...spelling tests

I teach ninth grade. Ninth graders are supposed to know how to spell, right? Wrong! My students are always surprised when I announce at the beginning of the year that we will have weekly spelling tests. I tell them,"You all are bomb at texting and Iming but I'm not even going to lie, you suck at spelling." So I give standardized words for the first few weeks until they have written a few things in class. Then I start giving words I notice are misspelled a lot and I take a few from a list of most commonly misspelled words. I make a list of 100 words and then use the same 100 words all year long. The goal is that by the end of the year they are experts at those 100 words. Mostly, it's words like receive, beginning, receipt, sandwich. Words they have probably already had but now can't spell to save their lives. I totally do the elementary thing too and have a chart where they can get stars for spelling tests. And since I don't want to leave out the kids who don't test well, they can rewrite the words they miss 10 times correctly and they get the point. So every kid has a chance to get a gold star. And gold stars are like, well, gold. You wouldn't think ninth graders would get so excited about stickers but they go crazy for them. And I never use candy, only cheap little toys. Candy turns nice, sweet children into little greedy, piggy monsters. So I use cheap little toys like sticky spiders and little cans of play doh. And it works! They go nuts for toys. Well, so do I so I understand. I would rather have a spiffy little dollar toy than a sucker any day. Anyway, the point of this is that I give the spelling tests on Fridays and after the test, we correct the last week's test. So this last Friday, I am spelling the last week's words and I have learned that when I spell the words, I need to say each letter very slowly or I will be asked ten times to repeat it. So I am saying each letter in a steady, slow rhythm like so, "Cemetary. C------E------M-----E------T------A------R--------Y." And the kids say, "Ms. H you sound like a robot. Say it with enthusiasm, like when you read to us." So I start saying it with enthusiasm and they tell me I sound like the guy on Price is Right. But at least it made them laught. I always do voices when I read and I tell you what, there is never one kid asleep during the reading. It works. What can I say. And I preface the voices too. Example, "Now Elpenor, the wimpy sailor is going to give Ulysses a prophecy, so he sounds like this..." and then proceed in a wimpy-ish voice.

I decided long ago that junior high is pretty much a miserable experience for everyone. It was for me. Nothing will change that. So if I can make them laugh or at least make the experience more bearable then I'm doing ok. Plus, I just really do love teaching. I hate my class sizes and I hate my pay cuts and the overbearing parents and the little "itchy butt" students, as hedgetoad calls them, and the grading and the messes but overall, I got a pretty good gig going on.