Falling Flat

I thought I'd try something new today with the 9th graders. I had them read the poem "My Father is a Simple Man," by Luis Salas. Students took turns reading it aloud and then I read and asked questions on certain aspects of the poem, such as tone, mood, metaphor, and meaning. I then showed them a portrait, "Campesino con Sombrero," by Diego Rivera. I read background information on Rivera and the portrait. I wanted to try to show how these two creative individuals honored their subjects in relation to Capote's A Christmas Memory. I thought that perhaps the students would be able to relate to works done by other Hispanics. Was I wrong! This exercise was taken from the Holt literature supplemental reading textbook. There were four questions, and I read and explained each one. However, further explanation was needed because many did not understand what the question was asking. On the plus side, they did respond favorably to both the poem and portrait. There were several students who came up with some very interesting answers, which showed strong critical thought and analysis. We went over verbs today, and much to my dismay, many of them find verbs hard to identify.

I went over sentence structures with the 8th graders. The difficult part was the subject and predicate identifications. I was even getting confused which meant I was thinking way too hard on the subject. Sometimes I forget and think that students would know and understand what I was talking about. They were able to identify main subjects, objects, and verbs. We started reading Flowers for Algernon. I thought it was amusing when they found it hard to read some of the mispelled words in the first entries of Charlie's journal. I express that I sometimes find it hard to read some of the other student's handwriting and spelling (hint hint).