first day.

tomorrow=first day of school=SCAAAAARY.

we finally made it to the first day. and i am scared senseless by the though of actually having students in my classroom. for the first time, EVER, they'll be MY students.

i have a homeroom, and three other classes besides them. we'll be meeting twice a day. learning together. working together. i hope.

i know that the first day and the first week set the tone for the rest of the school year. i've been reading The First Days of School all this past week, trying to prepare myself as much as possible.

i've got some pretty good icebreakers lined up, so it's not all business up front. i want us to get comfortable with each other. i just hope it goes well.

PLEASE OH PLEASE let it go well.

attention: english teachers!

check out THIS WEBSITE right now!

i'm going to steal so much stuff from it. yay!

just for fun.

some fun examples of figurative language.

i know what you're thinking: FUN? figurative language?? HA!

but you're wrong, because it's totally fun.

my first year of teaching starts in just a few short weeks. i haven't hit panic mode yet, but i'm sure it's on the horizon. for the past couple of weeks i've been scouring the shelves of the library i'm currently working at, grabbing as many reading and writing theory/lesson plan idea books i can find, and killing many trees in my effort to copy all of the good stuff i find. and i'm finding a LOT of good stuff, which is comforting.

with all the ideas i have sitting in binders around my bedroom right now, i'm confident that i'll never run out of activities to do with the kids. especially since i want to set aside at least 15 minutes three times a week for DEAR (Drop Everything and Read!) or SSR (Sustained Silent Reading).

my goal for this weekend is to get the first couple of days hammered out. the first two days are going to be all about getting to know each other and creating a comfortable classroom climate. (say THAT three times fast!)

then, i think we're going to jump into some short stories.

my cooperating teacher i worked with all last year started her school year off with short stories, because she felt they were a rich (but easier) way to help students see the structural patterns that are inherent in stories. also, short stories are just plain awesome. there are some amazing ones out there.

it's also a great way to introduce some figurative language! which leads me back to my current post topic.

i feel like when it comes to explaining figurative language, examples do it best. words definitions are just confusing, for both me and the kids.

and even though there is a cornucopia of examples in any piece of literature we might read, i love VISUAL examples the best. and there are really no better visual examples than the ones found in comics. so, today i took a look at the past month's strips for my very favorite comic, Pears Before Swine. Stephen Pastis, the cartoonist responsible for Pearls, has a great style. it's dark, a little silly, but most importantly, he uses TONS of figurative language in his work. i've already used a couple of his strips in my IRONY lesson plan.

here are a few of the examples i found just looking at strips from July 2010:

ALLUSION

PERSONIFICATION

SATIRE