Kay McSpadden's Blog - Posts Tagged "scarlet"
Teaching Crazy Kids
All kids are crazy the week before school gets out for Christmas holidays--and so are all teachers! I don't really mind....after all, I teach high school kids, and as crazy as they can be, I imagine that my friends who teach elementary school are dealing with much more noise, wiggling, and giggling than I am!
Still, sometimes I wish my 16 year-olds were a bit noisier and wigglier--when we begin a difficult novel such as The Scarlet Letter, for instance, and they stare at me like deer in the headlights, or worse, like wounded possums lying on the center lane, gasping their last.
This semester was no different. I had to work mighty hard to make Hester Prynne and the Puritans come alive for the iPod generation. In the end, my reading aloud, spirited discussions, begging and pleading, numerous essay assignments, and hand-stands on my desk worked (okay, I made that last one up) and the students "got into" the tragedy of Hester/Roger/Arthur and secret sin.
Still, sometimes I wish my 16 year-olds were a bit noisier and wigglier--when we begin a difficult novel such as The Scarlet Letter, for instance, and they stare at me like deer in the headlights, or worse, like wounded possums lying on the center lane, gasping their last.
This semester was no different. I had to work mighty hard to make Hester Prynne and the Puritans come alive for the iPod generation. In the end, my reading aloud, spirited discussions, begging and pleading, numerous essay assignments, and hand-stands on my desk worked (okay, I made that last one up) and the students "got into" the tragedy of Hester/Roger/Arthur and secret sin.
