Mrs. Ram's Jams

Category: teaching

• A Teacher Tale: Questions About the 2020-2021 School Year

  Posted at 1:54 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on April 24, 2020

  
  

  Photo by Gustavo Fring on Pexels.com

  Am I going to have to wear a mask to teach?

  If I do have to wear a mask . . .

  How are the kids going to see my facial expressions? That’s like, the best part of me as a teacher!

  Does this mean I have to up my eyeshadow game and learn how to properly apply winged eyeliner for once and for all to make up for the lack of, you know, a mouth? I’ve got to give the kids something interesting to look at. Looks like I’ll be watching a million Jaclyn Hill YouTube tutorials before August.

  Can I stop wearing lipstick to work? Who am I kidding. I rarely wore lipstick at work anyway . . .

  What happens when I sneeze? I’m obviously going to have to take off my mask to blow my nose and that’s going to break the law . . . Do I just count that mask as my Kleenex and whip it off and don a fresh one?

  Do I have to match my mask to my outfit? Or can you get away with clashing? Like is it crime against fashion to wear my orange and blue school polo shirt with a pink-ribbon-breast-cancer-awareness-patterned-ten -year-old-piece-of -scrap-fabric-diy mask that my MIL sewed for me? Maybe I need to find a subreddit about the art of mixing prints?

  Am I going to have to stand six feet apart from everybody at all times at school?

  How am I going to stand in the hallway in the mornings and stand six feet apart from the teacher in the class next to me and keep an eye on the kids inside my classroom?

  Is my temperature going to be checked daily before being allowed to enter the building?

  Are the kids going to have to wear masks?

  Is the school board going to have to change the dress code to allow for masks?

  Are the kids going to have to have dress-coded masks? 

  Are the kids going to have to do temperature checks?

  How are the kids going to socially distance while riding the bus?

  How are the kids going to socially distance while in the hallway?

  How are the kids going to socially distance in the classroom?

  Is outside school going to become a thing?

  How am I going to handle outside school? 

  Am I going to have to write kids up if they refuse to wear masks? BECAUSE YOU KNOW IT WILL HAPPEN. 

  Am I going to have to write kids up for touching each other?

  Am I going to have to write kids up for sharing food?

  How’s the cafeteria and lunch going to work? If they have to eat lunch in classrooms with their teachers, I might lose my mind. Or get the teacher’s union involved. 

  Am I going to have to wipe down desks and chairs in between classes?

  If I have to do that, who is watching kids in the hallway?

  Is the school day going to have to be longer to accomodate for lost instructional minutes because of after each class cleanings?

  Oh god, trying to crowd control 200 8th graders in the hallway. 

  Who’s going to pay for all the Clorox wipes and Lysol used at school? 

  Are kids going to try to steal toilet paper?

  Am I going to have to write kids up for not washing their hands in the cafeteria before they eat?

  Do I need to be prepared to teach from home again? I succccckkkkkkk at making videos and hate being on a screen. I’m the WORST at it and have never liked being video recorded. 

  How are they going to disinfect the library books?

  Is passing out paper documents to students going to be illegal?

  If I have to go to a paperless classrooom, how am I going to keep track of everything? My Google Drive is as disorganzied as a middle school boy who treats his backpack as a garbage can. I’m of the staunch opinion that digital files don’t really exist because they’re intangible. (Not really, but you know what I mean, right?) 

  How do I rearrange my Google Classroom so it’s easier for students to locate assignments because I might not be with students all of the time? 

  Can I convince the other teachers on my team to all organize their Google Classrooms the same way so kids don’t have to figure out 6 different organizational methods?

  If we have to switch in and out of distance learning and face to face learning, am I finally going to have to break down and use Remind? All of my assignments and due dates are posted on Google Classroom–in one place. Why do I have to do more work and post the same shit through another format? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. 

  Will I be allowed to write kids up for being asshats during a Zoom?

  How does virtual detention work? 

  Can I be in charge of designing and implementing virtual detention? That sounds cool as shit. GIVE ME THE REINS. I WANT TO INNOVATE DAMMIT! How can I make it as much like The Breakfast Club as possible but rated G? Step one, befriend someone who works for Zoom and convince them to make a The Breakfast Club background . . . 

  Is school just going to be completely different forever?

   
  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged 2020-2021 school year, distance learning, education, english teacher, middle school teacher

• A Reflection on Distance Learning: How I Jinxed the 2019-2020 School Year

  Posted at 10:49 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on April 18, 2020

  

   

  I jinxed the 2019-2020 school year. For myself. For my students. For you. For your students. For everyone.

  Just kidding. While it’s intoxicating to believe I possess such powers, I know it’s due to the upending coronavirus pandemic. 

  But why make this claim? To build an argument against myself, I’ll examine my posts since the end of last school year (although not in chronological order). 

  1. Last month I wrote about the importance of student attendance, how students need to be physically present at school and miss no more than 10 days a year. Now, just a few weeks later, nobody has to physically attend school. Even though students are distance learning, it’s not the same as walking into a tangible building bustling with students, teachers, routine, and structure. My heart breaks because I miss seeing students’ faces every day and helping them grow, but it also breaks my heart because they miss going to school too. 
  2. At the end of last school year, I penned a post discussing how my classroom was ditching technology and picking up paper and pen instead, helping with retention and engagement and reducing digital distractions. Oh, how the copy machine and I reacquainted ourselves for three grading periods! Now, because of distance learning, everything is digital. EVERYTHING. Ugh. (I even miss the cantankerous copy machine in the teacher’s lounge. I bet she’s lonely.) Can you imagine being a teenager, having your entire school year reduced to a screen, and completing work daily on a device that screams at you to play games or watch Kylie Jenner makeup tutorials on Youtube instead of completing assignments? It’s a wonder students get anything done. Let’s not forget they’ve got their phone beside them, and they’re getting distracted by SnapChats, TikToks, and text messages that wouldn’t even be a distraction if they were sitting in a classroom. I could have my students read a novel for the rest of the year, but I don’t want to have them read a 330-page book on a screen. I actually had a student tell me that they missed doing work and reading things on paper. Insert crying face emoji here. And the sad thing is, I don’t know if I’ll have the guts to go back to paper once all of this, gestures vaguely with her hands, is over. The thought of physically collecting paper from 95 different kids and handling it without touching my face while grading scares the shit out of me. Middle schoolers suck at washing their hands and aren’t well known for fantastic hygiene practices in general. (I love them despite their sketchy hygiene.)  
  3. I also wrote a post about late work policies and changed mine considerably. I went from accepting late test grade assignments at a 10 point deduction and late participation work at half credit to handing out one late pass for test grade assignments for full credit and two late homework passes for full credit. Once those passes were used, grades went in as zeros unless students were in danger of failing. Now with distance learning, I’ve got to accept all late work for full credit, and while I understand this policy’s leniency and necessity, it nevertheless irks me. I’m also expected to post answers to assignments, so I’ve got kids who wait until after the answers are posted to complete the assignments. Do they really deserve full credit? Particularly if it’s just a participation grade? Furthermore, the rigor and frequency of my assignments have decreased because we were told to give students about a third of what we would normally teach and not make them too hard otherwise students wouldn’t complete assignments. Lots of the grades I’m giving, even for test grade assignments, are hey-do-this-work-and-follow-the-directions assessments. I have a hard time giving students full credit on glorified completion grades that they’ve turned in late. Now don’t get me wrong, I know some students are watching their siblings, might not be living at home, have a parent who is sick, etc., and I am completely sympathetic to those students, but there are some who are abusing the system. I caught a lot of pushback from parents for giving a participation grade for just checking into Google Classroom daily (could there be an easier assignment to get credit for????)  and ended up deleting it because dealing with the fallout for two days left me sleepless and a tad indignant. Does everyone deserve an A in an honors class because of this crappy situation? The grades don’t even count this last quarter. Ugh. So why do I even care so much? Also, don’t even get me started on the obvious cheating on true tests taken at home. 
  4. I also wrote a post about my love/hate relationship with Romeo and Juliet, and I was still in the middle of teaching it when school was suddenly shuttered. The kids finished reading it on their own because I couldn’t have them NOT finish reading it. They didn’t get to choose and scene and act it out, which is one of my favorite activities of the year. I wanted to have them perform outside this year because Shakespeare’s plays were performed outside too. 
  5. And last, but not least, I wrote something about how grading at home never works, and now it’s the ONLY option. Ack. 

  So see, my words have come back and bitten me in the booty!

  Distance learning has been an adjustment and has humbled me. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a perfect teacher. I am a reflective practitioner, and this situation has turned my entire profession on its head. Maybe I needed to be knocked back a few notches because I’d forgotten, albeit momentarily, that teaching is NEVER predictable, but this predicament is unprecedented. We all need to cut ourselves some slack.

  Thanks for letting me vent my uglies. I cannot wait to walk back into my classroom in August. 

  (Gosh, I hope that doesn’t come back and bite me in the booty too. Let’s think happy thoughts that schools will be open in August.)

  

  Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized | 2 Comments | Tagged distance learning, english teacher, school, students, teaching

• PSA About Student Attendance

  Posted at 9:54 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on March 7, 2020

  

  Friendly (Albeit Possibly Unpopular Opinion) Parent Reminder PSA from Mrs. Ram Jam:

  Please send your kids to school. 

  Your kids have one job–it’s called school. Please send them to school. Unless they’re sick, there’s a death in the family, they’ve recently broken a bone, or they have lice.

  For the most part, your kids are not professional athletes, actors, reality stars, or gamers. They should not miss multiple days a school year for travel soccer, baseball, cheer, badminton, Fortnite competitions, Scrabble tournaments, or auditions. 

  Please send your kids to school. Unless they’re sick, there’s a death in the family, they’ve recently broken a bone, or they have lice.

  There are multiple opportunities for extended holidays throughout the year–like summer vacation, Christmas vacation, Thanksgiving vacation, spring break, fall break, and various three day weekends. Check the school’s calendar before you schedule a vacation during the school year. A two-week European tour, ten-day Walt Disney World excursion, or seven-day Caribbean cruise while school is in session is detrimental to your child’s academic well-being. 

  Please send your kids to school. Unless they’re sick, there’s a death in the family, they’ve recently broken a bone, or they have lice.

  Furthermore, it’s unethical to get doctor’s excuses for athletic competitions, auditions, and vacations. Your children tell us where they were or their classmates do. Your Instagram story even tells us where they’ve been. Also your actions, if you’ve partaken in these instances and even gotten a doctor to write you excuses for them, scream privilege.

  Please send your kids to school. Unless they’re sick, there’s a death in the family, they’ve recently broken a bone, or they have lice.

  Also, try to schedule doctor, dental, orthodontal, and therapy appointments for after the school day or during elective classes. When you schedule a biweekly appointment to get your child’s braces adjusted on Mondays at 8:00 A.M., your child is missing the same class or classes each time, which is detrimental to your child’s academic well-being. 

  Please send your kids to school. Unless they’re sick, there’s a death in the family, they’ve recently broken a bone, or they have lice.

  Please send your kids to school on time. If your child checks in late two or three days a week, they are missing the same class each time, which is detrimental to your child’s academic well-being.

  Please send your kids to school. Unless they’re sick, there’s a death in the family, they’ve recently broken a bone, or they have lice.

  Why do I care so much?

  1. Absences add up. Kids get sick. Family members pass away. Kids break bones. Kids get lice. Say your kid gets the flu and misses five days of school, but then you turn around and take them to Disney two weeks later for four days during the school week. Then your kid misses five more days because of travel soccer. Then your kid gets food poisoning in March and misses three days. That’s 17 absences for the school year. 17. 17. 17. That’s more than three weeks of school.
  2. An excused absence is still an absence. 
  3. It sends the wrong message to your kid and their classmates. Is your child more important than the other students? Why does your kid get to miss so much when the other students don’t? The students notice, and they talk about it. 
  4. It hurts your child academically. They have a ton of work to make up, and they miss the benefit of actually being taught the material and classroom discussions. According to attendanceworks.org, “research shows that missing 10 percent of the school, or about 18 days in most school districts, negatively affects a student’s academic performance. That’s just two days a month.”
  5. It hurts their teachers and their schools. There. I said it. I’m being selfish. For once. If you don’t send your kid to school, and your kid doesn’t grow the way the state expects him/her to grow by the end of the year, it affects my scores, my evaluation, and my paycheck. It affects the school’s scores and bottom line too. Your actions affect the community at large. 

  I’m not trying to be all sanctimonious here. Have I pulled Little Thing out of school to go on vacation before? Yes. For one day. One day. Not five in a row. Are two days acceptable? Sure! Let your kids play travel ball and go on auditions and miss a Friday or two during deer season. But more than two days? Multiple times a year? That’s sketchy. 

  Strive for no more than ten absences. The fewer the absences the better. 

  Please send your kids to school. Unless they’re sick, there’s a death in the family, they’ve recently broken a bone, or they have lice. 

   

  Posted in kids, teaching, Uncategorized | 9 Comments | Tagged blogs, school, schools, student attendance, students, teaching

• Why I Love and Hate Teaching Romeo and Juliet

  Posted at 3:34 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on February 22, 2020

  

  Psssttt. Here’s a secret. This English teacher hates Romeo and Juliet more than the Montagues and Capulets loathe each other. (I know. Gasp. Shocked emoji face. Call Karen in HR and fire me right now.) And because it’s entrenched in the freshman canon, I will never escape its overtly romantical clutches as long as I am teaching English I. 

  Why do I hate Romeo and Juliet and teaching it?

  1. Romeo, a whiny lover boy ruled by his teenage emotions, is my least favorite Shakespeare character. I spend the entire time wanting to smack him and talk some logic into him. 
  2. Benvolio sucks too. Whenever something big happens on stage, Benvolio summarizes the just-happened events for new-to-the-scene characters. 
  3. The way Romeo and Juliet talk to one another makes me gag. Love stories aren’t my Ram Jam. 
  4. The students harp on the fact that Juliet is 13 and never recover from it. They also debate Romeo’s age endlessly (The text never gives it.). They talk about this the ENTIRE time we’re reading. 
  5. It’s full of sexual innuendo, and I teach middle school. Need I say more? 
  6. I’d much rather tackle The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Othello, or Macbeth. 

  And while I do lather on the Romeo and Juliet hate thick, I love teaching it for almost the same reasons I despise teaching it.

  1. I take my hate and shout it from the desktops from the beginning. It’s simple really. I let the kids know I hate Romeo and Benvolio. I don’t tell the students why. I string them along and build interest to hook them, revealing tidbits here and there why I hate Romeo and Benvolio as the acts unfold. I use my Romeo hate to teach characterization. I use my Benvolio hate to teach summarizing. I make my hate passionate, fun, and refreshing instead of letting it bring my lessons down. Frequently, the kids hate Romeo too, and we bond through our mutual dislike. 
  2. Even though it’s a love story and the ooey-gooey language makes me cringe, I appreciate the poetry. We analyze the heck out of the figurative language and poetic structure of Romeo and Juliet’s dialogue. For example, when Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time, they actually start rhyming together in their religious imagery-filled banter and wind up creating a shared mini sonnet, which is pretty freaking cool from a structural standpoint. 
  3. The kids relate to the teenage emotions running rampant throughout the text even though they pretend that all of the kissing mortifies them. We discuss why it’s important to not be ruled by emotions and how to consider situations logically. 
  4. The kids have zero knowledge of Elizabethan theater and England before they start reading and are fascinated by what they learn. The fact that it was illegal for women to act so men played all the parts blows their minds. They’re horrified and enthralled when they discover women could get married at twelve years old and were sometimes married to much older men. They have no concept that modern medicine did not apply back then, women often died in childbirth, and child death rates were high. They’re floored when they realize Nurse was Juliet’s wet nurse and that the word nurse etymologically stems from a Latin word meaning “to nourish.” 
  5. On the day we start Act I Scene 1, I tell them Shakespeare is a dirty old white guy to prepare them for the puns and hook them into the play. You might find this method a little shocking, but have you read this play? It’s full of inappropriate jokes, and while it might have gone over your head when you were in high school, my kids understand what they’re reading. If I didn’t prepare them for the dirty jokes, my lesson could crash and burn in a million different ways. They appreciate being treated like adults. When I handle it this way, it minimizes the puns, and we’re able to focus on the storyline and the structure. 
  6. Even though Romeo and Juliet isn’t my favorite play, I love Shakespeare and theater. I’m able to channel that love into a play I hate (My only love sprung from my only hate! Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.). I’m in my element when I’ve got the bard and a script in front of me, and the students see the best me when this unit rolls around each year. 

  

  What are some texts you hate but you have to teach? I’d love to hear! I’d also love to know why and what you do to combat your hate to make interesting lessons. 

   

  (Also, another shocker, I’m not a huge fan of To Kill a Mockingbird—but that’s a whole other blog post.)

   

  Posted in books, poetry, reading, teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 5 Comments | Tagged benvolio, blogging, blogs, drama, english teacher, i hate romeo and juliet, juliet, plays, poetry, reading, romeo, romeo and juliet, shakespeare, teaching, teaching shakespeare, writing

• An Ulcerative Colitis Tale: What I Learned During My Hospital Stay

  Posted at 2:54 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on February 8, 2020

  

  Hey! For those who missed it, I spent three nights in the hospital due to an ulcerative colitis flare. 

  I’d tried telling two different doctors at various times throughout January that my medicine stopped working, but nobody listened to me. 

  For a week before I was admitted, my doctor’s office ghosted me. I called. I emailed. Nothing. No answer. Radio static. (Long story here. If you want more details, call, text, or inbox me.)

  I felt like Demi Lovato singing “Anyone” at the Grammys.

  Turns out, shocker, that my colitis had spread further into my colon, and I needed a blood transfusion to replace the blood I had lost. 

  Because. Nobody. Listened. To. Me. Seriously. 

  Ugh.  

  But I won’t get into the entire story right now because:

  1. I’m still really upset.
  2. it should have never happened.

  Because. Nobody. Listened. To. Me. 

  ---

  Enough of the negativity. Here’s what I learned during my hospital stay.

  1. Beware the pretty pills. My nurses ooohhhhhed and awwwwwed over a lovely, jade-colored pill, presented to me in a tiny plastic cup. We never get to see colorful pills! Look how pretty! They said. All we ever see are plain-colored pills! Considering the sheer number of medicines overwhelming my system, I missed all the warning signs that this “pretty green pill” was the Green Fairy in Moulin Rouge. After achieving mind-blowingly high status twice in four hours, I, slurring my words, accused the nurses of slipping me roofies and refused to take more. Unfortunately, my mother called both times I was baked, and I had to hang up on her. Sorry Mom! Also, if you texted me while I was drugged, and I promised I would steal you some roofies too, come see me later. (Just kidding!!!!) (gif credit)
  2. If you spill your water all over your bed, you don’t get a new bed; you get put on a puppy pad.  I felt properly shamed. Don’t worry. At least they didn’t try to stick my nose in it . . .
  3. Teacher expectations are ridiculous. Sorry. Here’s the negativity again. What was I doing before getting a blood transfusion? Typing up emergency lesson plans. Posting student instructions on Google Classroom. Trying to line up a sub for the next day–while I had IVs in both arms. Just to make sure my students weren’t given short shrift by my emergency absence. How insane is that? Read what I just wrote again. Insane. Utterly insane. If you are outside the education field, I don’t think you’ll ever understand the pressures that teachers face. My absence also created more work for my immediate grade level team members, and thank you, 8th-grade team, from the bottom of my heart for helping.
  4. I am officially a vampire. I’ve got someone else’s blood running through my veins! Call me Bill Compton! Edward! Dracula! Bunnicula! Waiittttt. Why are the great vampires all dudes? I need to rectify this, Le-stat! You can address me as Rampire. It has a nice ring to it. (My brother, on the other hand, thinks this equates me with a mosquito, not a vampire, and I’ll need a reinforcement coven to convince him otherwise.)(gif credit)
  5. Never doubt the medicine of a good laugh. Two of my friends came to visit, made me laugh the entire time they were there, and brought me this hysterical card. My bestie from high school sent me these flowers with this funny card. And the Facebook-requested memes and videos brightened my days. Here’s my favorite gif that I received during my stay. (Sorry not sorry for the crass humor. This is hilarious.)

  And while humor helps, what happened to me is no laughing matter. If you suffer from any illness, whether invisible or visible, you are your own best advocate. You are the only person who knows what the pain feels like, and if doctors aren’t listening to you, keep speaking up–even if it feels like nobody is listening to you. 

  ---

  (I respect all doctors, and I am not doctor bashing here, friends. This came down to ineffective communication within a doctor’s office and between doctors’ offices and medical bureaucracy. What happened to me could have been prevented. I’m just relaying how unnervingly unheard I was.) 

   

  Posted in chronic pain, teaching, ulcerative colitis, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, chronic illness, chronic pain, hospital, hospital stays, humor, ibd, inflammatory bowel disease, invisible illness, poop jokes, teacher, teaching, ulcerative colitis, writing

• A Teacher Poem: Buzz Words

  Posted at 11:17 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on January 25, 2020

  

  begin with the end in mind, AKA backward design
  Common Core and 504
  ELL, STEM, and IEP are not absentee (But if they were, you’d have to let them make up the work, for sure.)
  collaborate and debate
  Claim retired, and its replacement is assertion; try teaching that to little persons.

  rigor
  response
  reflection
  rubric
  will point you in the right (write?) direction

  facilitate with fidelity; provide actionable feedback . . . (but don’t call in sick unless you’re having a heart attack)
  Is your summative assessment warm or cold? (Grab a blanket–so we’re told.)
  flip the classroom; personalize learning (to get their brains churning)

  What’s the objective? 
  Does it align with the standards?
  How does the curriculum get them college and career ready?

  Scaffold.
  Differentiate.
  Rigor.
  Peer conversations.
  Rigor.
  Text complexity.

  Rigor.
  Rigor.
  Rigor.

  Build relationships. 
  Rigor.
  One to one.
  Rigor.
  Lexile.
  Rigor. 

  Rigor.
  Rigor.
  Rigor.

  TRIGGER WARNING

  The kids still find it boring.

  And by week’s end, the only buzz words we care about are Tito’s, tequila, and Tanqueray (with honorable mentions to happy hour and chardonnay).

  

  Photo by Daria Shevtsova on Pexels.com

  Posted in poems, poetry, teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, english teacher, humor, middle school teacher, poems, poems about teaching, poetry, teacher, teaching, teaching middle school, writing

• A Mrs. Ram’s Jams Guide to Grading Papers at Home

  Posted at 2:16 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on October 19, 2019

  

  Although I manage to grade most student-written essays during school hours, inevitably home grading transpires from time to time. Here’s what my grading process looks like when I do lug home heaps of papers.

  1. Sit at the kitchen table, and empty llama tote bag of dreaded essays.
  2. Shuffle all essays into groups of five, piling them into one tower by alternating stacks perpendicularly.
  3. Grab blue Uniball pen. Fancy pens make grading tolerable. Giggle because the word “Uniball” is funny.
  4. Snap a picture of grading setup, witty teacher caption included, and post it to Insta and Facebook stories.
  5. Realize fifteen minutes has passed. Pick up Uniball. Bust into laughter again. Little Thing hollers, “What’s so funny? Can I see?”
  6. Skim first paper while chuckling. Chuckles dissolve into whimpers of distress because the first essay is ghastly, soul-crushing.
  7. Shuffle the broken paper to stack’s end.
  8. Scan the next five essays without connecting pen to paper, and hyperventilating starts. HOW CAN ALL OF THEM BE PIECES OF POO ON A STICK?????? Question career path and meaning of life. Become convinced of worst teacher on the planet status. Stash those five essays to the back of the pile.
  9. Search for best student writer’s essay. Read it. Faith in humanity is restored.
  10. Glance up and around. Am horrified by the dishes mounded in the sink and clutter-strewn house. Decide to tidy up, clean the toilets, and scrub the master bathroom’s floor with a toothbrush.
  11. Register it’s dinner time, have wasted an entire Saturday afternoon, and cook dinner.
  12. Make husband do dishes in order to get back to grading.
  13. Scroll through Facebook on the ChromeBook for an hour instead with the stack of papers as an audience. Their collective judgment is palpable.
  14. Pick up Uniball. Smirk. 
  15. Trudge through five essays, finally giving feedback.
  16. Decide grading is more fun with wine. Pour a glass.
  17. Down the glass swiftly like a college student shooting a lemon drop.
  18. Grade five more essays in half the time, because wine. Uniball has the time of his life.
  19. Pour another glass, and lose steam quickly after, only grading two more essays. 
  20. Call it a night, and resolve to spend Sunday afternoon at the library grading because Grading. At. Home. Doesn’t. Work.
  21. Tuck a wilted and defeated Uniball into bed, errrr, back into his llama tote bag house.
  22. Decide a blue felt pen is more appropriate for library essay grading. It would be mildly embarrassing to get kicked out for hysterical laughter.

  

  Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

   

  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 1 Comment | Tagged blogging, blogs, english teacher, funny, grading essays, humor, middle school teacher, students, teaching, writing

• A Poem: English Class Will Never Be Baseball

  Posted at 3:40 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on September 21, 2019

  

  English class will never be baseball.

  Cracking open a book can’t compete with the crack of the bat and the crowd’s cheers for you.

  Fumbling through Homer’s The Odyssey will feel more like fumbling a grounder in the bottom of the ninth during a tied game than hitting a homer to win it all.

  Throwing words around with a pen and paper to write an essay will never rival throwing warm-up pitches in the bullpen.

  The thunk of the catcher’s hand pounding his mitt between curveballs and changeups will never sound like “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” nor The Catcher in the Rye.

  Wry puns and satire will never play hardball in your playbook. Three strikes you’re out and triple plays are more important to you than the rule of threes and idioms.

  Sliding into second and shaking hands at the game’s end will never be sliding into the second act of a Shakespeare play.

  And that’s just fine, sluggers, because English class isn’t supposed to be baseball, but the real MVPs and big leaguers value both.

  

  Photo by Matthew T Rader on Pexels.com

   

  Posted in poems, poetry, reading, teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 4 Comments | Tagged baseball, blogging, blogs, english class, english teacher, middle school teacher, poems, poems about teaching, poetry, teaching, teaching boys, teaching middle school, writing

• A Mrs. Ram’s Jams Teaching Tale: Reading Comprehension Fails in The Odyssey

  Posted at 12:23 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on September 15, 2019

  

  Currently, I am teaching The Odyssey for the first time in my career (I think. I might have blocked out teaching it like a bad memory; it’s not my favorite text.) As per my curriculum’s instructions, I’ve been working on summarizing, characterization, and conflict with the kids while reading Book One, and this week I assessed those skills using a passage they hadn’t read before. 

  And while most students rocked the summarizing skill portion of the task, some epically misunderstood these lines from the text: 

  But all of the suitors broke into uproar through the shadowed halls,
  all of them lifting prayers to lie beside [Penelope], share her bed,
  until discreet Telemachus took command:

  (A little context might be helpful as well:  Odysseus, the king of Ithaka, is taking an eternity to get home from the Trojan War and people fear him dead. His wife Penelope, a snack, is bedeviled by suitors who have taken up residence in her own home.) 

  Now think like an 8th grader. How would you interpret this with your nearly teenage brain? Let’s look at some student responses. 

  1. “Penelope dies, which leaves the suitors devastated.”
  2. “Penelope’s suitors hope to follow her into her room, but Telemachus does not allow it.”
  3. “The suitors are outraged that Penelope has gone back to her room without them.”
  4. “The suitors are entering Penelope’s room as Telemachus yells at them for destroying his house.”
  5. “The suitors come to ask Penelope if they can sleep next to her . . .”
  6. “The suitors try to get into Penelope’s bed and cause an uproar, but Telemachus stops them.”
  7. “The suitors bombarded Telemachus’s mom by going beside her in her own bed.”

  Y’all. I giggled uncontrollably while grading. Handling questions about why students missed points for these interpretations is going to be brutal. I don’t think a comment like Well, Kayla, you insinuate salacious behavior occurred instead of explaining that individually the suitors wish to marry Penelope will go over well. So please think happy thoughts for me and my sanity when I hand these assignments back. 

  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 1 Comment | Tagged blogging, blogs, funny, humor, reading, reading comprehension, students, teaching, writing

• A Mrs. Ram’s Jams Tale: What I Bought Versus What I Got–Llama Dress Edition

  Posted at 2:21 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on August 31, 2019

  

  Like any llama loving teacher, I scoured the internet for llama-phernalia for my classroom before summer’s end. I scored a new water bottle, shoulder tote, and sticker decal set. 

  And while my favorite fluffy animal has been incorporated into my teacher wardrobe via a plethora of printed punny shirts, I desperately wanted a llama dress for the first day of school. Now before judging me, I realize a llama dress might be a bit obnoxious on the first day, but the longer I teach, the more I let my crazy flag fly from the get-go. At my school, we’re allowed to wear jeans and T-shirts as rewards, and teachers-a-plenty wore jeans on the first day of school. But, I’m of the staunch opinion that IT’S TOO HOT FOR PANTS in Louisiana in August, particularly when sweating through outdoor recess duty at lunchtime. So imma wear a dress, a llama one at that, thanks. 

  Unfortunately for me, Amazon doesn’t currently offer a llama dress (I’m researching ways to remedy this situation. I mean, how dare they!). Adding one to my already chock full-ama virtual shopping cart wasn’t an option, so venturing out into the non-Amazon, scary Russian roulette interwebs shopping realm was my last resort to fulfilling my dream.

  On meowpinky.com, my eyes grazed this dress, and like any responsible social media user in her mid to late 30s, I immediately screenshot it and polled my Facebook friends as to whether I should purchase it. To no one’s surprise, the answer was yes. I decided on green, even though it was available in many colors, because I wanted to make my new llama friend feel like she was in nature, chomping on hay or grass or whatever llamas eat. (Mental note:  Must make time to research what llamas actually eat.)

  

  I anxiously awaited my new llama dress, but she didn’t arrive by the first day of school. In fact, she didn’t arrive until last week because she journeyed all the way from China, and upon arrival in the U.S., meandered her way from the West Coast to Louisiana like the free-range camelid she is.  

  When she finally arrived, I tore into her packaging with glee and unfurled her to view her full glory. And while she is glorious, she’s not quite the glorious that I was expecting. She looks rather cheap, and I’m quite scandalized by her appearance. She’s honestly gloriously terrible, and I love her even more because of it.

  You see, the person who brought her into being simply printed her outline in black on a giant piece of army green vinyl and then IRONED ON THE ENTIRE PIECE OF ARMY GREEN VINYL, OFF CENTER NO LESS, ONTO AN UNMATCHED MOSS GREEN DRESS.

  

  Her poor pockets resemble two marsupial pouches, she is of the camel family dammit, that look like they have both housed five too many babies. 

  

   I would wear her to school to parade her around, despite being poorly made (It’s not her fault.), but she’s too short to wear even with leggings. So me showing her off like a proud mama displaying pics of her newborn on Insta, Facebook, and WordPress will have to suffice as her first and last public appearance. 

  

  I’d love to hear about your online shopping mishaps! 

   

  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 0 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, funny, humor, llama, llamas, shopping gone wrong, teaching, writing

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