Teach Writing Right

I have a fifteen-minute "advisory period" every morning, where my 8th graders are supposed to organize themselves for the day before they head off to their first period.  Our principal has--more or less--admitted that "advisory period" is in place to make sure our students who are regularly late to school don't miss any content in their real first period, which I think is a ridiculous reason to have this period.

But...I'm going to make lemonade with this lemon of an idea.  I am gong to be giving my 8th graders an "interesting word of the day" during this block of time, and then challenge them to use the word of the day with their other teachers over the course of the school day.

Friday, we celebrated the mythological story of Sisyphus, and I introduced them to the word Sisyphean.  They found the Mr. Stick sketch of Sisyphus so amusing that I decided to move him over to my "Metaphor of the Week" white board for Monday.  Here is next week's "Metaphor of the Week!" based on Friday's "Interesting Word of the Day!"  Enjoy!