that she was grading on effort, not artistic skill, and she emphasized her point by drawing a horse on the white board. It was a very “interesting” horse. It had horseshoes which she later turned into ice skates. Then she drew an iced over pond.

Later in the day, one of my TAs commented on the drawing.
TA: “I think it looks nice.”
Lee: “TA’s getting an A.”
Havig: “TA’s a T.A.” (TAs are graded Pass/Fail)
Lee: “TA’s getting a P.”

Moment 3:
Student 1: “Sitting for 24 hours a day is not good for you.”
Lee: “So it’s good that you have 5 minutes to wander around.” (Refering to the 5 minute passing period between classes.”
Student 1: “We’re all going to be fat.”

Moment 4:
Student 1: “I like that saying, ‘vengeance will be had.’”
Student 2: (looking around the room) “Where does it say that?”
Student 1: “Nowhere. In my mind.”

Moment 5:
“If I could read, then that might be cool.”
Student in response to Lee’s suggestion for him to wallpaper his room with the torn out pages of his destroyed copy of House Made of Dawn.

Moment 6:
“This is what I’m going to learn today.”
Student after Lee used a marker to erase the non-erasing dry erase marker off of the white board.

Moment 7:
Some kids had a question about Hitler, and Lee asked what I thought. She relayed my answer to the group of kids.

Lee: “Well Hitler is blah blah blah…”
Havig: “There is not ‘Hitler is’ anything because Hitler is dead.”
Lee: “But he lives in my heart.”
This statement earned Lee two more crazy points. I will explain that at another time.

Moment 8:
Over the course of the semester, Lee has been collecting a list of creatively spelled words from student assignments. Today, we had the students create definitions for the words. One student was complaining about the task.

“Can we move Complaining Student to isolation because he’s sucking the fun out of it?”

The class then voted to move him.

Check back later for more vintage ECMOA.

In fact, stay tuned for a Jell-O themed edition of ECMOA…coming soon…

ECMOA for the Week of May 15-19

2008-03-27T07:34:00.000-07:00

The following events are in a particular order...not.
(That's my little salute to phrases of the 90s.)

My sophomore classes are reading Arthurian legends, so we watched one of the best renditions of an Arthurian legend. Okay, it's totally incorrect and all that, but how can I pass up the opportunity to show Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail in class? It's one of most awesome movies ever made!

Quotes:

Some kids from my Creative Writing class were discussing the series finale to That 70s Show. (Which I don't watch, so I don't know who the characters are.) One student was expressing his disappointment at not knowing if two of the characters were getting back together or not.

Student 1: "They just ended it with them making out!"
Student 2: "They're together. That's what making out means."

Ah, the innocence of youth.

More R&J action from English I. There is a part in the play where one character refers to another characters shoes as "pinked" as in there were little flower-like decorations embedded in the shoes.

"I'm going to start using that. I just pinked my ride."

Still more R&J action from English I. We were discussing how much someone's name has to do with who they are. My 5th period class was having a great discussion about types of names. One student ventured hesitantly to mention that on television and in movies often the "slutty" girls had names that ended in y or ie. By the way this student's name also ends in y. Another student (with en ie ending name) proclaimed, "you just called me a slut!" The first student replied, "well I just called myself a slut too." Good times.

Word to your mothers. (Don’t worry, it’s just a phase. It will pass soon.)

Check back tomorrow for brand new moments. . .

English Class Moments of Awesomeness for May 8-12, 2006

2008-03-26T11:16:00.000-07:00

As in the past, these appear in no particular order.

This is an all English I edition of ECMOA. Enjoy!

And remember, new moments are coming soon. . .

It's Romeo & Juliet time! Sharing Shakespeare's plays with the Froshies is definitely a high point of the job. Especially when the class treads the dangerous waters where I pray that the students don't pick up on the really inappropriate and dirty jokes that good ol' Billy has sprinkled throughout his works and heaven forbid, ask me to explain what they mean. Usually we slide right along without a hitch. However, there is always one that makes the students laugh every single time. In Act I Scene i, there is a bit where the two families are gearing up for a big street fight and daddy Capulet says to his wife, "What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!" Of course the kiddos all snicker because it sounds like Cap is calling his wife a 'ho. This is where I have to explain every single year that he means quickly, or now, or right away, not whore.

This year during 6th period, I made my own error at this point in the play. . . kind of. The student reading Capulet's part read his line and the girl who was reading Lady Capulet's part (who has the next line) was kind of spacing out. A student sitting directly to my right asks me at this interval, "What kind of ho are they talking about?" Just as he is asking this question, I'm half listening to him and looking at my list of who has which part. Not really hearing what he has just said, I say the girl's name to get her to read her part, except that it sounds like I'm answering his question. As in "Girls Name" is the kind of ho they are talking about. The student who asked the question starts cracking up while I cringe at the implication. I apologize and clarify. I'm just glad that this particular student is a pretty good sport. All in all, it was pretty funny and pretty awesome.

Quotes for the week:

"If I knew sign language, it would eliminate a lot of confusion."
Student on not understanding what his classmates sign to each other during class.

There was a big water spill on the first floor of the building in which I teach, and the custodian crew had shampooed the carpets in the hallway. It hadn't dried all the way, so it smelled like wet dog for most of the day. By the end of the day, my room smelled pretty funky.

Student 1: "It smells like moldy feet and hot butt."
Student 2: "How do you know what that smells like, you freak?!"

Continuing the the R&J theme:

"Who's Mercutio? It that the one with the M?"
Apparently, this student thought that everyone had been saying "Recutio" all this time.

"If it's dumb, I will hate you until the end of time."
A student's response to me explaining that the entire class would be learning the dance from the 1960s Romeo & Juliet movie that we were watching. Here's the kicker--and a test to see if any of my English I students read my dorky blog--I said it as a joke. I'm totally pulling their chains. I told them to ask my students from last year, and they took that as an affirmation that they would indeed have to learn the weird jingling wrist-bell dance from the movie. I love it! The scary thing is, however, that some of the students were a little bit excited about it. Wha???

Incredibly awesome. Have a good week!

English Class Moments of Awesomeness for the week of May 1-5, 2006

2008-03-25T14:46:00.000-07:00

Pardon the chaos, but the order is not particular.

My friend and fellow teacher sent me an e-card for May Day. While this really isn't all that exciting in itself, you have to understand why May Day holds special meaning to me. If you ever take my creative writing class, you'll get the full meal deal of an explanation. The short of it is: 6 daffodils, three accomplices, two Campus Parking Service employees (AKA Parking Nazis), a half dozen of the folks in blue and little ol' me. Happy May Day everyone!

My professor from Graduate school came by to visit my classroom, and she was treated to my hecka sweet intro to Romeo & Juliet lesson. Basically, I read through the Prologue (Two households both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene, etc.), and then I bust out the lyrics to Vanilla Ice's "Ice, Ice Baby" and proceed to rap it as only The Havig can. (i.e. kinda poorly) Finally I rap (again Havig style) the Prologue of R&J. It's a sight to been seen, let me tell you.

In English I we started Romeo & Juliet which is pretty darn awesome in itself. I do believe it is my favorite unit that I teach.

A couple of students at Prairie organized a March to the Middle with the kids from Battle Ground High School which is the other mainstream high school in our district. A bunch of students, staff, and parents marched along Highway 503 toward a central location to show support for our upcoming levy. A lot of kids showed up, and that's completely cool.

At the afore mentioned march, the Prairie people had to walk about half as far as the Battle Ground people. It's good to be a falcon.

Quotes for the week:

"It's like we're a mob, but we're not angry."
- a student commenting on the march

"You really need to put in some periods in there, sweetheart."

- a student in 2nd period offering advice to a classmate who was working on her 5 paragraph essay. She had about 8 sentences total. Really, really, really long sentences.

Good news ECMOA fans, you can expect postings with brand new, shiny moments of awesomeness later this week.

English Class Moments of Awesomeness for the week of April 17-21, 2006

2008-03-24T12:07:00.001-07:00

These still appear in no particular order, but you probably knew that already.

Creative Writing

"Or naming them after months, like Spring."

They had a journal entry prompt which discussed names that you should never name children. The student realized his mistake, but the pause between his comment and the class laughing was perfect, and of course awesome.

The following quote originates from a journal entry asking what one piece of memorabilia would they want if they had an unlimited amount of money. One student--a boy I might add--wanted to buy somebody's (I don't remember who) two-million dollar diamond-encrusted dress just because it would be cool to have. A girl in the class was asking him what on earth he would do with such a thing, and he said he just thought it would be cool to have a two-million dollar diamond-encrusted dress hanging in the closet. The girl kept asking why, to which he replied with finger pointing at the girl for emphasis:

"Could you say that you have a two-million dollar diamond-encrusted dress in your closet? That's what I thought."

Reading/Writing II

There were quite a few related to Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum." We read the short story and talked about how it compares with modern day tales of horror. Nobody dies in Pit, and there's barely any blood. Nowadays, you have to have a minimum body count of 10 to make it worth the eight bucks you pay to see the darn thing. (So I am told.) One student pointed out how Poe's story was smarter because it made you think about how much it would suck to wait for days to die.

The same student's summary of a modern horror movie:

"I'm going to chop your head off, and everything's going to be alright."

We also watched a movie loosely, loosely based on Poe's story. It was made in 1961 and stars Vincent Price. It's one of those movies where it's so bad that it's good. Well, to me anyway. My students may have had a slightly different opinion.

"The story was better than the movie, and that's saying a lot coming from me."

"She's just dehydrated."
- Referring to a corpse that had just been exhumed.

"If I was a ghost, I'd be all Marco."
- Referring to the spirit of Elizabeth calling out Nicholas' name.

"Oh look at that guy makin' out with the corpse. That's hot."
- You should really just see the movie.

English I

We read John Steinbeck's The Pearl in English I which is about a guy who finds a pearl and believes that it will drastically improve his life and the future for his infant son.

One moment of awesomeness is when two students began to make a really good comparison between the main character in The Pearl and Anakin Skywalker in Episodes I-III of the Star Wars movies. Both the changes that the characters go through and the reasons for the changes are quite similar, and I was proud of them.

The second is a quote from a student who was proclaiming her distaste of the Star Wars movies.

"When he's all 'Luke, I am your father,' I was like, how stupid is that."

In my other English I class, they made the connection between the pearl in novel and the ring in Lord of the Rings which is also a good comparison. The truly awesome thing is that both 5th and 6th periods made the suggestion that we watch all three movies (Star Wars for 5th and Lord of the Rings for 6th) in order to obtain a better understanding of the novel. If only they knew...

ECMOA Week of April 10-14, 2006

2008-03-19T18:35:00.000-07:00

Some place there is a particular order. This is not that place.

English I

The following stems from the class discussion about Steinbeck's The Pearl.

Student 1: "The doctor is all fat from eating corncakes."
Student 2: "And bacon."
Student 3: "And human." He pauses and looks at his copy of the novel. "I don't know. Am I the
only one who got the cannibal version?"

Reading/Writing II

"Rachael smells like strawberries and goodness."

Havig: "Did you get hooked up?" Inquiring if a student still needed the pencil that he had
requested earlier.
Student: "Hooked up? What movie did you watch last night, Boyz N the Hood?"

Okay, even if I am the butt of the joke on this last one (which we all know rarely happens), they're still pretty awesome.

ECMOA: RMIFWIWCMD Edition Spring 2007

2008-03-19T08:55:00.000-07:00

Here are some old ones, or as I like to call them: Random Moments I Found While I Was Cleaning My Desk.

Enjoy!

Creative Writing

The students were responding to a journal entry prompt which asked them which animal most closely resembled them in personality, appearance, attitude, etc. One student turned to her friend for help.

Student 1: “What animal do I move like?”
Student 2: “Something fat. No! I mean something that waddles.”
Student 1: “Hey!”
Student 2: “No, like you move kind of slow.”

The conversation continued as student 2 continued to dig her own grave.

English I

The class was reading a teleplay by Stephen King titled, “Sorry, Right Number.” After a day of reading as a class, one student was flipping ahead in the reading before we continued. His character had died in a previous scene, and he wondered aloud why he would have a line after he was dead.

To this a student responded: “Didn’t Stephen King write this? That’s why you have a line after you’re dead.”

At the beginning of class I had this interaction with a student who sat at the front of the room.

Student: “Do you want to hear a story?”
Havig: “Do you want to hear an even better story?”
Student: “No, because it’s probably some smart-alec remark.”

Well, to his credit, that was probably true.

The Odyssey

Student: “He’s got a goat, and he knows how to use it!”

While watching the film of The Odyssey where Odysseus goes to the underworld. Ody has to take a goat to sacrifice in order to cross over and the souls in Hades act menacingly.

Welcome!

2008-03-12T20:49:00.000-07:00

We've moved! Well, it's moved anyway...the English Class Moments of Awesomeness. What started as my personal desire to share with the world how hilarious and amazing my students can be has grown a bit, so I've moved it from my MySpace account to here.

In the near future, I will create an archive of the old ones for your reading pleasure.

By the way, my name is Hav, and I teach English at a high school in the greater Vancouver, Washington area.

Enjoy!