Third Week of February -- Part 3 (Isn't this week over yet?)

WEDNESDAY
The writing test rolls on. In other news, our school is doing the Oregon Battle of the Books battles this week. We have 40-some teams competing, and every teacher helps with battles. My teaching partner and I run battles in her room with our combined homeroom classes as the audience. Today one of the groups argued with us whether pancakes and waffles count as the same breakfast food. (Us = 2 different foods, them = the same food so please give us the points.) They lost.


THURSDAY
Oh, what a day I’ve had.

We’re in the midst of the writing test, and I gave my kids the state Guide to Revision again today. At the top, it lists all of the reasons why a student’s paper might not be scored. One of the reasons says, “if it is “borrowed” or plagiarized from another source...” One of my boys raised his hand and asked me who would be grading his paper. I told him it would be graded by other teachers in other parts of the state. He looked kind of worried, and he said, “So… do other teachers know the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?” With a sinking feeling in my gut, I answered, “Yes, why?” He said, “So is it bad if I used what happens in the movie in my story?” I said, “Yes, it’s very bad. Your story is supposed to be your own ideas. How much of it did you use?” He said, “Not very much. Only the part about how a kid finds a ticket in a candy bar and then gets to tour a candy factory with his grandpa and a crazy candy guy who wants to give him the factory at the end.” !!!

The worst part was that it took about 5 minutes for me to convince him that, YES, the raters really would recognize that.

In the afternoon, once my kids resumed working on their writing tests, I noticed that one of my students looked kind of out of it. He was rubbing his head and his eyes and kind of wobbling at his desk. I asked if he needed to go to the nurse, and he said yes. He didn’t want anyone to go with him, but he stumbled while walking to the door. I was scared and worried about him; I really thought he was going to pass out. He made it about halfway across the pod before running back to the sink right outside my classroom. In front of the windows into my room, he barfed into the sink for about 5 minutes straight. (He’s a small kid, too, so I don’t know where he was hiding all of that liquid.) My students had front row seats to this show of sickness, and when we finally got the poor boy to the nurse and I got back into my class, they’d pretty much forgotten they were taking a test. Great… there go our scores.


FRIDAY
I was loathe to continue with the writing test, especially after yesterday’s debacle in 6th period. But we soldier manfully on, and several of my kids are finished now. I have an assignment due tonight for my graduate school class (the final assignment, actually), and another teacher came in to spend over an hour talking with me after school today. It was a fun conversation, but I also have a lot of work to do! I’m supposed to be at home tonight with my dogs while Mr. Chandler plays in a staff-vs.-student basketball game at his school. I’m really looking forward to this weekend – no graduate school homework, no middle school homework or prep, no reason to clean (so no cleaning), and lots of sunshine. I’m definitely feeling the effects of spring fever at this point. How long until spring break?