So I don't blame them for being so restless right now (the end of the 3rd week out of 4 weeks). It's been really hard to keep them interested. The first week all I had to do was open up my mouth and say anything, and they would think it was fascinating. Well, I think my novelty has worn off. But that's okay.
They were sick of writing haiku and poetry in general, which I understand, so this week I brought in Beatles songs and sheets of the lyrics so we could study them (kind of like poetry, right?). They love this. The lyrics are simple enough for them to understand, except for a word here and there, the tunes are catchy, and they all seem to find something to identify with. They particularly love "Hey Jude." This afternoon they each present individually what they wrote about their favorite Beatles songs. I taught them some good words, phrases, and sentence constructions that will help them write about music, and what I've seen so far is pretty impressive. One girl who chose the song "Blackbird" wanted me to help her talk about it's hopefulness...
The idea for this came when I asked them to write suggestions for me for a new class project. They almost all wrote, "Do American pop songs." I couldn't quite stomach the idea of doing new pop songs, but old ones I can do.
I even drew a submarine on the white board when we did "Yellow Submarine" because I guess it's not a standard English vocabulary word students learn. Wasn't quite this fancy, but it did the trick.
Another thing that surprised me about this new project is that they love to sing out loud in class. So after reading the lyrics first, we all ended up singing every song together, which was incredibly fun. Another one of the glow-y teacher moments that you can't plan for, predict, or exactly explain afterward.
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