The Funnest English Class Ever

Yesterday was the last day of school before Spring Break.

In my Junior English class my students worked on (aka thought about working on) their group projects on The Great Gatsby.

My most, let's say, energetic Junior brought in a mini basketball hoop with a nerf ball and proceeded to put it up on the small window beside the door. He and other students took turns shooting around until one boy brilliantly suggested that we play Knockout. Imagine 10 of the 25 students in this class lined up across the room earnestly throwing and retrieving taped balls of paper (because we needed two balls). And my nicest student and most volatile student (the "energetic" one) --the two who NEVER interact with each other--were locked in a struggle for first place for at least 5 minutes.

It was the most fun English class EVER for most of them, I'm sure.

I ran into some of my sophomores in the hallway. "Can we play basketball in class, too?" they asked. "No," I said. "You're watching movie clips about poetry and taking notes as a quiz grade." "What? We have to take a quiz?!!"

We watched the movie In Her Shoes, which I unabashedly love. Cameron Diaz actually reads "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop
and an e.e. cummings poems (we studied the Bishop poem this quarter, and read some cummings poetry as well). There was a hush over the classroom as we watched Diaz' character find meaning in poetry, as she read to an elderly retired English professor. And they wrote furiously to receive their test grade.

When the movie clips were over, one of my students broke out a copy Where the Wild Things Are. Michael and Aimee did a Wild Things impromptu dance. "Good-bye, my wild things," I told them as the bell rang.

The freshmen read over characters in Romeo and Juliet (which we will read after Spring Break). "I'll be anyone but Romeo," Michael said. "I'll be any girl part," said Kaeleigh. "Can a girl play a boy part?" asked Isabel. "Go for it," I said.

It really was a lovely day.

Then I went home to take 2 hour nap, since I spent nearly all of Thursday night grading projects. After the nap, Daniel and Alice took Evan and me out to an Indian restaurant.

So good....

We watched Walk the Line and petted Smoky, the bulldog.

Annie has just gone belly-up as I write this. Everyone should own a dog. This morning when I was walking her, we saw the little one-year-old who adores Annie. "Bobo," he shrieked as she raised her head in the air to lick his delighted feet.

I don't know what language he calls her in. But she understands perfectly.