For the first third of my teaching career, I taught middle school. Some of my experiences were rewarding, but at other times I yearned for a more interesting curriculum with books I actually enjoyed reading. Frankly, I do not care for Young Adult (YA) lit. It seems to pander to the preteens in a formulaic way. But that’s just me. My reading habits have always gravitated towards the more “literary” canon, with a fair number of contemporary classics. So to satisfy my literary desires, I switched to teaching high school.
Unfortunately, this switch practically ruined my life. Why? Because I loathe, detest, and despise waking up early. When an alarm rings at me prior to 7:30, I glare at the culprit and grab any weapon that’s nearby. And so, my new high school job required that I arise at the evil hour of 5:30. For the rest of the years that I taught, I drove to work in the dark, other than a few months a year when the time changed. Getting to school at 6:45 so that I could prepare for the day was equally dismal. I walked around like a zombie for at least two hours following my arrival, chugging coffee.
Meanwhile, most of my students were in even worse shape than I. To teach an academic subject before 9 or 10 AM to teenagers is just cruel and unusual punishment. We all know the studies about teen brains not being anywhere near the sharpest this early.
Thus, I was teaching a subject I loved much more, but it was during a time period of day that I wished I was in bed. Okay…I suppose I’ll stop my bellyaching about this.
It is a hard sell to get students to read long and/or difficult books, especially early in the morning! My favorite authors are the 19th century ones: Dickens, Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and George Eliot. I’m aware that makes me a huge nerd, but nobody writes stories or characters like these people did. Out of all of them, the titles I’ve been able to use in my classes with at least a modicum of success are Jane Eyre and Great Expectations. When I say success, I mean that not ONLY my top bookworm/fellow nerds liked these two books. A few other students did as well.
Both of the aforementioned novels lend themselves to something I like to call “Reader’s Theater.” To explain, there are a number of chapters wherein the dialogue and the occurrences are so riveting that I, sometimes along with student volunteers, am able to read them aloud in a somewhat theatrical way. Sometimes it’s only me doing this embarrassing demonstration. My two favorite chapters to do all my character “voices,” are the chapter in Great Expectations with Pip and Magwitch in the graveyard, at the beginning, and the chapter in Jane Eyre during which the young Jane gets battered and bullied by her disgusting stepbrother John Reed. Somehow I slip into some odd British accents all the while. In any case, these readings attracted the students to the books greatly. Unfortunately, holding the attraction and getting through the less enthralling chapters is not easy. I would venture to guess that maybe half of my students actually finished the Victorian novels. However, that was before the pandemic.
Since the pandemic, very few students love, or even like, reading anymore. It’s clear that they have the attention spans of fruit flies lately. I actually looked up which animal has the shortest attention span just now. Nobody can tell me I’m unresearched!
For me to repair the problem of so many students disliking reading even before Covid, I established an “Independent Reading” program. Once a week for about a half an hour during class, students get to read any book they want, and if they don’t bring one in, they can borrow from my extensive classroom library. After their reading time, they would have to write in their “Reading Diary” about what they had read using certain predetermined topics. I will be putting these topics up at my Teacher Pay Teachers store during the next couple weeks. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/literary-ladder-lessons
Now, onto a sordid and somewhat embarrassing confession. Silent Reading Time became my time to do one of two things: either grade papers –or take a power nap. Ok, ok! Don’t call the cops just yet. I was never so asleep that I couldn’t hear or tell if anything was running amuck in my classes. Nobody got injured or assaulted! Also, all of my students sat in the front of the class, while my teacher desk was safely stowed in the back of the class within a little enclave. Once in a while, a student would notice that I was snoring. Instead of acting out or leaving the room or anything like that, they mostly started to say “Shhh. Be quiet she’s sleeping.” And they would continue reading while meanwhile you could hear a pin drop. Yes, I was quite lucky to have well-behaved classes.
The point of all this is that I was tired from waking up so early, obviously. Not to mention I had started to have some degree of sleep apnea during the night. I guess I was fortunate not to get fired or something. Besides, somehow I always woke up when an administrator came by.
Now gather round kids and listen, all you new teachers–don’t become like I was: that baddy bad teacher lady snoozing in the back of the room. Always get to bed by 9 PM and that way maybe you’ll be more refreshed than I ever was.
The “conwict” scares the devil out of little Pip (above).
A student depiction of John Reed from the book Jane Eyre (above).
Here is an article about schools that start at later hours:
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