Just finished Of Mice and Men in preparation for teaching it to the middle schoolers. Of course I had forgotten how much I like that book, and Steinbeck's ability to cut to the chase. I had also forgotten how easy it is to read. No such luck with The Crucible, I'm afraid. Although the students do like the witchy aspects.

I went to a conference at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena that taught us how to use "design-based learning" to teach high and low concepts to our students. Lots of building of three-dimensional objects to induce clutch appeal, to get the kids to connect more meaningfully to a thing and then leap over to a concept in the literature or whatever and make a match. I wonder if it will work with To Kill a Mockingbird?

I wonder if the middle schoolers will be too cool to school... I wonder if they'll mock me and try to make me cry. I don't remember doing that when I was in seventh and eighth grade but that was also many eons ago. Things were different then, kids were more respectful. Yeah, that's it. I think we were just too scared, frankly. And for good reason. More on that later.