Getting Students to Read

New Year. New Students. New Me. New Methods. Also I wrote this post on a Monday, so that's why it talks about the weekend just ending. Begin.

This is how I got my students to read today. Ahem.

I said, "I'm giving you a month and a half to read two books. One from this list and one off of it. Also do the book report and book project."

Whines and groans. Because two books is hard. Also assignments are the worst.

I said, "I can read two books this weekend. It's not that hard."

Sounds of disbelief.

I said, "You want me to do it?"

Instant universal yes. If we have to suffer, then the teacher has to suffer, too.

I said, "Fine. I'll read one from the list and one from not the list."

I tried to let them pick, but I forgot to schedule time.

I went home.

That is a lie.

After school I immediately jumped in my friend's car and we went down to the Shakespeare festival to see a couple of plays.

On the way down I read the first book: "Rat Prince" by someone. It's a really, really fun retelling of Cinderella from the point of view it one of the rats. It was amazing. And lovely. I loved every minute of it.

The next we wandered the town with the festival and found a bookshop. I thought, I will see if they have any books on the list because I still need to finish one by Monday.

They had "Dracula" by Bram Stoker. As it met the requirement of both being on the list and being a book I hadn't read before, I bought it.

Have you ever read Dracula? There is a reason it's a classic and I'm pretty sure it has everything to do with the writing. Stoker is excellent at drawing the reader in and building tension. The tension builds and builds and builds and I didn't know how it could get any more tense but it kept going. He weaves the story about the vampire through journals, letters, telegrams, newspaper clippings, a phonograph diary, a memoir all from people who have had dealings with this vampire even though they do not even know it.

It was beautiful.

I finished the book 4 minutes before school started this morning.

I had two students try to talk to me but I had less than ten pages left and I needed to know what happened in the ending.

I told my students about the books. I shared the excitement I had while reading them.

They said, "Are you going to let us read them?"

I said, "I'll put them on my bookshelf and you can read them."

They said, "Can we take them home and read them?"

I said, "You'll have to talk to me about that after school, but I will say yes."

They were contented.

Except only two students got to have the books today and they were not about to give them up.

I said, "I liked this so much I think I'll have groups of you pick me a book to read every weekend. I'll assign students to choose me a book from the library and I'll read it."

They said, "What about 'War and Peace?'"

I said, "It has to be in the library and you have to agree."

And then they were all reading. And not just the two books I'd read over the weekend. All day. Any book they could get their hands on.

Beautiful.

One Student Victory

I have a book I've been trying to get my students to read all year. It's a series of books, really, but I figure as long as they read the first, they'll want to read the rest.

I tried to get my students to read it last year, too. Apparently it was too, "boring."

I love this series of books. It's like Harry Potter, but more American-y. The character has a solid family where most of them love him (he's got that one crazy, rude, power-hungry grandma and his dad is missing, but his mom loves him and his uncle and other grandma are nice.) The story is a little slower paced, but I like that.

The other day I sent a student to the back of the room to grab a book. My students generally dawdle when they do this (I, apparently, do not own enough "contemporary" YA novels). But he spent a comparatively short amount of time and grabbed this book to bring back to his desk to read.

I expected that he would pretend to read this book until he was allowed to leave his seat or do something else. I expected he would pretend to read as he has done with every other book. I expected he would pretend to read this book like every other student who had picked it up

It has now been three or four school days since he picked it up. Everytime I have seen him since then, he has been reading this book. I've watched his torn paper bookmark steadily progress through the book. I've even had to ask him to stop reading and pay attention to the lesson for the first time this whole year.

I want to ask him about the book, but I'm afraid if I do he'll get weirded out and stop reading. That's the last thing I want. Instead, I watch how he interacts with this book: like it needs a bookmark that won't hurt the spine, like it stays within close reading distance and is never on the floor, like he doesn't care that reading it is not "cool", like he doesn't know I'm dying to know what he thinks of this book. He just keeps reading it.

Perhaps it is a small victory, but for me, that's victory enough.

The Spinning Jenny

A week or so ago when we were studying about the industrial revolution, I gave my students an assignment to create an ad for either the Spinning Jenny or the Cotton Gin. The instructions were to create an ad on a blank white paper. It needed to compel the reader to buy it. It also needed a picture (I mean, how else were we going to know what we were buying?).

Today, late, in the turn in basket I received a final ad for the Spinning Jenny. On a blank white paper, in his best 6th grade handwriting, sans picture, it reads:

Buy the Spinning Jenny!!!
•Faster than ever!
•Easy to operate!
•Useful
•Incredibly Hard To Draw!

Available for a limited time only.

GET Yours Today!!!


I mean, I'd buy it. Wouldn't you?

Spring Break

Today marks the first day of Spring Break. Today marks the first day I don't have to be at school for 9 whole days. I can do anything I want.

My sister and I are going on a road trip next week. Where are we going?

Oh, you know, wherever we feel like when we begin driving.

Am I exited to do something completely without planning?

Oh, heck yes.

Well we end up with some sort of plan before going?

Well, yes. We're going to end up at a dinosaur museum and probably make our way to a museum in a cave. But other than that we can do whatever we want and I don't have to think about school (even though I probably will). And really, I think that's what Spring Break is all about.

Teaching is Fun

Teaching is fun because sometimes you get gems like:

Student: *sees paint on the wall that had not been there the hour previously*
Student: *touches paint*
Student, in horror: It's wet!


And who could forget:

For reasons too lengthy to mention here, Sir Talks-a-lot is not allowed to have scissors in my class. Are scissors his favorite tool? Yes. Does he find all the ways to get scissors? Yes. Did he have a pair in class today? Yes. Did I take them away? Yes.

Did he have a pair? Yes.
Did I take them away from him? Yes.

Did he have scissors? Again, Yes.
Did I take them away from him? Oh, absolutely.

At this point did I realize he'd stuffed his pockets with scissors? Yes. Nine of them. In one pocket.

Did I take all of them? Yes. It was like the never-ending pocketful of scissors.



And sometimes when you walk in the hall you hear classics like:

Student: Well you can tell by the way I use my walk I'm a cheeseball man, no time to talk.



And SOMETIMES you greatly exaggerate your horse voice to a whisper so you get:

1. A perfect novels class because they want to hear every word you say.
2. A not as perfect homeroom class (because you're giving them a surprise April Fool's Day spelling test with only 6 real words) but students who are trying really hard to get the other students to listen so they can hear me.
3. A surprise April Fool's Day spelling test that every time you're tempted to laugh because their reactions to words like Kpfluterwageeen are just too hilarious, you cough instead and that's all the convincing they need that you are really sick and have to give them this test.


Sigh.

Teaching is fun.

Mean Miss Kelsch

Today I gave my students a consequence for their behavior yesterday. They had to write apology letters to the to teachers whose classes they disrupted and to themselves. In the letters they apologized for behavior, not emotions.

After that I decided I was no longer angry at them and I'd forgive their mistakes.  I was going to be cheerful the rest of the day and we'd just have fun and learn.

This lasted until the last hour of the day when some of them decided they were not going to listen to me anymore. So I became Mean Miss Kelsch.

As stated in an earlier post: I do not like Mean Miss Kelsch. I do not enjoy being Mean Miss Kelsch. I do not enjoy raising my voice or giving ultimatums.

I also do not enjoy teaching mean students.

I enjoy being Nice Miss Kelsch. I like Nice Miss Kelsch. I like to have fun with my students and learn.

I enjoy teaching nice students.

I enjoy having a classroom where everyone's rights are upheld and it is a safe learning environment. So tomorrow we are going to have a conversation about that. We'll practice being aware of others and ourselves. We'll talk about the good things that my students have done and do. We'll talk about the ways I've seen them excell. We'll talk about how kind they've been this year and how much they've learned about themselves.

And maybe, just maybe, they'll strive to be their bests.

Power Out

Today was a rough day.

Today every student's dream came true.

The power went out and school was cancelled.

We still had to stay there for another hour and a half to count it as a full day of teaching, but the students left at 11:55.

Tomorrow they have to come back.

Tomorrow we will talk about behavior when situations are changed. And why we don't cheer for a full minute so loudly the other classes are disrupted while an announcement is happening.

Tomorrow they will be back. The power won't go off and they'll have to pay attention.

Tomorrow might be rough.

But it might not be.