teaching in 18 days

i visited with my department head yesterday, and found out some really good news.

*i will have a LOT of freedom in choosing what i teach. she told me that i can basically do/bring in whatever i want, as long as i use good judgment. this is a huge relief because i was afraid there would be some long approval process that involved me groveling before the school board and making pacts with satan. i also am happy they aren't doing scope and sequence like so many districts do. i like the idea of deciding what i teach and when i teach it, thank you very much.

*the things i am required to teach are good literature. our first novel will be animal farm and then i have to cover macbeth and antigone at some point. but actually, those are just kind of polite suggestions. i love it.

*our literature textbook is actually more than decent. we've got some tolstoy, octavio paz, americo paredes, katherine ann porter, confucius, david diop, jamaica kincaid, william carlos williams, alexandar pushkin, rabindranath tagore, edgar allen poe, chinua achebe, franz kafka....and the list goes on. lots of poetry my friends. there will be about 120 10th graders who are in touch with their inner selves running around plainview.

*my department head and i agree on the way i should teach grammar and vocabulary. it will be incorporated into my lessons every single day and we'll be having weekly quizzes. anyone who thinks this new teacher will be a pushover is gravely mistaken. :)

*i don't have to be at school until 8 (classes start at 8:30). this is absolutely fabulous news considering i thought it was going to be an hour earlier. so now i'll be getting up at 6 instead of 5. perhaps some of my sanity will remain in tact.

*i'm only required to stay until 4 everyday. although i'm sure i'll stay later most of the time, it's nice to know i can bail early if it's been a really long day.

*my room is on the hall where most of the fights happen. doesn't make much sense to me since i'm right next to the main office, but whatever. oh, and this doesn't really qualify as good news at all, but maybe it'll keep passing periods interesting.

so now the planning begins. i'm considering having my kids buy maybe 2-3 books for the year so that i can do at least part of my ideal curriculum. if that worked out, i'd be in new teacher heaven.

oh and one request, i'm not quite sure how this will work since most of the people who read this live at least 400 miles away from me....but, if you have any old books or magazines you'd like to donate to my classroom library, i'd love you forever. i'll take all genres, as long as they're appropriate for high school kids. i'll be down in college station 3 times this semester, so i could arrange to pick things up sometime then. anyhow, if you can help then please get in touch with me. that is all for now.