Hello, teaching friends...sometimes we educators are simply swallowed by a tsunami of deadlines. In March, it was the end of our grading period, I was enrolled in a two-credit night class, and our students all presented their final projects (in the evening to panels of community judges), and those three things stole every free moment that I had to work on any of my websites.
So...I was and am behind; however, I have no grading to do this weekend, and I am catching up starting with this post!
Here are the last three weeks' worth of "winning" metaphors that my students submitted into my classroom's "Metaphor of the Week" contest. My students write them and submit them, we choose a winner, and then my great student aide (Matt) illustrates them. It's turned into a fine process and is a new way to offer legitimate extra credit points to students who are taking ideas we've discussed to an extra place. I have a lot of students writing about the weekly metaphors in their writer's notebooks, I have also noticed.
So three weeks ago, the "Metaphor of the Week" prize went to seventh grader Ian. I pointed out to the class that this really wasn't a a true metaphor, but I liked the statement's positive sentiment, and I like the implied metaphor about life having storms that we weather. Thanks to Ian; I hope he inspires some of our kids to head out into the spring rains in April and dance their hearts out!
Two weeks ago, another seventh grade boy--Jared--submitted the following metaphor, which I felt was an appropriate one to end our unit on Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.
And finally, last week, Nate became my first sixth grader to submit a "winning" metaphor to this classroom process. Although it's supposed to be "Mr. Stick's Metaphor of the Week," I allowed Matt (my aide) to go a little-less-stick and more-Seuss-ian with the accompanying drawing. If that unique creature doesn't remind you of a Star-belly Sneetch, then you obviously don't know that book!
After this week, we have our Spring Break. I have a challenge on my Edmodo classroom site right now to create a spring-themed metaphor for this upcoming week. I am betting that the next metaphor I'll be posting will be somehow spring-inspired.
Expect more posts this weekend! I have a lot of student samples "back-logged" and two new lessons to post.
--Corbett
