In less than eight hours, I will embark on the ACTUAL first day, featuring kids fresh squeezed from middle school. Today I finished a book that I hope will inform what I do well this year. It's called READING DON'T FIX NO CHEVYS: LITERACY IN THE LIVES OF YOUNG MEN. Great, great, great book saying some really important things about the way young men deal with information gathering. The Big News is that what teachers of English have been doing for years has very little to do with what many young men care about.
Do we discuss cleverly subtle canonical works or have them research topics that get them genuinely excited? Do we lecture at them about how they had better appreciate Shakespeare, or have them research the points of intersection their lives and Billy's plays have in common? Or is it even mandatory that Billy be a part of a class intended to prepare students for life beyond high school?
Did I mention that one of the first things the assistant principal told me when we first met is that this high school is 90 percent boys?
Of questions there is no limit. OK, I'll check in again from the other side of today, if I still have brains left.
Ciao for now...
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