The Real Lesson Plan

 

I just recently ran across an article titled “10 Things Every Graduating Student Needs to Know.” This inspired me to write my own Top 10 List-

What I want my students to know by the time they leave my class:

1. Not knowing is okay, but not trying is unacceptable.
2. Put some thought into the rest of your high school career. Most of our students are allowed to choose some college courses to begin during their 10th grade year- What an advantage!
3. That said, if you decide to change you career decision, it’s not the end of the world. Decide on a dream and work toward it.
4. Know who you can trust with the big decisions in your life.
5. Listen to your gut- if someone doesn’t seem trustworthy, they probably aren’t. You are allowed to cut people out of your life.
6. Be honest. You may hurt some feelings, but people will trust you and that matters.
7. You won’t always win. Life is rarely fair. This does not mean that you are cursed, or unlucky. It means that there was a lesson you needed to learn. Learn from it and move on.
8. Also, how you react to failure says SO much about who you are.
9. I don’t like fantasy or supernatural books. I just recently started reading biographies. Find what YOU like to read. Read as much as possible. Historical fiction, comic books, dystopian novels, hunting magazines, engine manuals. The more you read, the more words you know. Words are powerful.
10. You are not better than anyone else. You have a story, just as everyone else. Respect everyone’s story.

Food stuff.

My Sweetheart has recently been pressuring me to start writing a cookbook. He says that if everyone knew how easy it is to make good food like we do, more people would do it.

I tell him that what I do is not cookbook-worthy for 2 reasons: I cook nightly, but I generally use less than 5 ingredients. AND I don’t follow recipes because I don’t like being told what to do- How can I possibly write a recipe if I refuse to follow them myself?

All that said, we ate some awesome food this weekend.

I used my rice cooker for the first time since I got it this past Christmas. Silly me, I thought they could only cook rice.

This is the one I got- it’s Wolfgang Puck. Mine is teal. This one came with a whole bunch of recipes, which I’d have known if I’d opened it.

In true form, I ignored the recipes and made up my own:

RICE AND BEANS

1/2 c. brown rice

1/2 c. frozen black eyed peas (I imagine any bean would taste just as yummy)

1.25 c. water

Cayenne, onion powder, black pepper, pinch salt (Use whatever spices you have/normally cook with… I wanted a kick.)

WARM for 1 hr

COOK for 1 hr

______________________________________________________

And here are a couple other NOT rice cooker recipes:

CROCK POT BOSTON BUTT

3.5 lb Boston butt (on sale at Kroger a month ago)

1 large yellow onion

Rib rub (My Momma made ours, but there are a ton of great recipes on Pinterest… pick one that sounds scrumptious and go nuts.)

Shove the butt in the crock pot. Careful… this is potentially messy.

Generously sprinkle with rib rub.

Cut onion into chunks and layer on top of the butt. This doesn’t have to be pretty, especially if your Sweetheart hates onion as much as mine does and you’re gonna make it disappear before supper time 😉

Cook on HIGH for 1-2 hours.

Cook on LOW for 4 hours.

Pull apart with 2 forks. (Set some broth aside for the greyhound.)

Eat as is, OR put some bbq sauce on it for sandwiches. OR put it over rice with black beans and mango salsa (my personal fave).

______________________________________________________

PARMESAN POTATOES

Cut red potatoes into uniform wedges. I used 5 medium sized ones so that we’d have some leftovers this week.

Dump the potatoes in a bowl with olive oil and seasoning.  I used black pepper, Italian season, and cayenne.

(I let these marinate in the fridge for about 2 hours before cooking.)

PREHEAT the oven to 350ish.

Cover a cookie sheet with tin foil. Spread the potato wedges out evenly.

BAKE for 45 minutes ish.

Take potatoes out, sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

BROIL for 4 minutes, or until the cheese starts to crisp a bit.

I hope that these recipes inspire you to ignore them and make up your own awesome supper ideas. Share them here- I’m always looking for inspiration!

 

 

Adulting is hard.

A couple weeks ago, I heard a quote that changed my life a little bit.

“Growing up sucks because you realize $1000 isn’t a lot of money.”

I hate how true this is. I used to have $50 issues. The occasional $100 issue. Groceries, new clothes, dinners out… these were my biggest expenses. Momma and Dad took care of all the other issues in my life. (Truth be told, they still take care of WAY more than the average awesome parents.)

Recently, in addition to rent, and electricity, and groceries… I’ve acquired a new car. I wanted to tell the salesman while I was signing ALL of the documents, “Hey, dude, I’m really not mature enough for this.” I mean really, what made him think I could handle any of it?

ALSO, it seems like EVERYONE has been nonstop inviting me to every happy occasion. Weddings, birthdays, new babies, showers of every kind. I am honored to be thought of. This is not me complaining. I LOVE being a part of peoples’ celebrations. And I love the opportunity to give a gift that is simultaneously sentimental and useful.

Thank God for Amazon, is all I have to say. Without this magic wonderland, there’s no way I’d be able to find acceptable gifts without traveling out of West Memphis… WalMart can only do so much. AND without decimating the bank account.

I am blessed enough to have a job and be able to HAVE all of these things, all of these friends to celebrate with… to then turn around and complain about them.

Forever learning… (1/28)

Yesterday, my Principal taught a mini lesson to my students while I was in a very short meeting with a parent. I didn’t ask him to, he just had an idea that would keep them engaged, and perhaps teach them something they didn’t already know. I was outside the classroom for maybe 3 minutes. When I walked in, he was at the board, adding numbers to a ruler he’d drawn. The students’ eyes were all on him.

One student told me after he left, “Miss Carlson, I finally understand! I wouldn’t have failed my ruler test if he’d taught me!”

The lesson was a bit off topic, as we are in the middle of The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Regardless, I was very thankful for his time. I very much enjoyed watching him teach.

My Lit Coach has been teaching my 1st period English class for a couple of months now. Last 9 weeks, our 9th grade students listened to the Serial podcast. This semester we are reading Romeo and Juliet. I am so thankful to have the opportunity to watch another teacher in action. We teachers so rarely have this opportunity. We are loners for the most part. We have endless time to discuss what has occurred in our classrooms after the fact, but it is not often that we can witness the lessons personally. I do not take all of the lessons directly from this 1st period class. My other 9th graders often are assigned other activities.

I say all this to say that is a blessing to me to see the strategies that other teachers use to teach and talk to our students.

Day 2: Where’s my gold star?

I spoke with a few students yesterday about my new writing initiative. I explained my reasoning, and how important I think it is to be a good example. I also spoke with a few teachers about the #writingchallenge in March. I love the idea of more teachers setting good writing examples for our students. I think our school does a great job getting our students interested in reading. Writing doesn’t seem like a huge leap to me.

On a semi-related note, I thought that this would be a good place to post my 3 goals for this year. They were New Years’ resolution-ish. I encouraged my students to write goals for themselves at the beginning of this semester and felt compelled to lead by example.

1. I do not want to go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink.
   This one has been difficult to stick to. I tend to get rather lazy after supper. If the dishwasher is full, I tend to leave the rest soaking and resolve to do them in the morning… But what an awful chore to wake up to!
2. I want to pay my car off by the end of the year.
   I really need to look at this closely. It may be feasible. It could be next year, honestly.
3. I want to read 50 books by the end of the year.
   This, for me, is the most realistic of the 3 goals.What I’ve read so far:
   The Selection by Kiera Cass
   The Elite by Kiera Cass
   Stolen by Lucy Christopher
   The One by Kiera Cass
   Hidden by Helen Frost
   Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly GiffWhat I’m reading now:
   I Am Malala by Christina Lamb and Malala Yousafzai
   The Heir by Kiera Cass
   Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

I am loving reading The Selection series. I have recommended them to a ton of students, and had great conversations about them. Hunger Games meets The Bachelor. Who wouldn’t love that?

I hated Stolen but I have an 8th grade student who is reading it right now and she loves it. It is written in 2nd person. I did not enjoy this perspective, even though it is a really interesting story- girl is kidnapped and kept prisoner in the middle of Australia’s Great Sandy Desert. Sounds like the beginning of a really good Criminal Minds episode.

Hidden was interesting. The prose reminded me a little of Ellen Hopkins’ Crank series. I really enjoyed the writing style and the story- girl is accidentally kidnapped when a man steals her mother’s car.

My 9th grade students are reading Pictures of Hollis Woods right now. Many of them are enjoying it. I find it to be fairly boring, but it’s a quick read and a simple, sweet story about a girl in the throes of foster care.

I Am Malala is rough. I am enjoying it thoroughly. She doesn’t show weakness, ever. She is a rock for her family and for all of the Pakistani girls she’s chosen to represent. It is an inspiring read.

I am only a few pages into Wintergirls. I have very little to say about it at this point, BUT it’s Laurie Halse Anderson. I can’t imagine not loving it.

Let me know if you’ve read any of these- or if you have a recommendation for me, I’d LOVE to hear it!

 

 

The kind of person I want to be…

I want to be the kind of teacher who writes every day- the kind of teacher whose writing gets better all the time. I want to be an inspiration for my students. I’d love to have a classroom of writers. I tell them all the time that if they read, they’ll become better readers. The same is true for writing, but I’d sound like a hypocrite telling them that.

I DON’T WRITE, why should they?

I was recently invited by a former writing teacher to take part in a #writingchallenge. The challenge will take place the whole month of March. I’ll need to write every day, post to a forum, and comment on other participants’ posts. I’m a writing teacher. This should be a simple task for me to complete.

We’ll see.

This past year, I finally decided to make an Instagram account. I am frightfully behind the times, I know. This Instagram account is mostly pictures of my greyhound and artistic (ha!) pictures of cups of hot coffee.

HOWEVER, I am also using the account for good. I have a few students who follow me (I refuse to follow current students; I’ll follow them as soon as they leave my classroom at the end of the year). I have begun posting pictures of books I’m reading, always including #whatareyoureading. Because I am cool. I also, occasionally include a VERY short review or teaser or tag a certain student who I think will particularly enjoy the book.

I said all that to say I am passionate about being the type of person I would want for an English teacher.

-slightly dorky
-well-read/written (is that even a thing? Whatever, you know what I mean.)
-occasionally relevant
-always learning

So, I have the reading thing down. It’s time to step up my writing game. Keep me accountable. Let’s hope this sticks.