Last Period, Friday

Before you ask "How could you not know? How could you not know a whirligig was being constructed in the middle of your class?" I need to explain to you how I teach.  Perhaps you run your classroom the same way. First of all, I gather students in a circle around the round red coffee table to do a mini lesson.  I might simply talk with them, demonstrate my writing on a doc cam, read aloud to them, or lead a discussion. The mini lesson is 12 to 15 minutes long. Then students scatter off to tables to work on a reading or writing assignment related to the mini lesson or possibly work on an ongoing project.  I am either circulating table-to-table to check in with students or I might have a small group pulled aside to work on a skill. Or I might be editing a piece of writing that a student air dropped to me, immersed in my own computer screen. So it's not unusual that a group of students might be clustered together, presumably collaborating on the class assignment, and unless I see blood or hear a loud gaffaw, a chunk of time might go by before I connect with every single student.

The air vent in my room is an endless source of amusement so it's no wonder it called to them. It blasts cold air, whether its January or June, and at 11:10 am it blasts the scent of chicken nuggets and pizza from the lunchroom below. What is a wonder, however, is the whirligig itself. Its construction had no relation to the assignment of analyzing author's use of literary devices in 18th Century ballads.  It is made of simple loose leaf notebook paper, masking tape, and was precision-aligned to the flow from the air vents -- a gift left at the end of last period.