I have come for your liver

So....

Work's going all right, marvelously in fact. I'm teaching a writing class this year in addition to TAing a science class, and my girls are adorable. There are 8 of them, and at times they are remarkably ADD, while at times they are so focused I almost want to crack a joke just to rouse them from their silence. Today we did limericks, which weren't a blazing success, mostly because the rhyme scheme (AABBA) was a little difficult.... Friday was haikus, and the girls seemed to enjoy those a great deal. It's quite flattering how often their poems are about me, or at least someone named Holly. One of the limericks was along the lines of: "There once was a girl called Holly/She was always quite jolly/She liked to read lots/And eat tater tots/Her dad pushed her 'round in a dolly." Too true. After all, I helped her come up with the tater tots rhyme. Oh my god, I want tater tots now! *goes to raid fridge...*

I've been giving the girls writing prompts each day before having them work on their main stories, which I discovered keeps them a lot more focused than if I just say "write" - even if they're working on a story, they usually need a specific exercise to start off the class and get them into silent writing mode. Well, mostly silent. One of the most successful prompts I've been using is a little bit stolen from a halloween writing contest in which I once got a story published: "write a scary story using the following words: typewriter, curtains, rose, lipstick & pumpkin". I'll post more activities that go well as I figure out what the kids respond to. Mostly I've just realized that I need to keep them really busy so that they don't lose focus, even if that means only giving them 10 minutes of actual free writing a day - they get more done in that window of time than one would expect, especially when they're already into the groove.

7:00 - out of bed

8:00 - work starts

3:30 - head on home

4:00 onward - Law & Order CI/SVU

10:00 - go to sleep (secretly I'm like 90.... I need to eat mushy food, have my little schedule to adhere to, and get AT LEAST 9 hours of sleep)

posted by Holly @ 6:04 PM