Post-vacation blues

I'm titling my post that because I asked a sighing student today if she had them, and she looked at me like I was speaking a different language. I said it three times and it never registered what I was saying. I think it was the prefix "post-"; she knew what I was saying after I said "after vacation blues."

With the silly leadup, though, I'm not having the post-vacation blues. Today was a good day. I had pretty strict reading schedules with both the 9th graders (A Lesson Before Dying and the 12th graders (Song of Solomon), and the three unexpected snow days to end 2009 required an adjustment. I expected the 12th graders to still have the reading completed, but formulated a "group essay" assignment for them that required them to review what they have read and discuss and articulate some of the main themes of the text. The quiz will be tomorrow. I expected most of the 9th graders would have little of the reading done that was scheduled for their holiday break, and adjusted accordingly with some analytical review questions that would help both the ones who read and the ones who didn't.

The 9th grade essays they wrote before break have been the bane of my existence throughout my break, and I still haven't finished them. I started off by giving a lot of feedback, and feel like I must continue at that pace in order to make everyone's feedback even. But the amount of work that is is just unbelievable. The fact that this assignment is only one of many both them and the 12th graders have done -- all of which are stacked around my classroom and my office at home -- is overwhelming. I also have to write a midterm in the next few days, plus, seemingly, to create lesson plans for every day for both classes. The 9th graders aren't as difficult -- I've taught A Lesson Before Dying for, I believe, nearly ten straight years. I concentrate on different things every year depending on the needs of my students, but a lot of what I do is fairly similar from year to year. For the 12th graders, though, and learning the new curriculum, this year remains a challenge to figure out how to make everything work for them and for me.

It was nice to get back up and at them today, though. The kids were in a good mood to return and so was I.