Another great day today. I feel better than I have in months. I haven't even had that overwhelming need for a nap when I get home that I have had since the beginning of school. I had just thought it was middle age running me over like a steamroller.
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I talked over some changes in the multi-media class with Mr. Mitchell this afternoon and I am looking forward to implementing them during the second semester.
The students will all be writing daily blogs. It won't be total freedom for them, even though that would be nice. I will have their passwords in case anything needs to be edited to meet school standards. Plus, the students and their parents will have to sign a contract, agreeing to abide by the rules In addition to adding a writing component to that class, I also intend to add a reading component. The students will be required to read either two or three news stories per day, one of my choosing, the others of theirs, similar to the setup I had in the computer lab at Diamond Middle School for my reading skills class. Non-fiction reading is overlooked far too much by reading teachers. I also talked with Mr. Mitchell about ways we could eliminate the mechanical obstacles that have kept the South Middle School website from being operational. We did come up with some ideas. Hopefully, we can put them into action sometime near the beginning of the second semester.
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I am also excited about teaching speech during the second semester. The best part about it is no textbooks. I will have to come up with my own material and I have always enjoyed doing that.
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I have also been planning some changes for the communication arts classes. I plan to hit flea markets, used book shops, the internet, whatever it takes to get enough copies of "Portrait of Jennie" for my classes to read it for their novel. The book is short enough, yet it has that fantasy element that attracts young readers, plus I love it and there's a great movie to go with it (you know how much the kids love those black-and-white movies).
I also plan to work with the kids to try to get some of their writing published in some of the teen magazines and teen Internet sites.
Plus, I have been working on some methods of teaching grammar, sentence construction, etc., that won't bore the students stiff and will actually get them interested in those things. That may be one task I don't come close to pulling off, but I am looking forward to trying.
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The assemblies will be coming fast and furious the remaining days this week at South. On Thursday, the choir will perform seventh hour, while on Friday, the Student Council will present toys to the Joplin Fire Department, which, in turn, will present them to needy children.
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Tomorrow is the day of my checkup to see if there has been any slippage in my condition since my release from the hospital Saturday morning. I am scheduled to see Dr. Buchele at 10:45 a.m. I will be at South until about 10:20 or so, then I will return hopefully in about an hour and a half, in time for fifth hour. Other teachers are filling in for me during their free hours, which I greatly appreciate. Hopefully, I will be able to return the favor for them someday.
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I received more good news over the weekend. Cait Purinton, who worked for me at The Carthage Press, right after she graduated from Lamar High School, became Mrs. Travis Day during a ceremony recently in Las Vegas. Cait was the youngest person to ever receive investigative reporting awards from the Kansas City Press Club and the Missouri Press Association while she worked at The Press. At the age of 18, she wrote a series of articles exposing wrongdoing at a Lamar nursing home. The series ended up in the closing of that nursing home, the criminal prosecution by the federal government of its owners, and changes in the the way the Missouri Division of Aging operates its inspections. I was so proud of Cait. After her graduation from the Kansas State University School of Journalism, she worked two years for The Kansas City Star, but the position she had there was one at one of their regional outposts and offered no benefits. She now works as a reporter for The Topeka Capitol-Journal, an excellent newspaper.