2012-2013 school year: books relate to real life situations!

Hope everyone has a good Halloween!

2012-2013 school year: back to the book room

Another comic about the hellhole that is our department’s book room was drawn here back in 2009.

Here’s a close-up of the first panel:

2012-2013 school year: once upon a state mandated learning process dreary…

I think I’ll have a LOT more to say about the Common Core Standards Initiative but for now this’ll do.

I did a couple of Raven themed comics at the beginning of this comic, check ’em out.

tumblr

Still taking this week off from producing new work, but I thought I’d mention to everyone: I’ve been posting OLD comics on my Tumblr blog for the past few days. I’m talking… like 10 years old in most cases. Looking at how bad I used to me will give you a newfound appreciation for how good I am now, right? RIGHT?

Seriously though, I’m not trying to run myself down. The comics I’m posting over there are fun but they have next to nothing to do with teaching. Since this is ostensibly a blog about teacher comics during the school year, I didn’t want to muddy the waters.

You should check out what I’m posting over there though. I posted a Harry Potter comic today.

a confluence of events

…including but not limited to the end of the first quarter marking period, grading 9th graders’ sustained silent reading projects, an impromptu trip to Western New York, the oncoming Halloween holiday… and other events have lead me to decide that taking a week off from posting teaching comics would be a good idea.

Let’s all meet back here next Monday for some new stuff, OK? Thanks!

odds and ends: sustained silent reading cake

During the first quarter of school, I give the kids a very general sustained silent reading project. Students are asked to pick a book for leisure reading that they’ve never read before… a book they know they will enjoy.

They are then asked, over the course of a few weeks’ time, to produce “a work of art” relating to their book. I purposely make the guidelines general because I want to give students the freedom to interpret the word “art” to their own understanding.

In the years I’ve been doing this SSR project, I’ve received delicately shaded pencil drawings. I’ve graded GIGANTIC paintings. I’ve examined elaborate sculptures and dioramas. I thought I’d seen everything… but I’ve never had someone turn in a cake for a grade before this week.

One of my students read Witch and Wizard by James Patterson and decided to make this cake as his art. The cake is chocolate with purple frosting and orange highlights and the hand with the magical fireball is done in Rice Krispie Treats and covered with fondant.

Seriously, I love my job. I love that I did something to inspire a kid to do this. He’s been bragging about it all week and he could not have been more proud to show this off and serve it up to his classmates. I couldn’t have been more proud of him… and I told James Patterson so. Check it out:

2012-2013 school year: coming home is impossible

I’ve done a couple of comics on Homecoming before, but it’s a whole different ballgame comparing Freshman to Seniors. Freshman don’t really seem to care all that much. It’s a bit of fun to them. It’s serious business to 12th graders.

overheard in the halls: lotion doubleplusgood

I guess adults have been saying this about teenagers since 1948, but regardless… “smellgood lotion” was too amazing to pass up.

overheard in the halls: milf status

I’m the last person who can criticize another person’s parenting techniques… but really? Telling your teenage son you’re working on your “mother I’d like to f**k” status is probably not a good idea.

overheard in the halls: cheezits JACKED

“Overheard in the halls” was a series of comics I meant to pay more attention to a few summers ago. I will occasionally be lucky enough to accidentally eavesdrop on some of the funny/ridiculous things students say… and I thought that would be a rich vein to mine for these comics. For one reason or another, I never got around to doing a substantial amount of these (although there are a couple you can check out here).

I’m going to do a couple this week though! Stay tuned.