Being a high school English teacher grading a New York State Regents Exam takes dedication, diligence and time.  I must admit that our department is able to let lose after hours of intense grading and we giggle and have a few laughs and then it is back to the grind.  It’s not only the Regents Exam, it is plugging in the grade, putting in my own English grades and figuring out a grade distribution form and making copies for guidance and the principal and the department head.  I can’t help but feel envious of teachers who teach something other than English.  These exams require multiple readers and students are responding to multiple tasks all within one essay.  We like to think and hope that we have prepared them for these essays during the year.  We enjoy each victory and literally cheer for each one, big or small.  It is a demanding exam and I congratulate all of my students who took it two times in order to really show their writing abilities by creating a chart before writing, being an active reader and mostly, going back and looking for the multiple choice questions; because they ARE in there!  Each year I teach my students a little ELA song to the tune of “Row, Row, Row your boat”.  It goes like this:

Write, Write, Write we will

For the ELA

Active reader, organizer,

Then the essay!

We have fun singing it when we are practicing in class and especially right before the exam.  My honors class likes to do it in a round!  The last few days I gave extra credit to any student who stood in front of the class and sang alone the ELA song.  Now, that was fun!  I am hoping to have that song stick in their minds when they go off to college or even off to English in their senior year.  Everyone likes music right?

As mentioned earlier, another teacher and I are the advisors for the yearbook next year.  We have already started talking about our superhero theme and have students excited about it and cover designs are in the process!  The last meeting was encouraging.  We had a great turn out and students seemed really excited about this idea.  Now, we have received a letter from DC Comics telling us all the details about actually using the images of super heroes like batman and hulk and superman.  I realized we would need to  give them credit but didn’t realize there would be a price.  If we do use these images, it would need to be approved by DC Comics.  With yearbook dead lines, I am not sure this can be done.  I feel like we have gone so far with this idea and  now we are back at the drawing board for ideas.  Here I thought we were so far ahead and in reality we have now taken a huge step back.  Ugh!  Any good theme ideas out there?

I honestly do not think that because it is June and crazy and overwhelming and hot that this idea is bothering me.  It happens all year, it just seems more annoying at this time of year.  I have a handful of students who I have given a grace period on an assignment that was due April 3rd.  We are now past June 3rd.  That is two months people!  Never did I give the grace period for this long, it has just turned out this way! How long should I wait and wait and wait?!  Each day these students will tell me the assignment is still not completed.  However, they will report to work on time after school and will have their cell phone attached to their hip and will listen to their I-pod when ever they get the chance, but school work is just placed on the back burner?!  I guess it has to do with graduation.   Some of these students happen to be seniors.  Is it better to  hold a student back for one class?  But the other part of me is asking, what exactly are we teaching these students??  We are supposed to be preparing these young adults for the real world right?  In these instances, we are not doing that!  Administrators want higher standards and high expectations and honors classes, yet due dates aren’t kept, policies and procedures are not followed.  So, why do we have such things if in the long run, they aren’t followed?!  One student who had until today at 2:00 to turn in this two month old assignment had staff members typing it for him????????  Outrageous! I have continually wrestled with this idea all year.  In the classes where I have implemented a no late policy, students say they really like it and work does get turned in.  My seniors in my college credit class wish all classes would do this and that it should be for all of high school.  I  can certainly sympathize with a student in an extreme case.  But, define extreme case?  Here we go again!