Boredom. Today, the cyclops was defleshing some of Odysseus's buddies, you would think that this would be somewhat interesting to a bunch of violence-loving teenagers, right? It was, for the boys. But the girls had their heads down on the desks or shuddered in obvious disgust. I either get the boys or I get the girls. Romeo and Juliet gave me them both, but only briefly. Sure, I try to have them mime out what they read, draw pictures of what they see, take turns reading the voices of the characters, stop to discuss the action or the questions of character, but they are still bored, bored, bored. What can I do? How can I compete? I do not have a science lab where they get to create experiments and blow things up. Nor do I have simple right or wrong answers as they receive in math. Worse still I am asking them to read and think about what they read. And refer to the text to prove that what they read supports their opinions. I am the evil dictator. And I'm miserable. I feel like a complete failure. Nothing I do seems to generate anything other than resentment or pleas for trips to the bathroom. How many times can you go to the bathroom in one forty minute period anyway? Sure, I can enrich with media or comics and other kinds of text but at the end of the day and English class will always involve reading and writing, two tasks which my students dread.

The like it if it isn't challenging. If it doesn't push them to be creative or to question or to make an effort. But if it does, forget it. And that is enough to make me just want to crawl under my desk and cry. I loved my English classes in high school and I had a lot of teachers who did nothing except say take out your books and turn to page 226 and read. That's it! I was hooked. But nothing, absolutely NOTHING that I do encourages these guys to savor a sentence, or chew on a phrase.

HELP ME OB1 HELP ME.