Pre-Vacation

This week has been great. I've been teaching regularly three classes now. I've gotten through a large-ish project with three classes and then an in class writing piece today with period 8. I didn't want to assign something over break because it is too long a time for a small assignment, or at least I think so. I also keep managing to throw in as much English type things as possible. I'm actually really impressed with what I got today. The assignment, after covering the rest of the war, was to write a journal entry (or several) from the perspective of a person who was at either Vicksburg or Petersburg in any capacity. I asked if they had ever done on demand writing and none of them had even heard the phrase before. So I did a five minute explanation of on demand writing and explained what I wanted. I also gave them a few suggestions like taking ten minutes to plan, think, outline before starting to write. I gave them plenty of time too, knowing it would likely be a challenge for some of them. Some finished in about twenty minutes, some went to the end of class. I looked through a few and I think they really nailed it. They had an assembly this morning so the schedule was off and it's the Friday before vacation, the last period of the day. Knowing this, I started class by promising that if they pay attention and cooperate they wouldn't have any homework over break and we would play a game when they got back. I was planning on do that anyway, but bribery rocks!