mrrrrghhh
Sorry it's been a while...
So I've had the same class of sixth graders since last Friday. Three language arts classes, two geography classes, some of the kids I see twice in one day because they take both from the same teacher.
There are quite a few kids who are........................................................................................................difficult. My last class of the day only has ten kids in it but all but one of them is a special snowflake angel baby and it's a pretty big challenge to keep them engaged and working.
Last Thursday was pretty fucking bad. It was the last day before a three-day weekend, their teacher should have been back two days ago but he was still recovering from surgery, and their minds are already on summer vacation time. It was just. Not great.
So I thought up a plan! What if they watched a movie for this week, and did journal entries from the point of view of a different character each day, focusing on the choices the character makes and why s/he makes them--they'd still be thinking critically and writing! And the teacher liked it! Went for it! Said he might steal the idea from me!
And I chose Emperor's New Groove, because it's the same level of sarcasm and sass that the kids are at, and I didn't realize until last night that the running time on Emperor's New Groove is...77min. 70 without credits. That's 17.5 minutes a day, if we watch all four days that the teacher has me booked. 17.5 minutes of an hour-long class. There's only so much time the kids are willing to write/talk about their journals. Fuck.
But it was working, the first few classes did okay and then...last class of the day....
I just. I don't understand. What more I can do for these kids.
The good news is that the secretary told me that if kids get sent to the office they're gone for the rest of the school year (less than two weeks but all next week is games and fun apparently). So I can ~remind~ the special snowflake angel babies of that as an incentive to work. ("WORK" all you have to do is watch the fucking movie and write a diary it's not difficult.)
But yeah. Any ideas of how to turn 70 minutes into 4 hours would be greatly appreciated.
Is it Star Trek yet?
So I've had the same class of sixth graders since last Friday. Three language arts classes, two geography classes, some of the kids I see twice in one day because they take both from the same teacher.
There are quite a few kids who are........................................................................................................difficult. My last class of the day only has ten kids in it but all but one of them is a special snowflake angel baby and it's a pretty big challenge to keep them engaged and working.
Last Thursday was pretty fucking bad. It was the last day before a three-day weekend, their teacher should have been back two days ago but he was still recovering from surgery, and their minds are already on summer vacation time. It was just. Not great.
So I thought up a plan! What if they watched a movie for this week, and did journal entries from the point of view of a different character each day, focusing on the choices the character makes and why s/he makes them--they'd still be thinking critically and writing! And the teacher liked it! Went for it! Said he might steal the idea from me!
And I chose Emperor's New Groove, because it's the same level of sarcasm and sass that the kids are at, and I didn't realize until last night that the running time on Emperor's New Groove is...77min. 70 without credits. That's 17.5 minutes a day, if we watch all four days that the teacher has me booked. 17.5 minutes of an hour-long class. There's only so much time the kids are willing to write/talk about their journals. Fuck.
But it was working, the first few classes did okay and then...last class of the day....
I just. I don't understand. What more I can do for these kids.
The good news is that the secretary told me that if kids get sent to the office they're gone for the rest of the school year (less than two weeks but all next week is games and fun apparently). So I can ~remind~ the special snowflake angel babies of that as an incentive to work. ("WORK" all you have to do is watch the fucking movie and write a diary it's not difficult.)
But yeah. Any ideas of how to turn 70 minutes into 4 hours would be greatly appreciated.
Is it Star Trek yet?