7:15 AM
I walk into the classroom. Chairs are on desks; the cleaning lady has been through, and the room is ready. She has faith that what we do in here is important, and she works to make our space worth learning in every day.
I know we have to learn something today, but we need to start a new unit. What was our last unit about? Short stories. The test was yesterday. I stayed up late grading them, and I went to bed telling myself I would figure something out in the morning. Here I am. It is morning. What do I teach?
I go to the curriculum map. I'm not ready for any of these units. Okay, I'm good at teaching writing: I'll teach a paper. Whooaaaaa... Am I ready to grade 53 seventh-grade papers when it's so close to the end of the quarter? When is it ever convenient to teach writing?
I open up a book by one of my favorite (one of my only) writing pedagogy authors. I look at where he begins, and how much work he pours into every paper, every lesson. What? Every time he teaches Polonius' speech in Hamlet, he does this incredible amount of studying. At night. After he's left school, he reads the act again, reads his research again, listens to the play on his way to work. I want to kill him. I will never be able to do that. I can't do this.
7:40 AM.
What am I going to teach today?
7:45 AM.
Hall duty. Good thing I have first period planning to think through this.
8:05 AM.
What am I going to teach today? It's a really good thing I haven't been called to cover anyone's class.
8:10 AM.
Forget teaching writing today. Take that book home and read it, and do it all perfectly the first time; but the first time won't be today. Actually, no, just throw that book into one of these drawers with other people's perfect ideas.
8:20 AM.
Open the textbook and figure out what is next. Poetry. Oh my gosh. I love poetry.
8:30 AM.
We can't just read poems on day one! How are we going to read them!? What will this unit even be about?
8:40 AM.
The students come in ten minutes! FIGURE THIS OUT RIGHT NOW.
8:45 AM.
Okay. I'm going to make a decision. Decision made. We'll make a chart on the board of different kinds of art. And then we'll choose one kind of art, and talk about what the different tools are that that artist uses. I'm only barely qualified to talk about the art of painting... good enough: we'll talk about the tools a painter uses. Then we'll talk about how a poet is an artist, and list off the tools a poet can use. We'll create a vocabulary list that way, and we'll be sure to include rhythm, rhyme, allusion, form, stanza, assonance, alliteration...
8:50 AM. [Bell]
Guess that'll work. [Open the door. Kids come in.]
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