Homecoming–the most exciting day of the school year so far. My students are dressed in their class and school colors. One of my seniors is dressed in her homecoming candidate gear. I’m wearing the jersey of one of my sophomore football players (thanks A.G. for asking me to wear your jersey! It’s an honor!). My students have painted faces, colored tutus, and the excited chatter that goes with a day full of assemblies and homecoming fun.
But I still held class–for the half day I was at school (I took a half day personal leave). And I left work for the remaining two classes of the day after I left. Today we started reading Hillenbrand’s Unbroken in my sophomore classes. They were assigned to read the preface and chapters 1 and 2, then answer some questions about chapter 1. We looked up images of Graf Zeppelin. Most students said “Led” when I asked what a zeppelin was, but a few offered “blimp,” so I showed them the difference between blimps and dirigibles and we looked at the image of the Graf Zeppelin in Los Angeles–an image from the very day that Louis would have seen the airship in chapter 1.
I’m working to add as much context as possible for these students who carry the world at their fingertips every day with their digital devices, but rarely work to make sense of the information available to them.
My seniors worked on reading student samples of the essays they wrote on Wednesday. They also discovered that maybe, just maybe, they didn’t answer the prompt like they thought they did. So we dissected the prompt at length, and I gave them some tips for answering the prompts.
Then I went home, and they went to the homecoming assembly/pep rally. I’m eager to hear all about it on Monday: the game (which we won 62-0, and my student won Homecoming Queen!), the dance, and all the festivities. That’ll be a rare Monday when I really am excited to get back to school.
“Kashmir” by Led Zeppelin
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