Which Generation Am I In? A Scary Thought...

I have a student named Alison, and today she came up to ask me a question. I began to sing that song by Elvis Costello: "Alison, my aim is true..."

Then I asked her if her parents sang that to her. No, they don't, she replied to me.

"But my grandparents do," she said.

Thanks, kid.

But I Love These Words...

The best simile I've read yet written by a 6th grader:

"...flailing my arms about like a New Yorker hailing a taxi cab..."

I laugh every time I think about it...Where did he come up with that? I totally loved it!

Don't Put Words In My Mouth

This is conference week at my school. Today was the first day of conferences. They all went very well, thank you.

One conference involved having an interpreter. The family is Asian, and I'm not quite sure what language they spoke-I didn't recognize it. But we proceded with the conference, and the interpreter told the mom, presumably, everything I said.

Eventually we get to writing. Now, this particular student, being an English Language Learner, struggles in writing. Her grammar is very poor-she writes as broken as she talks.

But also the topics she chooses to write about are soooo dull! We've been working on narrative writing. Her fist essay, which was supposed to be about something that happened over the summer, was about how she got a tan and then got in trouble from her mom because she wasn't supposed to get a tan. Her second essay was supposed to be about the first time she did something, or learned something. Her essay was about the first time she went to the computer lab at school and logged on. Not too exciting for me too read, and I'd think becuase her topics were so dull that the essays were not easy to write. So, in a tactful way, I told this to the interpreter.

Well, she began to translate this to the mom. Then I heard her use the word "boring." Now, I don't believe that that meant something else in their language...

"Hold it!" I interrupted. "Did you just say 'boring'?"

"Yes," the interpreter replied, somewhat sheepishly.

"Well, that's your word, not mine...Make sure mom understands that!" I said.

I hope she did.