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

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.