I really miss Helvetica.

Is it better to assign a final essay on To Kill a Mockingbird right before spring break, or right after? Some of my students (mostly girls) want it due before break. When polled, the boys (mostly) vociferously declared after.

What to do, what to do. I think assign it after, so I don't have 64 essays to read over my spring break. Yeah, that's right. I'm learning.

It is the end of March and I finally have my classroom set up the way I really want it. I also believe I have finally hit on the best schedule for all the little weekly things we do, like vocab, book discussion, informal writing, slightly-more-formal writing, presentations, etc. And of course we're scheduled to move to new quarters for the next school year. Okay! I can do this!

I watched The History Boys and enjoyed it quite a bit. Hard to believe the students would be so casual about their teacher's Roman fingers, but hey, it's Yorkshire. Whatever that means. Still, it's a great movie and Richard Griffiths is quite fun to watch. Plus the woman who plays Mrs. Lintotts.

One of my eighth graders looked up today and said, "Okay, so Jem is gay, right?" I tried to gently disabuse him of that idea (I mean I don't know if Jem is/was gay, I didn't see the character grow up, right?) and we talked about Harper Lee's friendship with Truman Capote as a kid and how the character of Dill is supposed to be based on that, and this student, who was embarrassed about getting the Jem/gay thing confused, said he was going to investigate and find out every detail about Harper Lee's childhood friendship with T.C. so he could disprove everything I've said (which hasn't been all that much since I didn't even know Dill was based on T.C. until this last year).

I said if he could do that, I'd give him an A+. Which is moot because ours is a progressive school without traditional grades. But he would get an A+ in my heart.

I often say that, that the kids will get an A in my heart, or extra credit in my heart, because really, we don't give out grades. And they always look kind of wistful, kind of disappointed, when I say that. I've tried to convince them that credit in my heart is much more valuable than a grade, but they don't believe me, of course.

The kids who want grades want them because they're sure they'd be successful. The kids who don't want grades don't care about anything much, whether you credit them in your heart or anywhere. Like M.G., who was staring almost zombie-like this morning. He's doing so poorly, and is so shy of me or something, won't come and talk to me about his problems, won't admit to any feelings about To Kill a Mockingbird. I see him slipping down this path to the end of school, resting and relaxing over the summer, and then sliding along into high school. I don't know what to do about him. Maybe I'll tell him that tomorrow.

Wish us luck.