Syllabus woes

I am now in the midst of creating a syllabus for my two literature classes. I should know exactly what to do but I don't. I have no idea what I want to teach in one of my classes. None of my students were required to do any summer reading so I'm making the assumption that most of them have not. Most 9th grade literature teachers use Romeo and Juliet which I love but I'd like to challenge them with something more interesting. Perhaps a revenge tragedy? I have to think about it. I've been wanting to teach Titus Andronicus for a while now but only because I think that blood and gore would make the students interested in Sir Will.

What to do, what to do?

Ewww...

I saw my new classroom yesterday and boy was it gross. I decided to take a look see and I was able to do a little measuring. I also wanted to visualize what I could do with the space. Too bad the last teacher left it looking as if a bomb had gone off! Wow, it was horrible. I just hope it didn't look like that when the students were in there. Does anyone have a carpet cleaner that I could borrow? We have one but Mr. M would die if I used it on that mess of a carpet!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

Happy Father's Day Mr. M and dads everywhere!!!

Colleges of Education

Vent alert...You know, it really gets my dander up when I hear people talk about how schools of education are worthless. IMO this only gives credit to those who see teachers as mere babysitters and anything but professionals. As a Secondary English Education major, I had to take the same amount of content courses as regular English majors plus the required Education courses. There was no room for any electives in my program.

Alternative certification is fine but please stop discrediting those of us who have gone through the normal route for teacher certification. My education classes as well as the many content courses I had to take have indeed prepared me for the classroom and I take offense when people generalize that this is not the case. Student teaching is not a perfect science but it is better than being "thrown to the wolves." We all want the best for our children. Stop griping and do something positive.