She talks to wolves...

I've been meaning to share this with you: it's a list of the classes I'm potentially offering for the summer term at my high school. Which classes actually make will depend on student interest. I know the class descriptions aren't very detailed, but they were only meant to be quick blurbs to attract parent interest.

List of Potential Classes
Summer 2008

ENGLISH
Literature Through Comic Books – While studying the comic book medium, students will learn literary devices and writing skills. They will also discover how today's graphic novels aren't simply “funny books” but are, in fact, accomplishing serious feats of literature.
Young Adult Literature – Students will learn literary devices and writing skills while studying one of the most exciting genres in publishing today. Their studies will focus on classic and contemporary fiction and nonfiction directed at young adults.
Grammar – Students will learn the basic rules of the English language and be introduced to beginner writing skills.
Creative Writing – Students will learn about a variety of creative writing endeavors: genre writing (fiction, nonfiction, fantasy, mystery, etc.), poetry, plays, memoirs, etc. They will have a chance to practice these skills in a safe and supportive atmosphere. No previous writing skills necessary!
Fairy Tales & Folklore – Students will learn about a variety of fairy tale motifs as well as specific stories from around the world. They will discover how fairy tales were shaped by culture and also influenced culture, and how they are still relevant today.

SOCIAL STUDIES
Cultural Studies: Summer Traditions – Students will learn about a variety of cultural customs focused on summer from all around the globe, from the 4th of July in America to the Tanabata Matsuri (Star Festival) in Japan. Students will also help make these traditions come to life!
Psychology – Students will learn the basics of modern psychological study as well as the history of the discipline.

SCIENCE
Astronomy – The students will see stars! Literally. They will learn the basics of the study of our galaxy and beyond, including planets, stars, suns, black holes, etc.
Meteorology – Rain, rain, go away- come back another day! Students will learn why this little chant doesn't work in this class covering our planet's atmosphere and weather patterns.
Anatomy & Physiology – Students will learn the basics of the composition of the human body, including the structure of the skeleton, musculature, etc.

ELECTIVES
Film Studies – Students will learn about the history of film and watch some of the finest films in existence. They will also learn how to write about film.

TUTORING
The following classes DO NOT count for credits toward graduation. However, if there is enough of a demand in the student body, they may be held during regular school hours. If not, this may be an after-school class and, as such, eligible for a one-on-one arrangement.
ACT Preparation: English – Using an approved study guide, the student(s) and teacher will prepare for the English and Reading portions of the ACT. If there is enough demand, this course will also cover the optional Writing section of the ACT.
Writing & Composition – This course is specifically designed to improve a student's essay-writing skills. Therefore, basic skills in grammar will be a prerequisite. The teacher will assign a number of essays and work with the student to complete them, going through several drafts and correction sessions until an excellent final draft is reached.
ACT Preparation: Science – Using an approved study guide, the student(s) and teacher will prepare for the Science portion of the ACT.

This is a summer school essay turned in by one of the Little Miss Plagiarist Pants:

"I don't really no anything about the book because I don't like reading. All I no the book is all about this half wolf and half man. He met this little boy in woods. And the book was alright. It maybe very interesting because its about half wolf half man."

Yes, that's the entire thing.

I controlled myself (barely), and simply wrote:

"You could at least have read the back of the book-- or even looked up a summary on-line!"

This "essay" was about White Fang by Jack London. They had about six weeks to read it.

Today's summer school session marked the last of the grammar-oriented classes. In the last two and a half weeks, we've gone over the topics contained within Chapters 1-11 of English Grammar for Dummies. I know it sounds a bit ridiculous, a schoolteacher using that book: however, the information is organized and presented in a manner that's pretty consistently understandable by my students. Also, it was a book they could easily buy at the bookstore; I didn't really have time to order proper grammar books through my school.

However, despite my repeated warnings to my students to do their readings outside of class and review their notes, their grades have been declining. I'm getting tired of sounding like a broken record each session, telling them again and again that they must read the chapters, that I tell them which sections to focus on just in case they don't read the entire chapters, that the quizzes they're taking each session are all part of their final grade, and that they're kind of screwed if they don't pass Summer School.

One thing that continues to annoy me, no matter how many times I encounter it, is that the students won't just think. Many times, the answer to a question on their quizzes is evident if they'd just take the time to think. Today, none of them could remember what an antecedent is. So I told them that the antecedent is the word that a pronoun replaces, basically. (They were asked to identify the antecedent for the underlined pronoun.) Not one of them could identify the antecedents correctly. Yet later, when I read the question and pointed at the underlined pronoun and said, "Alright, so who is she?" a lightbulb went off over their heads.

Anyway, under the cut you can see the quizzes I've given them so far. All the material that the quizzes cover was either in their notes, in specific sections I told them to pay close attention to, or in the grey boxes that run rampant through English Grammar for Dummies.

( Quizzes! Test your grammatical knowledge here! )

I know we've been over this and over this, but I want to fully realize for you the ludicrousness of the paper Little Plagiarist Pants #2 turned in to me. And why I shake my head in disbelief that she's calling me and weeping now. Especially ironic phrases in the paper have been bolded. (All mistakes are hers unless I made a typo. But, really, all mistakes are probably hers.)

Little Miss Plagiarist Pants
English 12
May 22, 2007

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is strictly speaking or stealing someone words, ideas & creative works. After I learn that it's a crime I was told to do this paper on plagiarism. So I look on the internet if reference under Plagiarism Stopper A Teacher Guide it states that plagiarism is a rapidly growing problem in many venues today. Because it is so easy to locate information using the Internet, student have given in to the temptation to take material and use them fir their own. This needs to be addressed by all who are in the education field by teaching the observance of proper citation and copyright compliance and by making sure our students know that stealing someone else's work is wrong. This site may help you in your efforts toward these goals. Please feel free to suggest additional site or information and recommendations for redesign. I also look under OWL online writing Lab its said: Whether international or, as is more often the case, inadvertent, the results is that is that some or all of your own. It's like lip-synching to someone else's voice and accepting the applause and rewards for yourself. Incidentally, plagiarism also includes informal published material such as the re-use of the same paper for more than one course or "buying" a paper from another student. If it feels like cheating or an easy way-out, and the moral and intellectual consequences don't sound alarm bells, stop and think of the serious punitive repercussions you could incur. Because it is intellectual theft, plagiarism is considered by all post-secondary institutions as an academic crime with punishment anywhere from an F on that particular paper to dismissal from the course to expulsion from the college or university. If that scares you, it shouldn't because there is no reason it has to happen to you. Avoid plagiarism by following and understanding standard documentation formats, learning how to note-take effectively, and properly incorporating sources direct quotations or paraphrases within your own insights so that it is clear where and supplement your own discussion. Your research paper won't be some cheap throw-together of unoriginal thoughts. You suppose to rewrite in your own words a least if you get a reference from the internet. I under MLA-Style its said: The penalty for plagiarism is usually the teachers teaching or the course involving. Some of high schools and colleges failure the paper and you fail the course and you get expulsion from school. The rules about plagiarism is really no excuse, and its really bad violation.
Plagiarism is not violation but it also violate the ethics. Students who plagiarize have cheated themselves out high school will be response for their academic achievement in life. Instructors and teachers aware students about plagiarism. Its important to recognize this definition is very important. Plagiarism has been around for many years, the invention of the internet has made for plagiarism even more of a challenge @ Plagiarism.org. 90 percent of student made plagiarizing on all their written assignments and they use the internet has made plagiarism most on the course they have taken. I also discussed @ plagiarism.org, its said: Plagiarism known as a dishonesty in colleges. Students were getting expulsion, and once you get expel from college you will not be able attend to another college as was said at the school by the principal. Some schools expect the fact you copy and paste someone's information that they wrote. English teachers give us a website page to look up the summary or information about the work. A major concern was the key to avoid plagiarizing people's information. Plagiarism prevention issues of immense sensitivity and importance to people in all areas of education. They are also of great concernto middle and high school teachers and administrators, and faculty and administrators in colleges and universities. Librarians have also embraced the issue of plagiarism and realized the importance of linking it to the proper documentation of sources to teach users about the importance of knowing about fair use, plagiarism, and documentation. Plagiarism is also moral. The resource from internet is to educate students on different information on what they looking for. Plagiarizing by copying and paste information on paper could get you in a lot of trouble. College the professors detect plagiarism and if it was problem they had it under control. One way a student can plagiarize is to copy something directly from another persons work. A sutdent might also say something and assume that it is not plagiarizing. It is plagiarism if only small changes were made to the source copy and the students work. Another way that students plagiarize is to put together different pieces of work turn it in as their final piece of work. The pressure the students have to deal with by doing research papers and Essays they use the information from the internet. High school students when they were told do assignment in class dealing with internet using they plagiarized they information on poster board or book report way. There many problems in colleges & high school dealing with plagiarizing information, some teachers & professors plagiarized false documents. Personally I never a teacher talk about Plagiarism I in school until I came here, because English 12 we copy and paste information and present the information in front of the class. I think plagiarism should be blame on students who never no plagiarism. Some students don't know when they plagiarism, because you can change of up the information or you can use a paragraph and then you can use your own information. Students who do not understand the meaning up plagiarism they should get a clearing understanding of the copying someone's work or the use of your working.


There you have the two glorious typed pages of her punishment report explaining what plagiarism is, how to avoid it, why it's bad, and why she'll never do it again. Remember that the report was supposed to be four pages long: when I talked to her on the phone yesterday, she sobbed that she had turned in four pages and the evil Office Lady had lost them. Considering the second page ends more than a finger's length above the bottom of the page, however, I seriously doubt that allegation.

I suppose I could give her a few points for trying (kinda. sorta) to parenthetically cite her sources. Except, if she'd actually READ what she was copy-pasting and butcheringre-typing, she might have learned that what she did still counts as plagiarism. Also, what she did barely counts as being written in the English language at some points. (Notice there are no paragraphs in her paper. She says that she was never taught how to make paragraphs in public school.)

Below the cut, you will find my notes searching out her sources. I got a bit lazy toward the latter half of her paper, when the sentences became so incoherent that I had trouble pulling useful search phrases out of them.

( My notes on her sources... )

There are only two weeks left of school here at the Crossroads. As such, I'm struggling to find things to fill my students' time. It's not that I don't still have a lot to teach them: I do. Oh, I do. It's more a matter of what's worth getting into this late in the game.

My seniors, for some reason unfathomable by mere teachers, are being allowed out a week early. They don't deserve such a break, but whatever. With their remaining week, I think I'll be giving them some parting tips on essay-writing and a lecture on how to take notes. If any of them actually make it into college, they're desperately going to need such a tutorial.

My eleventh graders are taking their tests on The Things They Carried on Tuesday. I think, after that, I'm going to assign a couple of short stories for discussion. They can ride out the last couple of days with surprise extra credit activities. The same goes for my tenth graders, except their focus will be on world literature rather than American literature. (And, of course, their test is on The Alchemist.)

My ninth graders get to write one last essay, though I've yet to decide the type. They also have a vocabulary test (maybe two!) to finish up. I really should devise some method with which they can earn extra credit as well. Hm.

Speaking of essays, my seniors turned in their crop of prose essays on Thursday. I just finished grading them tonight. Here's the list of stories they had to read:

"The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allen Poe
"The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allen Poe
"The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
"Videotape" by Don DeLillo
"Balthazar's Marvelous Afternoon" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"Indian Education" by Sherman Alexie
"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula K. LeGuin
"The Mark on the Wall" by Virginia Woolf
"A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift

I wanted to see how much they'd learned over the year, in regards to critical analysis and essay-writing. So I didn't give them any structured guidance on this essay. I simply gave each of them a story and requested they write an essay analyzing the story. Of course, I made myself available for any questions they might have. They didn't really have many questions. They had a week to work on their essays, including some in-class writing time.

The essays were, of course, disappointing: so much dull, uninspired, and flat misunderstandings of the texts. But none were as disappointing as that of one of the newer girls, a thoughtful and quiet student whom I thought had the best chance of understanding the assignment and succeeding with her prose piece: "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift.

Please find the text of her essay enclosed beneath the cut:

( An essay concerning 'A Modest Proposal' by Jonathan Swift... )

For the students in my class, the above essay sounds bloody brilliant. Too bad I immediately knew it wasn't her work and found it via Google but a quick search later (it's down there, trust me). Discovering this particular girl had plagiarized was quite a bitter pill to swallow.

Another girl did it as well on her essay about "The Yellow Wallpaper." She copied from two different sites, though. She also tried to cover it up, albeit unsuccessfully. You see, her method of covering it up was to splinter the sentences, leaving out some words and joining together odd phrases. This rendered the latter half of her essay completely nonsensical. Really. For example:

"She feels her activity, freedom, and interesting of working and would help condition and reveals. Her description is mostly positive but disturbing elements such as rings and things but her bedroom walls are the bars on the windows.

The first few weeks of the summer pass, the author describe good & bad things about her & john She continues to long fore more stimulating of the company and her activities"

All lack of punctuation and the like are the student's. This brings the total counts of plagiarism for the year up to 6. And not one of them has gotten away with it. Honestly, when will they learn? How do they honestly think they're going to get away with this nonsense?

In addition to all of this, I have one student who's completely spazzing out on me. He hasn't bothered to do any of his work this quarter, so he's trying to catch up on all of it within the last two weeks. Unfortunately, his work suffers from a serious lack of quality or understanding.

Behold his essay analyzing Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery"... actually, you know what, you might want to make yourself a drink first. I'll wait. You should possibly take a couple of painkillers. Just enough to dull the pain that will shortly begin throbbing behind your eyes. Got all that done? Good. Here you go:

The Lottery

A story about Shirley Jackson. This lottery was published in June 28, 1948 and issue in New York.

The lottery was mainly about Shirley Jackson and her family and Tessie her husband.

The lottery's democratic illusion is an ideological effect that prevent the villagers from crticizing the class structure of their society. The lottery also reinforces a village work ethio with distracts the villagers.

Shirley Jackson and her family went on to the lottery and didn't have to much fun there, so they were play and how the game go there is whoever get the black ball has to be stoned so therefore her husband had got the black stone and Shirley thought they tried to give him to black stone so she was made.

Shirley was very angry and she wanted them to do it over again so they did it over again and she had ended up with the Black then so she was stoned by the crowd and her family.

End "essay."

Yeah. He's not passing. Which is too bad, considering he apparently has some sport scholarship waiting on him that depends on him having good grades. My boss told me we really needed to make a push this quarter and try to get him the grades he needs to get his scholarship, but he's obviously not making an effort in my class. I've given him enough of a break by not penalizing him for turning in late work.

Also, yes, he blatantly plagiarized there in the middle from the essay I let them read in class. At least he had the sense to quit that rather quickly.

Wearisome! Wearisome.

These are next year's class proposals, in incredibly brief form. Yes, I'm now potentially branching into science. It's likely for the best. I would have turned these into college-like blurbs, but I had to keep the language relatively simple for the high school students and their parents. Trust me.

( Incredibly short class descriptions behind the cut... )


Yes, I know that I've listed 16 classes. At the most, I'll be teaching 8. I listed double that in the hopes that I'll actually manage to get 8 of those made. Because, if I don't, I don't get full pay. Yeah.

I'm not qualified to teach some of those courses, either. Well... not on a college level. I can teach them on a high school level, as many of those are really just varations on the high school English theme, with different specific focuses.

I'm turning in this proposal tomorrow, along with a proposal for some Adult Continuing Education Classes and some thoughts on what I can do for summer school. Wish me luck.

Well, best start hiding your books. The Firemen are on their way:

Publisher makes lite work of the classics. For those of you who don't click on the link, allow me to say that this publisher got the brilliant idea to publish "Compact Editions" of class works such as Moby Dick, Anna Karenina, David Copperfield, etc. This means, essentially, that they're eliminating 40% of the books in order to make them more accessible.

Frankly, this is bullshit. As a writer, I am emphatically against other people deciding what does and does not belong in the final editions of my works. Note, however! I do recognize the value of editing, but not such mass butchery. If you don't want to read all of a book, skim. Don't permit someone to fix these books arbitrarily, cutting out entire subplots, chapters, etc., in the name of making something more "accessible." Some of the books on the publisher's list aren't even that complicated or inaccessible in the first place!

Argh. And no, I don't agree with abridged versions either.

Link found via this post on pegkerr's livejournal.


* * *

My best friend (crowley) provided this humorous link:
How To Use Analogies and Metaphors In Your Essay and Get National Fame.

I can't even choose which one is my favorite: there are too many horrible and equally amusing ones! I would really appreciate the creativity spent in coming up with these if they were intentional. The thought that they're unintentional would almost be too much to bear if I hadn't spent the last 8 months teaching high school English.

( The list, reproduced for you here... )

As we move into prose analysis in my senior class (not that they got poetry analysis or anything), I decided that they needed to read "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. My plan was to have them read the story first and answer some basic comprehension questions. After the initial reading, I would lecture on how to begin analyzing prose. Then they'd get to read the story again, answer some more detailed questions, and eventually write an essay.

Sadly, I haven't gotten through phase one of this plan yet. You see, they read the story yesterday. It took them all period to read the six pages (we didn't have books, so I printed them each a copy). Once they'd finished reading it, they didn't really understand what had happened. So I had to take today to discuss it, as well as to go ahead and explain terms like foreshadow and scapegoat. To highschool seniors.

(Note: As I have a terrible cold or sinus infection of INSERT-ILLNESS-HERE at the moment, I didn't mind so much not having to stand up and talk for 40 minutes today. Over them. With lots of yelling.)

Allow me to share with you the first reaction the story got from Queen of the Jungle (one of the first to finish reading):

QotJ: "Why'd we have to read this?! We Christian!"
Me: "... ... Christians used to stone people all the time back in the 'day.'"
QotJ: "I know! ... It's not appropriate for [Crossroads]."

A little later:

QotJ again: "Why'd that lady say it wasn't fair?"
Me: "That's one of the points of the story: illuminating hypocrisy. Violence is all fine and dandy as long as it doesn't happen to you. Then it does and you're all, 'Oh bleep no, this bleep's gotta stop!'"

I didn't actually say that last part so succinctly. However, I do actually say bleep in class because it amuses them and keeps their attention.

Today, SnoopWannabeTupac asked me if these lotteries had ever really happened. Then he and JumpyPuppy and a few others wanted to know the origin and perpetuation of stoning.

Did you know that "The Lottery" is banned in South Africa? Or that a lot of people cancelled their subscription to The New Yorker because they published the short story? Or that one recurrent thread in the countless confused, angry, or curious letters that Shirley Jackson received was the question on where people could go to see one of these lotteries?

From the Wiki article:

"In The Magic of Shirley Jackson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966), her husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman, wrote about her reaction to the banning of the story in the Union of South Africa: 'She felt that they at least understood.' In 1984, The Lottery was included among the 30 most-often banned books in American schools and libraries, as listed by Playboy (January, 1984). The books were arranged by frequency of censorship with the most-banned first, the least-banned last. At that time, The Lottery ranked #17, between Black Like Me and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich."

Does anyone recognize the following short story plot?

A man is killed (in battle, I think). His body decays and is absorbed by the grass. The grass is eaten by a cow, which is slaughtered for its meat. (Or it may be eaten by a goat who is milked for its milk?) The food is consumed by a man and then this man kills the one who originally killed the soldier?

I think I'm missing a few steps and he may actually eventually work himself into the iron of the weapon that is used to kill the man who killed him. I can't quite recall.

Anyway, anyone have a story name or author? I really want my kids to read this short story.

As a reward for bearing with me through the grading period (more as a salve to myself, perhaps), this week is movie week for both my 10th graders and 11th graders. Usually, I show them the film adaptation of the book we've just read and allow them to write a film review for extra credit.

However, the book we just finished reading this 8 Weeks were Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (10th graders) and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (11th graders). While there are film adaptations for both, neither seemed to be available at the local Blockbuster (and I never plan far enough ahead on these things to use Netflix). This meant thinking up alternative movies.

For World Literature (10th), I finally decided on giving them a film adaptation of a Dumas novel. I had wanted to make them read one of his novels in class, but we just don't have enough time in the year. Why not expose them to his work through film, at least? Because I knew it's definitely tame, The Three Musketeers with Oliver Platt, Keifer Sutherland, et al was my first choice. I hoped I could fall back on The Count of Monte Cristo if that proved unavailable (but I couldn't clearly remember whether the latter movie contained anything objectionable).

Amazingly enough (to me), the Blockbuster DID NOT have The Three Musketeers! WTF? I seemed to recall that being a popular film. How can they not have it? They also didn't have The Count of Monte Cristo, which was an even bigger WTF for me.

Besides my problem finding anything for the sophomores to watch, I had no idea what to show the juniors. Then I turned around and saw it on the shelf: Dead Poet's Society. A classic! I had to watch it in highschool, I seem to recall. Why not?!

However, since I couldn't get both movies there, I took myself off to Best Buy in hopes of procuring both movies I needed cheaply. They also did not have The Three Musketeers. Or Smoke Signals, which I thought of as an alternative to Dead Poet's Society for my 11th graders. I did manage to find Dead Poet's Society and The Count of Monte Cristo, though.

As I was checking out, I had the following exchange with the female cashier:

FC, scanning the Dead Poet's Society DVD: Hey, I had to watch this for English last year. It was good.
Me, glancing at sirandrew and laughing silently since that's what I'm buying it for; after a moment, I ask: What grade were you in last year?
FC: I was a junior. I'm a senior this year. Still in highschool, I'm afraid.
Me, laughing: I'm actually an English teacher and buying this to show my 11th grade class.

A few other random chat things and then she says:

FC: I'm a LAMPer.
Me: Really?! I'm an alumnus of LAMP.
FC: Yeah, last year Mrs. Frucci made us watch that movie...
Me: It was Mrs. Frucci that had me watch it as well!

I closed the conversation by asking her to tell Mrs. Frucci that I said hello. Andy pointed out that this is a sign that I'm showing the right movie and, by cosmic association, doing well as an English teacher. I mused that if I could touch any one student the way that Mrs. Frucci touched me in high school, I would consider myself accomplished. So I'll take this as a sign that I'm going down the right path as well.