Monday, Oct. 04, 2004
Last Rung on the Ladder, posted at 7:07 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Today was a long day; Mondays usually are. I was able to get out of bed at 4:45 am for my gym trip, and had a good workout at Bally's before heading in. Today is a B day, meaning I'd already gone through my lessons on my A day on Friday. This is a week with three "B" days and one "A" day, and these weeks are much less stressful than others. Less planning and copy-making, and a little more down time. I rarely if ever read to my class, but I read them a story today. It was partially a time thing; after workshopping our thesis statements, I needed to finish "Last Rung on the Ladder" with them and we didn't have as much time as I had suspected. So I read it to them, having them textmark for imagery as we read. The story, by Stephen King, is a real good one. There are a few word choices I'd change and a paragraph towards the end that is a little weak, but overall it's a great story. The narrator is an older male narrator who has a lot of guilt and regret about his little sister, and he clearly misses her, and I think I read it well. I've taught it now for four years so I have parts of the story nearly memorized. I try to read it with a nostalgic, wistful tone. You could hear a pin drop today. There certainly is a bit of power in reading a story like that. The kids got the impact, I'm sure of it. We'll discuss after they answer questions at home about it.The afternoon was punctuated by a visit to our school by a certain former NBA star who just happens to have a highly publicized bout with a certain virus for which there is no cure. I didn't get to go, even though we are both alums of the same school. I didn't even know about it until it was underway, and my class wasn't invited. They kept it under wraps very well. It would have been cool to see, although I did enjoy the time I had in class with the eight kids who were not invited along with me because they had 6th period lunch. It was all very secretive and hush hush, and apparently He talked about his disease and gave away some jerzeys. Progress reports come out this week so my kids are frantic. As has become the rule, over half of my students probably will be failing as they come out. That's okay with me, and I'll get 'em up there where they need to be before long. I've got a lot of grading to do before then, though. In fact, I'm off to do it. I actually think I'm heading to a coffeehouse tonight to do it; I get hardly any grading (only planning) done at home. There's a work meeting for the restaurant tonight, but I think I can fit an hour's worth of grading in before it starts. I'm off.