Thursday, Mar. 18, 2004
Laramie = Maycomb, posted at 10:12 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com We practiced until 6:30 today, until we could barely see the baseballs and everyone was ready to go home. I laid down the guidelines in a post-practice meeting, and everyone seemed to take it okay, excepting a few groans.I was not prepared for how much time coaching is taking up. It's like I'm teaching a new class. However, for my English classes, I had six years of instruction to develop my craft. But for coaching, I have the fact that I love baseball and played it a bit in high school - that's all. So it's tough. I plan all the practices meticulously, and nothing ever seems to go exactly how I want it, but that's okay.
It's a lot of fun. I'm just dead tired right now.
My current classroom dilemma is whether or not to show The Laramie Project, or at least excerpts, to my class. I saw it for the first time this past summer, and my immediate reaction was that it would work great in tandem with To Kill a Mockingbird. I'm not a big fan of read-the-book-watch-the-movie, but like to get visual art into every unit, so I wrote it into my curriculum. I'm worried about time, as well as my students' reactions to it, but I think it could be very rewarding as long as I scaffold it enough.
I'm tired.