Now we enter perhaps the most useless week of the school year, in that it’s a “week” of only two days, and several kids won’t be in attendance. You can’t really accomplish much in a two-day week; not that I really want to right now. In fact, I’m trying to figure how little I can get away with. My two geography classes will be watching a movie both days (Promises) and with my language arts classes, well– they’re frustrating me right now. We’re reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry; it’s my first time reading the book as well, which is a large part of the difficulty.

But my main problem is that I can’t get these kids to discuss the book. I have them write a journal entry that should certainly provoke discussion, but only 3 or 4 students– and always the same 3 or 4 in each class– will ever share their thoughts aloud without coercion. And then, there’s always the matter of insisting on only hearing one voice at a time– the need to quell a half-dozen side conversations. Of course, there’s also the issue of someone saying something completely irrelevant, and the occasional hurl of “stupid” (or “retarded,” or, God forbid, “gay”– which I haven’t heard slip in class yet, but I know is standard in early-adolescent parlance). I guess I’m going to have to start a participation grade. In the meantime, I need to go do the reading myself that I assigned them to complete by tomorrow– yippeekaiyay.

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