Ahhh. It is so nice to not have any papers to grade. For today, at least. I have been working on essays for the past few days and plan on continuing until the end of this week. Well, we were working on essays last week too, but with such a poor turnout of even halfway decent papers (zero), I decided to stop having them write on their own for a while. No point in having people write if they don't know how. So I'm just teaching essay basics right now, like theses, main ideas, brainstorming, organization, and structure. Each class is writing an essay together through whole-group discussion with me guiding them. Okay, I'm kind of writing the essays but they are actually doing more work than I am. They're doing the thinking; I'm just leading them in the right direction and keeping them focused (which is a job in itself).

Okay, I'm sorry if I'm boring people by talking about one of the most detested subjects � writing essays. Trust me, writing essays is not one of my favorite things to do. In fact, I was never very good at it. Especially timed essay tests. I cannot (at least never could in school) write a well-organized and well-written essay in 45 minutes. So I don't know if, because of that, I'll help the kids or hurt them. I sure hope I can help them. At least the school has a "writing coach" whose job is solely to help the Language Arts teachers teach writing. So far, he's helped me a lot. I wish I had known the stuff I'm teaching these kids when I was in school. If I knew then what I know now�

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