I have really enjoyed keeping and updating this blog, but I cannot run it on this hosting site any longer. Quite simply, the economy blows, and it's silly to keep paying a monthly fee when I'm no longer posting regularly.

Also, I've picked up a few writing projects, and it's difficult to find extra time and energy.

I'm going to archive the past posts on a free site, and when it's up, I'll post a link.

In the meantime, I want to say thank you to the readers who made my year-of-the-blog so wonderful. It was truly worthwhile to connect with and get advice from such passionate educators.

It's easy to forget what being a teenager was like--the awkwardness, the confusion, the certainty that high school would never, ever end. Here are a few books that will put you in touch with your inner adolescent and, hopefully, make you more sympathetic the next time you're faced with a roomful of them.



Written from the point-of-view of Melinda, a freshman outcast who refuses to speak for a whole year, Speak is insightful, very funny, and a quick read. (Everything I love in fiction!) I actually picked this up for my students, but it totally sucked me in as a piece of good literature in its own right. There is a made-for-tv movie version, as well. I haven't seen it, but one of my teenage students recommended it. So there you go.




Persepolis is a graphic novel about Satrapi's life in Iran after the Islamic Revolution. She describes how her liberal childhood gave way to repression, fear, and veils as she grew older and the Islamic regime took hold. Not only does the book provide great lessons on culture and history, it is honest, touching, imaginative, and (yes, I'm going to say it again) funny. Marjane's struggle to remain "punk rock" despite increasing religious conservatism is both poignant and hilarious. Read the first few pages and just try to put it down. I dare you.

While you're at it, be on the look out for the DVD of the movie version. It's fantastic.

You may have noticed that I went MIA for about two months. I really regret disappointing the regular readers here, but I have to tell you...

I was going crazy.

This new Ninth-Grade Intervention Program--which plopped about twenty-three fourteen-year-olds in my class--was really turning my head around. I couldn't get the kids to sit down or shut up long enough to actually learn anything, and I felt like a real failure. What right did I have to offer advice, when I couldn't even get my own act together? Not to mention how exhausted I was by the end of the day. I didn't even want to wash the makeup off my face, much less write about how messed-up my class was.

But things are back under control now. And what turned these kids around? Good old-fashioned rules.

Honestly. And I tried everything else. Seating charts. Meetings with the counselor. Goal-setting activities. Games. Drawing. Student feedback. Nothing worked with these ninth-graders, nothing made them care. So, finally, I showed up one day with a list of twenty-one rules and a second list...of the students who wouldn't be able to take the exit exam under the new regime.

I got a lot of criticism:

But I also got a few students who whispered encouragement to me during the break:

Really, the rules just lay down basic behavior expectations and introduce a complicated series of hours and points that students must maintain in order to take the exit exam. I'll make it simpler for you, though. You must have attended at least 40 hours and have at least 100 points (based on in-class work) in order to take the test. Otherwise, you stay with me until you're old and wrinkled.

Boy, those kids turned into little angels!

Things are better now. We're actually able to get through the lessons, have some fun, and, sometimes, even learn something. My confidence is back, and so is my energy. This is not to say that the kids aren't trying, because they are. But things are manageable, and sometimes that's the best we can ask for.

Anyway, for those of you still reading, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

The other night I schlubbed into the room of my fellow teacher, Mr. A, so exhausted by my classes that I could barely lift my head. Mr. A took one look at me and said, "Kid, you're doing too much."

He might be right.

The truth is, some mornings I wake up doubting that I can pull off my own lesson plans. It's not that they're difficult--it's just that there are sooooooo many of them. I might have the same set of students for a whole year, so I can't repeat lessons. And while AMP provides a backbone, I like to supplement bookwork with activities and background information. So, day after day, I spend all my free time collecting techniques, materials, equipment, stories, news articles, poems, songs...the list goes on. The pressure to find interesting material has become monumental.

And I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I long for a break, yet I can't afford to take one.

I've started having these fantasies about leaving teaching and pursuing a new career path entirely. It is extremely unlikely these daydreams will ever become reality. I do love teaching reading, I won't leave my principal until she physically removes me, and--let's face it--I'm past the age when changing your job every year is cute . But I wonder sometimes whether I'll ever have a life without lesson plans.

I dream of being...


a zookeeper


a marine biologist


a psychologist



a wine grower


a perfume nose


a nutritionist

Experience has taught me that every job has its headaches. As my mother often reminds me, "A job is supposed to be hard. That's why someone has to pay you to do it. If it was easy, it'd be a hobby you did for free." But it's nice to indulge in the fantasy that there's a job somewhere that won't be so...job-like.

It's funny. When I was a kid, I dreamed of being an actor...a writer...a fashion designer...an artist. Now, my dreams mostly seem to revolve around obtaining some kind of science degree. Too bad I stink at math!!

Do you remember Mad Libs? They're the word games you might have played as a kid--the ones where you randomly came up with verbs, nouns, etc. and then plugged them into a pre-written story. The results were always strange, sometimes confusing, and often hilarious. I adapted the game for the classroom, and it worked really well. The students had a lot of fun, and it actually combined comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency.

We're studying descriptive words, so I decided to make up a few Mad Libs of my own to give to the students. We did one together, first. I asked the students for words that described sounds, smells, sights, emotions, etc. Then we plugged them into a story about a guy who goes over to his friend's house for dinner. The students laughed at the story "they'd written" and asked to "Do it again!" I was more than happy to oblige.

This time, I passed out a list of word prompts to each student and told them to make their own list of words. When they could show me they were done, I gave them the story part (about a blind date) and had them fill in the blanks. The students then read their stories to each other a few times, and a few volunteers read for the whole class.

Yes, the students practiced the concept of "descriptive words", and, yes, they worked on vocabulary. But I didn't predict how well the fluency aspect would work. The more confident students volunteered to read their stories for the whole class first, as I expected. But, because the stories are basically the same--with just a few key words changed--the other students ended up reading along with the story silently as their classmates read aloud. By the time the story had been read three or four times, even my shy students felt confident about trying the story themselves. And, because the stories were always slightly different and very funny, the students really paid attention to each other.

I could see this activity working for ESL, English, and even composition classes, as well as reading. I have to admit...I haven't laughed that much in a long time!

Below, I've attached the two stories I used in the classroom. Feel free to adapt them for your own needs.

This adorable little Kenneth Jay Lane pendant is the perfect gift for a teacher. Of course, there aren't that many gift-giving holidays coming up, but hey...it would be the perfect way to celebrate Thomas Jefferson's birthday (April 13th), National Pineapple-Upside Down Day (April 20th), or good old Arbor Day (the 25th).

1. First up, my mother's blog. No, really! The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. My beautiful mother is the superintendent of Hockinson School Distict, and she started a blog as a way of keeping the community informed on district events and policies. I hope more administrators follow her lead in using new mediums to reach out to parents, teachers, and students.

2. The National Center for Family Literacy launched their blog about a week ago. It's not fully fleshed-out yet, but I'm excited to see what kind of information they collect. Definitely worth keeping an eye on.

3. This isn't a teaching blog, but I really believe that it's just as important for us to take care of our minds and bodies as it is to discover new techniques. That's why I was so delighted to discover fitsugar.com. It's full of great little articles on good health and fitness, and it's updated on a daily basis. A little girly, yes, but worth a visit.

Happy reading!

Well, one good thing about my sudden influx of fourteen-to-fifteen-year-olds...it's keeping me on my toes!

With so many new students, I knew that my lesson plans had to be tight, including stories that would engage the students immediately and lots of activities. I also started gathering quick and easy Getting To Know You games to use when we had a few extra minutes; don't ask me how I knew they would be so crucial, but I just did!

Thursday was the first time I had all my new "flexible schedule" students for the whole class period. We're studying problem/solution story structure in expository writing (try saying that three times fast) so I looked for a news article that would both illustrate the lesson and get the teens emotionally involved. At the same time, the article had to appeal to my adults. I struck gold with an article about a graffiti mural along the LA Riverbank that local politicians want whitewashed.

The article I used in class was actually taken from the magazine Tu Ciudad, but you can read about the issue here. It concerns a convention of over 200 graffiti artists called "Meeting of Styles" that resulted in a 10,000+ foot mural on the waterway near Highland Park. The mural is huge and colorful, and the event itself seemed like a blast. But now the residents want the mural taken down--pitting artists against politicians.

I printed color copies of parts of the mural and projected them for the students to see. Right away, I heard "Cool!" "Those are tight." and "Whoa." Then I passed out the article, and we read it together. We stopped along the way to identify the community problem, as well as the solutions put forth by each side. Then we talked about what each side's "solution" said about them as people, and what kind of solutions the students would propose. My teenagers really got into the debate, and it was interesting to hear the adults' opinions versus those of their younger classmates. I knew it was a successful lesson when the scariest, most belligerent guy in class raised his hand to contribute to the discussion.

Later, we looked at more problem/solution by exploring the medical website WebMD. I divided the students into groups, and each group was assigned an ailment: chickenpox, the flu, head lice, or athelete's foot. They had to use WebMD to identify the problems (symptoms) and solutions (treatment) associated with each ailment. Afterwards, the groups presented their findings to the rest of the class.

Everything was going swimmingly until it came time for one member of each group to write something on the board. In the three minutes in took their teammates to make a problem/solution chart, the rest of the students went crazy. They were screaming across the room, pulling out their music players, and hurling insults at one another. In a matter of three minutes!!!!!

Man, was I glad I'd looked up all those games. As soon as I saw what was happening, I got them all to play a game called One Lie, Two Truths. I started by demonstrating:

And so on. Once the students figured it out (it was the third statement; I've been married for four years), I had them come up with three statements of their own and play the game within their groups. The activity took about ten minutes, and it helped the students get to know each other better. It also preserved my sanity.

Anyway, by the time the game was done, it was time for presentations.

So I guess the moral of the story is that teenagers are crazy but passionate. You can get them involved in their lessons, but you have to do the work to find stories they'll really respond to. And they're like little squirrels. You have to find shiny things to distract them, or they'll go a little nutty.

image: photo of the "Meeting of Styles" mural from Label Networks Inc.

This week, about eleven ninth graders waltzed into my classroom. And by "waltzed" I mean "ran in screaming/crying/kissing/talking on their cell phones/punching each other on the arms". It's the third week of class, but these students are part of a new ninth-grade intervention program; the idea is that a combination of tutoring and reading classes will help these adorable little ne'er-do-wells to catch up with their daytime work.

I was happy enough to get these students, especially considering my low numbers this term, but I wasn't really expecting all of them to come in at the same time, without registration forms, about fifteen minutes before class ended on Monday. Thankfully, my regular students were quietly doing groupwork, so I had a little bit of time to get the new students' names, give them their contracts, and do a short Getting to Know You exercise. Even so, they were unruly and quite unhappy about being there. Here was one of our first conversations:


Sigh. I knew I had my work cut out for me.

The students who have been with me since week one--who were initially shy and/or surly, but are now delightful--immediately hated the newcomers. I tried to assure them that the new students were just uncomfortable and would fall in-line after a week or so, but my old students only shook their heads doubtfully. They are used to a quiet, orderly, and friendly classroom environment, and they are extremely unhappy about the new energy.

That night, I had a dream that I was teaching two classes...at the same time. They were held in two different rooms, so I had to keep running from classroom to classroom to lecture, and after about five minutes of this, both classrooms were totally out of control. Students were making out, destroying materials, and fighting with each other. And the worst part was that I was teaching math--a subject I have always hated and still can't execute correctly, even with a calculator. When I woke up, I was crying.

The next day, half of the ninth grade intervention students didn't even show up for class. Those that did came in late and then informed me that they were leaving after the break--giving me a total of about twenty minutes with them in the classroom.

Yesterday, a few more showed up. On time. And I felt I was able to make some kind of progress with them before they left after the break again. Some of them even laughed as we learned our eight new vocab words. The F-bomb-thrower even started saying "fudge" instead of "f***".

The thing is, I'm not stressed about their bad attitudes or the fact that they've missed two weeks of instruction. I've tamed wilder beasts than they. We can always review. And I can work around their weird schedules, too.  No, the hardest part is that the students who have been with me longer have just started to trust me. They've just started to open up and even work with other students who aren't in their clique. And now this just throws a monkey wrench in the whole works. The new students look at me as if I'm a prison warden, and the old students act like dogs I've just kicked. All that trust-building and goal-setting and procedure-practicing we did the first two weeks has to be done all over again.

Double sigh.

Well, don't cry for me, Argentina. I think I can get this all under control. It's just going to take a lot of patience and a little time. And, hey, it's great blogging material!

art: Lichtenstein's "Girl Crying"

I admit it. I've been a bad blogger. I have left my blog in the lurch for the past few weeks, and I just hope there a few readers left now that I'm ready to get back into the game!

Not to make excuses, but I've been taking my credential courses on the weekends, as well as the regular grind, so I've been consistently exhausted. I'm also starting a new play (I'm a playwright), which takes a lot of my free time.

HOWEVER! This is my Spring Break, and I'm ready to blast back into action!!!!!

Keep reading this month for the best of what I've learned in Lynne Porter's class, new fluency practices, and how trying to learn another language myself has really informed my teaching.

And a big hug to those of you who hung in there.

image: www.vomrongermanshepards.com

Heads up Los Angeles-area teachers! If you're both a theatre geek and a cheapskate (like me), then you'll want to take advantage of the $20 seats for Nilaja Sun's one-woman show "No Child..." at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.  Just give them the secret word "CHILD" for any non-Saturday performance through March 16, and you can have any available seat in the house.

I am totally psyched for this show, which premiered off-Broadway and racked up all kinds of attention and good reviews. It's about Sun's experiences teaching theatre to inner-city high schoolers. And, hey, if you go Friday 14th, you also get to attend their Neighborhood Night party, all for the low, low price of $20. (No, I don't work for Center Theatre Group. But I could, huh?!)

image from The Center Theatre Group

Designers' Fall 2008 collections featured a lot of librarian-chic. My personal favorites are from Marni's Ready-to-Wear line, which featured clean lines, easy separates, muted neutrals mixed with soft sherbet colors, and fun accessories. It wouldn't take much money or effort to translate these outfits into something appropriate for the classroom.

Mr. A teaches across the hall from me. He's old enough to be my father and looks like a sprightly Teddy Roosevelt. We're both outgoing and share a love of writing, so we have started a tradition of walking together to and from class to talk about our successes and failures that day. Mr. A always gives me a clearer perspective on things, offering solid advice on everything from curriculum to behavioral problems. Plus, he can swear like a sailor, which comes in handy when I'm looking to vent.

On our walk back to the parking lot last night, Mr. A said, "You know, this job is different from most jobs, because the longer you work the more idealistic you become. Most jobs, it's the other way around."

He's totally right. When I first started teaching, a "good" day was a day in which nobody got into a fight and I was able to speak in front of the class without trembling. Now, a "good" day has so many factors. Did the students demonstrate real learning? Did they have fun? Did I transition smoothly between activities? Did the students connect with one another? Did I get the sense that they were excited to come back the next day? Only if the answer to all of these is yes do I call it a "good" day; everything else is just "okay".

I feel like the more I learn about teaching, the more experience I get in the classroom, and the more real progress my students make...the more I feel like I'm not doing nearly enough. I want the class to be better, better, better. In some ways, this is very exciting--as if the job is a calling rather than a career--but it's also exhausting, both emotionally and physically.

So, why does teaching inspire such Pollyannaism?  Take a look at this link to ABC World News with Charlie Gibson's report on illiteracy in America. It's three videos, starting with an interview with a former ESL student. The second two feature a woman who describes struggling through life before taking literacy classes. They both talk about the shame and challenge of not being able to read, as well as how much better their lives are now. You can also read the print version of the show here. It pretty much sums up all that is wonderful (and terrifying) about this job.

(Thanks to Liz and Steve for the links!)
image credit: ABC News

I haven't explored the site fully yet, but Verizon's Thinkfinity Literacy Network is very intriguing. One of the counselors at my school pointed it out to me after I mentioned my need for assessment tools.

Apparently, this is Verizon's "Hey-we're-okay-we-care-about-our-customer-really" project. Please, excuse my cynicism. But I've worked for big corporations and know how often their apparent sense of charity has to do with tax breaks. But, regardless of why they've put this resource together, it appears to be legit and chock-a-block full of information for educators, including online teaching courses and self-assessment tools.

It's worth a look!


picture from the Thinkfinity web site

I realized about a week ago that my students didn't have much they could take with them when they left my classroom. I don't mean physically. Physically, they have the Reader Bibles we've been adding to each week, as well as the vocabulary CDs and all the other crap I've copied/written/drawn over the weeks. But, honestly, are they ever going to use those? If it was me, I'd say, "Wow, that's great," and then toss each and every one of those items squarely in the trash. (I mean, we're being honest here, right?!)

My students needed a solid, usable tool that they could use when nobody else was around to help them. Something that works the same way, every single time, and produces real results. I also realized that whatever it was would have to be physical, because my students are mostly whole-body learners and wouldn't know what to do with yet another "concept".  The answer was...marking text.

Cris Tovani talks about marking text as a comprehension exercise in her excellent book I Read It, but I Don't Get It. But she would have students mark text for different purposes each time, focusing on questioning, vocabulary, or whatever depending on the lesson. I adapted it slightly to make it more all-encompassing. And you know what? MY STUDENTS LOVED IT. They loooooooooooved it. My teenagers, in particular, looked up at me in astonishment after we did it for the first time. "It makes reading so much easier, Miss," one of them exclaimed. "I actually remember what happened."

Here's what we did:


Materials:

-Strips of paper, about the size of a bookmark
-a short story, anywhere from one to three pages long

1. Pass out the strips of paper (one for each page of text) and stories to your students. Explain that you are going to show them a new way to keep track of what they are reading and that this is something they will do when they read in your class from now on.

2. Tell them that people who are confused by what they read have to read the same story over and over again. They read it all the way through the first time. Then, when they get asked a question about it, they read the whole thing again to find the answer. Then, when they get a second question, they read the whole thing yet again. And so on, and so forth. (You'll see some students nodding their heads in agreement at this point.) But strong readers only need to read a story once all the way through. If they are asked questions, they either remember the information or know where to find it in the story. Taking notes will help them slow down and force them to use comprehension strategies.

3. Project the first page of the story you've chosen onto the board. Have students preview the story by looking at the title and pictures to get an idea of what they will be reading about. Ask someone to read the title out loud for you. Then write down the title at the top of a strip of paper. Have them do the same.

4. Next, ask them to count the number of paragraphs on the page. Write a number for each paragraph, with space for notes after the numbers. (For example, if there are four paragraphs, there should be four spaces.) Have them do the same.

5. Now, read the first paragraph aloud while the students read along silently. At the end of the paragraph, stop. Ask them what the most important idea was in the paragraph. Then, make a note of it on the strip of paper under the space for #1. Encourage them to write their own notes--whatever gets the idea across and makes sense to them, even if it's not just like yours.

6. Continue to write down the main ideas for each paragraph until you have completed the story. It is important to do this after EACH paragraph and not to move on until a note has been made. (If this means that students need to read the paragraph again to identify the main idea, have them do so.) It's also important that you make NOTES, not whole sentences. The idea is that this exercise is done quickly and painlessly.

7. At the end of the exercise, ask students a series of questions about the story. Start with, "Who is this story about?" If they're not sure, tell them to look at their notes and see whose name appears the most often. Then, ask them to identify the main event. Again, if they're not sure, refer them to their notes. Ask them a few questions that you know they didn't take notes on. If they don't know the answer, show them how to use their notes to find the paragraph that will contain the answer.

8. Finally, wrap up by asking students whether this makes reading easier or harder. Remind them that although it may take a little longer to read the story the first time, it will actually save them time in the long-run.

Practice this a few times with your students. Integrate the techniques you've been working on with them. For example, we'd been working on graphic organizers, so I showed them how to use those instead of writing out a sentence in their notes. At first, your students will want to write out every little detail. Discourage this. Get them to create simple, quick, shorthand notes. Remember, if you make it too hard, they'll never actually do it.

I demonstrated the technique several times for my students. And then I had them do it several times by themselves. Suddenly, students who never volunteered answers were participating in class. I could talk to my students about themes and higher-level concepts, because we didn't have to spend so much time reviewing the events. And my students were just delighted. For the first time for some of them, they read through a story and actually understood it.

Now, I have my students do this every single time they read. I do it, too, when we're reading together. And it has made a huge difference. They can really talk about things now. Plus, it makes it much easier to check on student progress as you walk around the classroom. If someone's making notes, leave them alone. If they're not, you know there's a problem.

I really, really encourage teachers of all subjects to give it a try. Try it for a week. If you don't see an improvement in your students' reading comprehension, I'll eat my hat. Seriously.

I have to say, as much as I love the AMP Reading System, they kind of dropped the ball with Unit 3. I mean...eighteen whole lessons devoted to prediction? How many times can I say to the students, "What do you think will happen next?"

Still, they loved the stories about treasure and mysterious places in the book, so I used the same materials but filled in different lessons. This term, I attempted to cover a different reading strategy each week. I wasn't able to get through all of them, but it was an interesting experiment, and I'll probably use some element of this in subsequent terms.

Just a heads-up to anyone else who uses the program. But, hey, I'm all gung-ho about the other units.

This is a letter from one of my students. I left the mistakes in; we're still working on forming grammatically-correct sentences. But I found it really touching and inspiring:

Now, you have to understand something about L. When I met her in the fall, she was almost non-verbal. She was learning English as a second language and, although bright, had almost no working vocabulary. She was getting poor grades, because she was too shy to get help from her teachers, so she ended up in my class to try to make up some credits.

Over the past two terms, she has become one of my best students. She is extremely motivated and just soaks up information like a little sponge, and although she's still not the first one to raise her hand or offer answers, L. does amazing work.

Her letter is a little misleading. I think she gives me far too much credit for her success. Still, it's wonderful to know that the in-class activities have done what they were supposed to do. And it shows me that I'm at least doing something right.

It's funny, though. I don't know if you folks are like this, but no matter how well things are going, I always want them to be better. I'm thinking about what I can do next term to help my students learn even more. I'm thinking more real-life applications, more fluency, and more opportunity for students to get individualized attention.

I have an awful temper. My first instinct in any stressful situation is to yell and curse, especially in front of strangers or behind the wheel of my car. Can you say Road Rage?!  It's taken a long time for me to realize that that's not acceptable, and now I work hard to be patient and think before I speak.

Still, it's hard. I come from a long line of hotheads. And there are certain students that just know how to push my buttons. For instance, there's one student in my night class who never fails to shoot up his hand when I ask for questions on a topic and ask, "Can I go to the bathroom?" He does it because it makes the others laugh. Sometimes I have to physically restrain myself from smacking him upside the head. (It makes me worry that I'll be a crabby mother, like the kind that wind up on Dr. Phil.)

Today, I snapped at him and said, "You're an adult, do whatever you like." One of my other students made the universal noise for you-got-in-trouble, "Oooooooh." I imagine it was embarrassing for the offending student. I immediately regretted what I said. We smoothed it over later, but I still wish it had never happened in the first place.

What about you? Do you find yourself struggling with your temper? Or do you respond in other ways? Do you fall into despair? Or worry?

I was browsing through the new non-fiction stack at the library and came across this book, The Face Reader by Patrician McCarthy, about the ancient art of Mien Shiang and how facial features can speak volumes about someone's personality. I'm not sure if I buy all of it, but it's a fun read nonetheless. In fact, it inspired me to do a few activities with my class.

We've been learning about description, but my students have been having a hard time with it. They can't seem to get past things like "The wedding dress was nice." or "The cat was big." When I press them to tell me more about how something feels, smells, tastes...they're at a loss for words. But McCarthy points out that we have an innate ability to recognize all kinds of details about faces; babies as young as seven months can tell when someone is mad, happy, or sad. After all, it's important to our survival that we analyze faces, both to communicate and to  recognize our allies. I've discovered that when a lesson's not working in class, it helps to break it down to survival level.

So, first we looked at pictures of faces. All different kinds of faces from different races, time periods, and situations. My students guessed what the people in the pictures were feeling, and we made lists of the different words we could use to describe them. My students instantly warmed to this activity, and it led to some interesting discussions. When I showed a picture of a Saudi Arabian woman, my students said, "She's a terrorist." We got to talk about why they felt that way and what was really going on.

Later, I had them take a Five Elements Quiz that told them whether they were Earth, Fire, Wood, Metal, or Water. Then we looked at words that described each element--passionate, tempermental, perfectionist, whimsical, nurturing, etc.--and discussed whether or not these words described each student. We finished by making idea webs about ourselves, using describing words from the quiz.

What's nice about these activities is that they involve students on a personal level. They like taking quizzes to learn more about themselves, just as they enjoy showing off their analytical skills. It's especially good for teenagers, who are--let's face it--a little self-centered anyway.

I highly recommend the book for teachers, even if you don't do the lessons. I think it's made me more aware of my students' personalities.

I know we have a number of regular readers, and I'd love to know more about you. Please post a comment to introduce yourself, both to me and the other readers. Here are your prompts:

1. What do you teach?

2. How long have you been teaching?

3. What's your favorite thing about being a teacher?

4. What's your favorite thing to do when you're not being a teacher?

As for me, I've been teaching reading to adults for a year and a month. I love how things in the classroom are always changing--you're constantly kept on your toes and no two days are alike. When I'm not teaching, I like hanging out with my husband, going to the movies, eating Mexican food, and playing with makeup.

How about you?