Matt’s Class

Alright. This didn’t work out so well. Actually, in the class period before this was recorded, this discussion turned out pretty great. But the one I got on tape is scattered and inconclusive.

This discussion was the result of a little experiment. First, we did a day of general “awareness” kinds of meditation. Then, the next day, I read for the entire class period without stopping for discussion or explanation. Then, today, I tried to mine the class for ideas so that, all together, we could put together a general theory about what the day’s reading had actually been about. No individual really knew, since the reading was long and complicated. But I was reasonable sure that as a class, they could piece it all together.

Some classes were able to do that pretty well. The discussion I recorded is a bit scattered and inconclusive. Running discussions like this is such a crapshoot. When it works, it’s beautiful. When it flounders and dies, you think you’ll never regain the class’ interest and enthusiasm.

Oh! The travails of the modern teacher of Language Arts!

Behold:

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America! If you find yourself sitting in a La-Z-Boy chair in front of a picture window hurling obscenities at all people under the age of 40 driving over the speed of 20 down your quiet suburban road, then you may be the type of person who has a poor impression of our nation’s youth.

Well. Today’s discussion proves that while our young citizens may, in fact, be crazy, they’re not stupid. Listen to how many plausible theories about the overall meaning of Moby Dick the class comes up with all on their own. (After the discussion, we read to the end of chapter 63).

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Where have we been these past few days? Let’s play a little catch up:

– Wednesday and Thursday, we read up to page 300 and gathered two pages of possible writing prompts stemming from those days’ reading

– Friday was a short day and I used the time to introduce a few more books from the reading list in order to get people “pumped” for the final push towards next week’s 700-outside-reading-page deadline

– Today, Monday, we wrote the final in-class essay, essay #6, which you can find posted over there in the 11th Grade Writing Assignments area

Here’s some more readin’ ‘n’ talkin’.

The assignment was to locate possible “prompt” topics in today’s reading, and write them down in your notebook for future use (i.e., on next week’s timed writing). Remember that a few weeks ago we discussed the features of a good prompt–things like, it should be open-ended, opinion-based, it should relate to real life and real people, it should be a topic of general interest/curiosity, etc. I’ll be checking notebooks one more time next week.

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These past few days have been divided between reading and playing the vocabulary party game, “Go Fish (Yourself)!” which has proven every bit as exciting and emotionally explosive as its title would suggest. If you haven’t been here, we’ve reached chapter 51, “The Spirit-spout.”

Okay. On this day, we read a bit, and then started making the vocabulary party game I invented, “Go Fish (Yourself)!” The second half of the recording consists of an “audio verite” recording of an actual small group working on their game and gradually forgetting the mic is on. I hope there’s nothing bad on there. But, if there is, at least it’s authentic bad-ness. This is the reality of your offspring, America. Face it:

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Vocabluralry and Spllelling Master List!

I like these days where all we do is talk about words. I really do. Is it wrong for me to feel this way?

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Alright. It’s the evening now when I’m posting this, and I can’t remember what class was all about.

Oh yeah. Whiteness. Whhhhiteness. Ishmael finally explains the everynothingness of the color white.

All I remember about today’s class is that there were quite a few awkward pauses where everyone was staring at me and I forgot where I was.

I… didn’t get much sleep last night.

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Now I’ve resorted to telling the 4th period class that they’re smarter than the other classes. It may be flattery, but I think it’s working. Judge for yourselves…

…the whhhhiteness of the whhhhhale:

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