Hedgetoad Teaching

I started reading Counting Coup during my reading class – good example and all that good stuff. It was one of the books suggested during my college days to help give us a multi-cultural background. While I’m wasn’t so sure about the assignment (in fact, I believe it was changed after I graduated), the book always lingered in the back of my mind. This summer the title resurfaced in a discussion about Native American texts. While I’m not sure I would characterize the book as a “Native American text”, it was a pretty good read. Basically, the story follows a high school basketball team in a small town in Montana. Although the high school is not on a Reservation, it is located near enough that nearly half of the population is Native American.  Initially, the narrator came to the town to follow a boys basketball team and discover why almost no Native Americans end up playing after their high school career has ended. After his first trip to the nearby reservations, however, he discov...

Our library has been hosting a book fair this week. During my prep period, I went down to check out the books... see if anything jumped out at me. I'm going to buy books anyways, why not support our school library. I found a book I'd read this summer - Life As We Knew It . I almost didn't recognize it. The publishers changed the cover for some reason and made it seem like one those teen chick lit books. No longer a large moon photo; instead the cover is dominated by a cartoon drawing of a pink dresser covered with various girly accessories. Above the dresser is a small window with a moon photo dominating. It's barely noticeable. A quick check with several students, not one was even close to the supposed content of the book. I think that any student picking up the book would be greatly disappointed. The story is about the end of the world for cripes sake! There is a significant portion of the story devoted to food - not good vs. bad food, but rather, "do we have en...

Continuing with the end of the world theme in young adult fiction, I read Life As We Knew It by Susan Pfeffer. It's actually pretty similar to One Second After , a book I read earlier this year, but without the horrific death scenes or the belief that when something bad happens almost everyone is going become little more than savages out to murder everyone else in the most horrific way possible. It's your basic something bad happened and all the eletricity, fuel, food and water sources are limited or gone type of story. The main character is junior in high school when a natural disaster strikes. The book is basically her diary of the events - she goes from being jealous that her best friend has a date for the Prom to wondering if she'll ever see 17. At first people are bit worried, but still believing that things can soon return to normal. Luckily for the main character, her mother sees bad things coming. The description of the scuttle for supplies is almost funny. Things...

A couple of weeks ago, I finished reading Readicide by Kelly Gallagher. There is a huge discussion about the book on the English Companion Ning - I highly recommend reading through it. There are so many great idea and points to ponder throughout. At the end of the book is a huge list of books that are of high interest to students who aren't that motivated to read. As mentioned last week, I hit the used bookstore to find as many as I could for the upcoming year. I now has enough books to last me for the rest of the summer if I don't finish painting the living room. Or anything else. On the other hand, they are pretty easy to get into, which is the point, I suppose. The first one I dove into was How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff . The description promised an end of the world theme (which is my favorite), and given our days of sunshine lately I thought it a good start. There's nothing worse that reading a depressing book while it's raining and let's face it, teens do se...

Several of my students are reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I have to admit that it was a hard book for me to read. The plot centers around a journey after some sort of apocalypse. What happened in never really fully explained - the relationship between the father and son on the journey is more important... or is it the lack of relationships amongst the other people also on the trail? What would people do if there was a complete break down in our society? No law, no infrastructure, nothing. Just you and yours, trying to survive after living in a society where everything comes in trucks to the store. When the trucks don't come, what do you buy? What do you eat? How to heat your home? And while you're trying to gather these things, who do you share with? Or do you? Who can you trust? All interesting questions for a society. FWIW - Do not read if you have a weak stomach. Do not recommend to those with parents who are squeamish. I'm impressed that students are reading it. ...

As I mentioned previously, I'm always on the look out for new books my students will be interested in reading for themselves. Reading "choice" books are part of their grade throughout the district, but we always have many students that just don't do it. Over the years, I've become pretty flexible on what constitutes a "choice" book, rather than using the list provided by the school library. For example, I had a student who read a book about guns - the history of guns, their invention, how the early versions worked, etc. There were a lot of pictures, but most of the language was technical and definitely more complicated that some books I've seen on the library's list. Plus the kid's hobbie was building guns, so he was very interested. (yes, in rural schools guns occupy an interesting ethical arena... if a kid forgets the hunting rifle in his gun in the truck, does he really HAVE to be tossed out of the school forever?) Every year we have books...

ok, readers and lurkers... (if there are any) most of my students are near completing the The Twilight Saga and have worked their way through Sherman Alexie . Last year they all read the Uglies Set: Uglies, Pretties, Specials . They read A Child Called It in middle school... I'm running out of ideas and to be honest, I don't have time to read a bunch of books in hopes of finding something of interest. There are just too many books out there! I need some new high interest recommendations for my students. The books has to start off with a bang and I need ones that interest boys and girls. What is everyone at your school reading?

One of things I'm always on the look out for is a somewhat short, attention grabbing book for the "non reading boys" in my classes. They hate everything. They know they have to read, but if given any choice on books will attempt to choose something from Dr. Seuss. You know these boys. And, if you're like me, you are always looking for the holy grail of reading - the book they will LOVE to read. Like the true holy grail, no one knows if it actually exists or what form it really is. It might be a graphic novel or a website that releases a story in serial form. But the quest continues. I believe it was the May issue of some teen Weekly Reader. Someone mailed me a sample copy, but I didn't really pay attention to it. I did skim it. Inside was an excerpt from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian . I had read the book over winter break and thought it was good, but reading the excerpt, I realized that this was my shot to get the students interested. I read it ...

At the beginning of the last school year, my students started telling me about this book they were reading. More than a couple of students. It was a great book they claimed and best of all... it featured good ol' Washington. Forks, WA to be exact - which is just about 20 miles east of the end of the earth. Seriously. My great uncle and aunt lived there for many years. There is nothing out there. Of course, this makes it the perfect setting for the book. Remote and rainy. The book was, of course, Twilight. Another two books soon followed. The poor librarian had to hide a copy so I could read it. I try to read all the books that several students are raving about. Even kids who don't like to talk about reading, LOVE to talk about books they think are fantastic. And the series is good. There's undying love (which every teenager believes they are either in or have been thwarted at). There's fighting, death and gore. And it rains all the time. I think this fact makes it much...

I've got my Teacher's Daybook . It's just as fabulous as I remember. Well, the reflection, tips and ideas are just as great as I remember. The amount of space for writing your daily lesson plan has shrunk. Basically, it's because that space has now become a simple "you are here" space and the actual lesson plan is written on an additional page. I'm not so sure about it, but the planning checklists, reflective actions and personal vs. professional planning areas are still great. I also like that there is a year at a glance page, as well as monthly planning. This is in addition to the daily calendar. This year, our department is doing a yearly plan of novels. I know this is the antithesis of our departments "fly and be free" environment, but a couple of things happened last year to make it possible. First, one teacher used a book that is for a specific grade level in a class with multiple grade levels. Thus, I couldn't teach it at all and a cou...