Thursday, June 22, 2006

I'm back to normal

Somewhat, anyway.

Last day with kids was Friday the 16th, and it was a scorcher. Sitting outside on hard plastic chairs in the direct sun with 500 eighth graders, Monday, working in the classroom, finishing up grades, and yesterday, Wednesday, I flew to Denver, where I am right now. Geek that I am, I'm at the National Scoring Convention for the National Writing Project. It's a lot of sitting on chairs and being inside all day, but it's a great way to see how others score papers. There's a rubric that's different from the one I use in California, and it's interesting to see where my, and other teachers' biases show up when we grade.

One of mine is the essay that starts with, "Have you ever...?" Someone, somewhere, taught them that one of the ways to "hook" readers was to open with a question. I ended up telling my students this past year to never start another essay in my class with those three words, because they've become such a junior high school essay cliche.

I have to get over that here.

However, we are done for the day, downtown is calling, and there's a quiz night some of us are going to at an Irish pub in the LoDo (lower downtown, don't I sound in the know?) area.

Geek, geek, geek. I know.

But a happy one.

1 comment:

r said...

Oh dear...

That doesn't ring a bell to me at all. When were you in junior high school? It might help you narrow down your search (It had to have been published by that date...)

Good luck!