Zuccini of Indignation?

Over the summer I read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe to prepare for the semester. This book is not a page-turner, in fact, it is the opposite of a page-turner. Like a coaster or a door stop. It isn't that bad, but it definitely isn't good. The plan was to introduce an interdisciplinary/cross-curriculum unit so that the students could learn about Africa in Social Studies while we learn about African culture in English. I really like the idea of interdisciplinary units, however, I do not like feeling like the English class I am teaching is simply supplementary to Social Studies, and on top of that nasty feeling, the students all read Things Fall Apart over the summer! Instead of fretting on how this could really throw our planning off track, I suggested that we just teach something else! Simple solutions! First, we discuss TFA for a day because it was boring and the kids have already told us (numerous) times that they loathe the very paper it is printed on. Then I find a great narrative, some poetry, some artwork from Rwanda and discuss the genocide in Africa. Then we tie in current events, meaning the genocide in Darfur, and have a discussion! Glorious discussion! My CT didn't say no, and even emailed the rest of the department about the possibility of not teaching Things Fall Apart.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Fun actually filled my day today in that nerdy English teacher way!
We assigned a book list for Literature Circles which should probably, if all goes well, begin next week. This is no ordinary 9th grade book list. This book list is rad! Here are some titles:

Great Expectations
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
The Secret Life of Bees
The Grapes of Wrath
Fahrenheit 451
Catch 22
Slaughterhouse 5
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Kite Runner

That isn't even all of them. There are more! The kids really seemed to be interested in the classics, which blew me away and made me skip from alien child to alien child asking what type of books they were interested in. Some of the girls are reading Jane Austen and the boys are getting to know Mr. Oscar Wilde. Wow-wow-wow! I am going to finish The Kite Runner by Friday so I can join one of their Literature circles with a brand new book!

One of the kids even thought this was hilarious! [Steinbeck - stuck on the title page.]

My sweet little nerds!

Lastly, while there were a lot of finalists for the "funniest error" category in the essays that I was grading, my favorite was the student who has ambitions to attend an "IV League School."