Monday will begin week three of the new school year, at my new high school, where I’m teaching two new Digital English classes…along with two 9th grade honors classes and two 9th grade regular classes.

I wish we could bring back the “red bird” and the “blue bird” designations because I’m not fond of this “regular/honors/gifted” label. Perhaps the day after I officially retire, I’ll share my searingly honest viewpoint about those labels. I have too few years remaining to risk teaching in a broom closet, being tarred and feathered, and/or generating a flurry of voodoo dolls that too closely resemble me.

Since it’s almost midnight, and I have to roll out of bed in almost five hours, I’m going to give the microwave version of the past two weeks:

1. I’m simultaneously amused and enraged by the insolent arrogance of some freshmen who inform me that reading and “writting” will “defiantly” not be important in their future.

2. I have a student who buys books from “barns and nobles.”

3. Another student said that he “learned last year how to profread better.”

4. The favorite book of another is Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Zeus.

5. As for receiving feedback on writing, this student shared: “A teacher who doesn’t writhe on my paper doesn’t care much about what I write.”

6. How did this student learn to write? “Teachers taught me letters of the alphabet which obliviously helped.”

7. Another student is “writing an autobiography of his life.”

8.  Writing issues noted in papers submitted to date:

no use of apostrophes when writing contractions, so I find myself “decoding” the following: dont, cant, arent, isnt, wont, theyre, Ill

less than 10% of my students use cursive; I don’t mind that they print…what I mind is that they print IN ALL CAPS or in all lower case. If the periods ending their sentences aren’t the size of green peas, I don’t know where one sentence ends and another begins

use of “i” for personal pronoun “I” is gaining popularity

so far, not one student is using hearts or asterisks to dot the letters “i,j”

usage errors are multiplying faster than clunker cars: your/you’re, their/there/they’re, its/it’s, then/than are the major problems

we’re chanting ” a lot is two words”

paragraphing is apparently becoming obsolete

And, in closing, I’m reminded by one student that “going to collage is important because he wants to become a veet.”