Editing Passages from Education World

Below is a link to Education World's "Every-Day Edits" activities page. Once you get there, choose a month and then choose from the various editing passages that are available. The link is also available in the "Links of Note" section on the Cordero Herald's sidebar.

Link: Editing Passages

Short Verse Edition

Love in the Air
(About a Fallen Slipper)

If what I speak of is the air, do I then speak of nothing?

But please do listen with some care. I speak to you of one so fair
whose tenderness can still the air (by merely doing nothing).

Is that a frown upon her face that rips my soul asunder?
And have I fallen from her grace to perish for a blunder?

My life's love bears my life's hate within her breast... and torments her with every breath
but finds relief just as a spark of hope released ignites the dark.

The twinkle in my eyes does fade like embers of a waning fire...my heartbeat slows... my soul retires...
but she revives me with her gaze...and with her smile...and with her wave
to her sweet scent I am a slave, I contemplate and wonder...
how good the air must be up there where angels brush their golden hair
where cupid's arrow isn't fair--when it's spell you are under.
My lovely lady to you I say:
If your honey tongue but would impart...
a salutation in the dark...it would be day within my heart.

-- Ikenna Agbim


haiku

Today, birds dance high
As I the lake circled by;
Yesterday, they cried.

--Raj Badrinauth

Paradoxes

Plain for all to see,
puzzle and perplex me.

Searching, looking, questioning—why?
Only to have reason defied.

Paradoxes abounding mightily
Remind me of life’s countless mysteries
And how truly little we know
from up above and below.

--Raj Badrinauth

Young

If you believe you are
Always going to get older forever,
Then you are always young.

--Jose L. Torres & Ms. Bond

Why Can’t We Be Friends?

Why do you laugh and taunt me?
Why do you seem to sneer?
Why does your heart hate me?
Why do you despise me near?
Why do you make them laugh at me?
Why do you make me cry?
How come you never smile at me?
Why would you want me to die?
How come you can’t be friends with me?
Why should I be your target, when you formulate a lie?
What did I ever do to you?
What did I ever say?
How will I ever forget my agony all throughout the day?

My family loves me for who I am, they fill my heart with joy.
My friends, they like my company, the even share their toys.
I know that I am different, but is that all that you see?
I have so many qualities that me me so unique.
So forget the questions that I asked, for I need not your response.
For if you were to be my friend you’d surely feel remorse.

--S. Cineus

What’s a coach to do?

When I was young, I played baseball and my coach would tell me, “Swing level, Alex!”
Then when I played football, my coach told me, “wrap’em up when you tackle, Alex!”
Each of these coaches helped me improve my game.
I have a new coach now.
This coach advises me about how and when to use controversial topics
such as “stative verbs,” he gives me ample resources so I can amend my rookie perils.
My new coach is hard on his players when he has to be
and gives them uplifting encouragement when morale is down.
As much as my baseball and football coaches tried to assist me in pubescent athletic endeavors,
there suggestions don’t resonate within my daily thoughts now days.
The astute pearls of wisdom bestowed upon me by my present coach
have led me to success and happiness.
Under the tutelage of my present coach, my delivery is much better.
I have more confidence when I am at the plate, and my follow-through is strong and level.
And when I fall to the side I know my coach is going to be right there,
to tell me how to tighten up my game.

--anonymous

Curricular Circus

Now it is Knowledge Core
For students to soar!
What happened to S.F.A.,
can you say?
Balanced literacy: A dream?
So it would seem!
Teaching science gives me faith,
for 302 faculty is great!
Reach the “core”, we must!
Let us dig deep past the crust!

--C. Drepaul

Untitled

Certain of little else than failure
He wanders on hoping to find
Moments that bring light into his dim
cavern
Life is the lesson to learn
Ever kept in his mind
Memories of the good the great and
better
Days now turn to nights
He is stalked by shadows
Dark castings of the past promised to
trail
Behind until alas he has freed his mind
Of those thoughts which anchor him
To the seas whipping waves
Until he frees himself from the cage
By his mind he is enslaved

--Adam J. Lee

Nobody Ever Brings Me Joy

Nobody ever brings me joy the way you do.
And I can never spend the rest of my life without you.
The things you do ever since you came into my life:
You made my heart complete.
I didn’t know love was so sweet.
Look what you’ve done to my life:
You made it complete.
When you love somebody you can share anything,
Because you understand and you’ll be right there--
Anytime, anyplace.
When you love someone
You could be all they need.
And if they cry, you will be right by their side
Until they get everything right.
I thank you for bringing me
Joy into my life.

--Sabija Mallison

Sleep

middle of the night
can’t sleep
can’t sleep.
drive to the beach
windows down
freezing air
leave the car running
emptiness
dead of night
stand naked on the car hood
feet burning
hands freezing
hours and hours before sunset
put a cigarette out on my arm
not a sound
wind and rain
freezing cold
waves crashing
headlights off, car off
dark clouds
lightning
walking naked on freezing wet sand
sand in my hair
rain in my eyes

--Jeffrey Mintz

Y Nunca Era

El sol nacio
gritando y llorando
y nunca era

--Jeffrey Mintz

Solitary

S l o w l y
So you could see it
Falling

Drip
drip
drip
Silent-ly
To not disturb you
Yet trying to move
Your conscience a bit.

N e a t l y
To not disrupt the flow
Yet sloppily filling the void of

Emptiness.

Do you see that sometimes all that is needed
Is a hug?

--Reyna Reid

N/A?
You wouldn’t know
The in betweens of love and hate
Like a blizzard of snow
You are blinded from fate.
Your superstitious soul is trapped
And the doors have just been locked.
So what will you do?
Surrender to them
Demolish the earth with everyone you hold dear
Will you look the other way?
Smile at the passing of death
Hoping that it will not stop for you,
Well at least not for today.
Will you carry the flag?
Drink from the cup of life?
Will you be you?
Or would you just be another face in the crowd?

--Reyna Reid

So Much

I want you to know so much
that you can’t tell all my secrets
if you speak until the end of time.

--Huuti Scutt

Teachers are the Sculptors of Young Lives

Teachers are the sculptors of young lives.
How fortunate our child was shaped by you!
A year in your class taught him how to study,
No longer lost in thoughts that he finds new,
Knowing now the paths each thought derives.

Your love and strong solicitude embody
Other virtues our child has tried on, too.
Under your good guidance hope survives.

--Yinhuan Wang

Thank You for Being Such a Good Friend

Thank you for being such a good friend.
How you put up with me I’ll never know:
An awfully big heart and a fuse that is slow?
Nothing I broke was too shattered to mend.
Kids know good teachers by the stars in their eyes.
You had those stars by the dozens and more.
Open your heart and you open a door.
Under your love are my free, clear blue skies.

--Yinhuan Wang

Thank You for Opening a Door for Me

Thank you for opening a door for me,
Having the desire to share your joy.
A teacher gives much more than thought and skill,
Nor is her heart the least she might employ,
Knowing well the rules of ecstasy.

You are yourself the lesson we deploy,
Owning all the passion of your will,
Unraveling in ourselves your mystery.

--Yinhuan Wang

Genre of the Month Writing Assessment Summary

Click the link below to download the Word document. The link will take you to a separate download page.


Link: Genre of the Month Writing Assessment Summary

Kaplan Practice Test Data Sheet

This file has data sheets for all three grades. Look at the tabs at the bottom of the page to choose your grade. Click the link and download the file from the resulting page.

Download Kaplan Practice Test Data Sheet

"Some Things I Learned from Mr. Glover, Part 1" by H. Scutt

Work Eight Periods a Day

The first time Ms. Peña told me I should volunteer for coverages, I nearly laughed in her face. For three years, coverages had been the bane of my existence. I dreaded the ten minutes of homeroom; any second could bring one of Ms. Peña’s minions with a yellow rectangle of paper, like Blind Pew delivering the black spot in Treasure Island. The idea that I would voluntarily submit to a daily time-bomb was, at first, laughable to me. “It’s better to work straight through the day,” Ms. Peña explained. “You stay in the zone and time goes faster. Plus, it’s good money.” Like a child, however, merely hearing the truth was not enough. Seeing is believing, and I couldn’t believe Ms. Peña when she told me. But when I thought about it, it occurred to me that I had seen the truth for three years. The truth in action was Mr. Glover—the dean who was always a dean and never asked for rest.

For me, teaching started out as a series of five performances a day. Between shows, I would try to catch my breath backstage or hastily rebuild the set for my next act. A coverage was like doing improve comedy before a crowd that expects the philharmonic orchestra. Yes, a teacher should be able to put on a good show, but there’s a reason actors only take the stage once a night.

They called James Brown the hardest working man in show business because he would do more shows in a year than a year has days. They called him the Godfather of Soul because that’s what he was. He must have known the same thing that Ms. Peña told me and Mr. Glover demonstrated: Be who you are all day long.


You Have to Care Enough to Know Enough

I started teaching knowing very little about how to teach. I am constantly embarrassed by new teachers who begin their first day with talents and knowledge that it took me years to approximate. The only advantage to my own slow evolution is that I have become intimately reacquainted with ignorance. The experience of ignorance has nothing to do with how smart you are, how old you are, or even how wise you are. Ignorance is nothing more than the experience of not knowing, and we all know what that feels like. Ignorance is also the necessary state of any student, and it is what proves we have something to teach them.

All people, even teachers, must make some sort of compromise with ignorance. Knowing only that we know nothing, we specialize in something in the hope of doing at least one thing well. We accept the fact that we may never know as much as we want to know about Sanskrit or arc welding or geometric proofs. In exchange, we focus on sweeping ignorance from a small patch of solid ground where we can plant the seeds of pride and confidence.

Mr. Glover often says, “You have to care enough to know enough.” I certainly didn’t know enough when I started teaching. And if I know enough about anything now, it’s because I listened to Mr. Glover. First of all, he’s very particular about phrasing. I once misquoted him as saying, “You have to care enough to know.” I did not recognize the significance of that second “enough” until he corrected me. Knowledge is always a truce with ignorance, a line between the limited-known and the infinite-unknown. In this situation, we can never know more than enough. Enough for what? Well, enough to do what we came to do, which is teach students.
I would never be so insolent as to claim that I care for students more than any other teacher. I care plenty about my own pride, though, and vanity alone was reason enough to get better at a job I did not do very well at first. But vanity is its own kind of ignorance, and eventually it was no longer enough to inspire progress. For me, that was when Mr. Glover’s aphorism became the most important.

You have to care enough to know enough. This statement isn’t about pride or vanity or even tenderness. It is an epistemological axiom—an assertion about the nature of knowledge and ignorance. To seek more than a platitude in Mr. Glover’s words is to discover a source of professional empowerment. Our daily encounters with the unknown can always be put into this perspective: How bad do you want to know? Do you care enough to know enough? Whether we answer yes or no, Glover’s rubric returns the power to decide to the teacher.

The true philosophical depth of Mr. Glover’s credo should be a matter of continuous examination, not just the topic of my bottled summary. Nevertheless, it represents one of the things I wish I’d known when I started teaching, and I will forever appreciate having learned it at all.

Download: Slosson Data Spreadsheet

Below is a link to a Slosson data spreadsheet that may be useful in tracking the results of your testing. Click on the link and then choose "Click here to start download" from the resulting web page.

Slosson Data Spreadsheet

"Shoeshine" by Adam J. Lee

Sometimes I feel like a motherless chile,
Sometimes I feel like a motherless chile,
Sometimes I feel like a motherless chile,
A long ways from home,
A long ways from home.

That ole spiritual be playing boy, but don’t nobody be listening. Well except for Shoeshine, that be your daddy. He never did get on well with being away when he was little. The things people just don’t forget. Mama sent him up to Philly when he was about a year or so to stay with our Aunt Beatrice. With the thirteen of us and the livestock to tend to, Mama didn’t have the time or energy to nurse him up like she had with the rest of us. Anyway, where was I……….oh his name. If I recall correctly he got the name cause he used to walk up and down Beckerville Road over in Robersonville trying to make a few. Little brother was determined to get his self some new shoes. We ain’t had but two, three pair ‘mongst the six of us fellas so he went around shining shoes for about a dime a shine. He came back one afternoon, sandy and salty just grinning, with more of that polish on him than in the jar. Had a few coins to show for it though. Picture your daddy with all that polish black as tar on his face and his arms. Your Uncle Clarence and me had to wash him up before anyone took notice. Took some heated water, one of Mama’s dishrags, the nice one with the canary yellow ribbons sewn in and a whole lot of sweat to get gone. It would have been his tail if momma ever found out what happened to her fine cloth. That’s what happens when you trying to be grown up, sometimes you end up looking a fool. Being a fool ain’t stop him from becoming a man. Yes sir, at eighteen he join up in the United States Army, Airborne division. Hear he’s been doing big things up in New York since he came home from Germany. He was stationed at Fort Hamilton Army Base, believe that’s where he met your mother. Must be proud of your daddy, the way he taking care of you, putting you boys through college. Must be proud. Must be.

Next stop Croton-Harmon!

My head bobbed from left to right in search of a balancing point between my shoulders as I attempted to orient myself. Horns, crying out to trembling drums with a repeated dance across the piano keys, had hastened my eyes to rest. Somewhere between Grand Central and 125th Street I had drifted to sleep on the wave of Coltrane’s Naima playing through my earphones. Hues of red and green fluorescent lights, and silhouettes of brown and tan structures passing outside the silt covered windows all faded to reddish grey. The faces, tired and weary from the commute and scattered about the burgundy and blue weathered leather-clad seats in the car, fixed on me. In that moment it was clear that either I had drooled, snored or done some other disturbing thing to gain this much attention. I wiped my face and there was no sign of saliva, moist or dry, and I’m not the snoring type, so what’s the deal with everyone staring? On the edge between concern and bursting with a what the hell are you staring at, I recalled something my mom said longtime ago. “Every time someone looks at you, it doesn’t mean it’s because something is wrong with you, it might just be because my baby boy is handsome” or in this case because while Coltrane was looping in my ears my cell phone was screaming for attention. Missed Call the screen read. I didn’t know who it was that called, but it was enough to draw my attention to the time and date blinking on the phone’s LCD.

Damn! Five minutes until father’s day……is over. I stared for a moment into the grey silt-covered window that reflected my image. In it I saw a hardheaded man with locks for hair and on his mind. I braved my own stubbornness and dialed home. As the phone rang, I searched for words. Hey, dad Happy Father’s Day, you’re the best, I love you. No, that wouldn’t be the truth. They don’t make Hallmark cards for the father’s day that I have had everyday. What would I say to a man that I didn’t have much to share with except pain? It rang and rang some more, then a froggy voice answered, “Hello?” It was my mom. Hey, is dad up? I, ah. “Hold on.” An even raspier voice approached the phone. “Hello, son.” Dad, um how’s it going, I just wanted to wish you a happy father’s day while there were some minutes left in the day. “Thank you son.” How are you holding up? “Doing alright, how bout yourself?” I’m okay. “You know I, I quit that thing, yeah I quit that thing.” His voice faded and Coltrane starting playing again, and something came over me. I began to tremble, and my eyes were wells overflowing with ground water lying deep below the surface for years. My well had dried up from years on torment.

You know your daddy was all right in school, wasn’t quite straight A, but close enough. As a matter of fact, he played football over there at, ah, E.J. Hayes over in Williamson, too. The same school where that coach, Boone think his name was, came over to work with the team, but that wasn’t ‘til some years later. He could of played in college or something, your daddy played wide receiver. Should of seen him move. Lightning, pure lightning. Always could run, whether it was from or toward some kind of something.

There I was in a pool of salty water, and just then nothing mattered. Not the fact that I was in public surrounded by strangers, not that I was showing, I mean nothing. As he passed the phone back to my mom, I was eager to find out more detail about how long he had been sober and how life had changed for him, for her. Mom, I just got the news, why didn’t you tell me? Dad just told me that he’s clean. She was silent. Oh my God, it’s been a long time coming. Silent. What does this mean, I mean, wow, it’s crazy, right? Silent still. Right? Almost inaudible, “Son, I hate to burst your bubble but…” But what? “Your father was up to his usual tonight, nothing’s changed, I’m sorry.” Words escaped my lips in a gasp, goodnight mom. I…I crumbled.

Stuff, keep your head up, God made us to weather the storms of life. It’s a test of faith you know. I am not going to have my grandson moping around, you hear me. I want you to realize that we love you, God love’s you and there is not anything in this world that is impossible for him to help you through. I’m not going to sit here and tell you the road is easy, cause it’s certainly not. But what I do want you to know is that everything we go through is preparation. We are being readied for his mission. Now I want you to go out there and make something of yourself. Don’t let your father and whatever else keep you down. And I know, that I know, that I know God will see you through. What he’s done for others he’ll do the same if not more for you. I’m a witness to his goodness, grace and mercy.

The well dried up and my cheeks had quickly become an expanse of drought-ridden land. I envisioned a train wreck; you know, a head-on collision due to some signal error. I was prepared at that moment. There wasn’t much else that could hurt worse than the unhealed wounds I had. It’s a funny thing because life wasn’t all bad growing up, there were some all right moments between my dad and me. The relationship we had was about as distant as his side of the family from New York. Our communication with them was limited at best. Mostly it was awkward long distance calls after school. You know, I’d come home from school and my father would be laughing and coughing, both at the same time while on the phone with somebody southern. I could tell because the country would come out in his voice. “Listen here, my boy just come in now talktohimnow.” Then he’d call me over. “Son somebody wants to talk to you, it’s your Aunt… your cousin… your uncle.” Always someone I was likely never to see until that reunion came around that we could somehow with two cars in the family never manage to make it down to. Shoot it was only in Greenville, NC. They’d always ask, “When you gonna come down and see us?” I’d always answered with the general, “soon” that I had become accustomed to responding. I knew that soon meant near never, but it satisfied their query. It wasn’t until after I graduated high school that we finally made the trip down. Mom rented a car, because my father was making excuses as to why the cars couldn’t be driven, and we drove down with my little sister, NeeNee. We took turns at the wheel on the trip there, and when the trees along the highway faded into strokes of Bob Ross’ brush, I knew that I’d get some history, some idea of where my father came from. After twelve hours, three stops on the road and getting turned around once, we arrived to smiling faces and open arms. It had been my entire life since anyone on my father’s side had seen me, at least outside of childhood photos that my mom would occasionally send down.

It wasn’t long before I was sitting down in the backyard with my Uncle June at the reunion talking about the way things were back in the days, long before my parents met, long before my siblings and I were a thought. Uncle June was a thin man, about five foot five with the seventy-two years of living etched into his face. His smile was one that revealed few teeth, and his health was failing. The only thing that kept him going was family. That’s exactly what I was lacking in my life. It was obvious how much that it meant to him and everyone I met that weekend.

Begging the Question, Choking the Question and Opening the Question

In the best possible English class, the students ask all of the questions. Teachers are so accustomed to asking the important questions that it is easy to overlook this fact, if not reject it out of hand. Obviously, in order to figure out what students know, we have to ask them about it. Perhaps, but let’s remember the kinds of questions we ask as teachers, namely, questions we already know the answer to. Because if we don’t know the answer, how can we possibly tell if the students got it right?

They say that a good lawyer never asks a question to which she doesn’t already know the answer. The same is true of Socrates himself, and characterizes his method. And far be it of me to discount law and philosophy, because there is certainly much that the English teacher can learn from jurists and goatishly ugly philosophers. Nevertheless, we should keep in mind why lawyers and philosophers ask the questions they ask, and then consider when their purposes apply to the English classroom.
In the end, a good lawyer and Socrates both have a similar reason for asking the questions they ask. That purpose is to ensnare their interlocutors in an inescapable web of truth. Answer by answer, the witness plays into the hands of the lawyer, until the lawyer’s conclusion is proven in the witness’s words. Socrates was much the same, ruthlessly sharpening his point against his opponent’s dull answers. However, neither Socrates nor a lawyer asks questions in order to teach something to the person answering them.

A lawyer, after all, is not asking a question in the sense of inquiring about something she does not know. And Socrates would never let his predestined train of thought be derailed by an iota of uncertainty. But questions that are not really questions are dialogue—lines in a script—and both questions and answers are just part of the scene. In the lawyer’s case, the performance is entirely staged for the jury. A lawyer would no more ask the witness a real question than Shakespeare would let some boy in a dress ad-lib Juliet. As for Socrates, he performed for Plato a long time ago and it’s been a hit in the history of philosophy ever since. So to the extent that a two-period ELA block is a ninety-minute performance, we have a lot to learn from the Socratic method of mock-questioning.

But it is also fair to note that lawyers are trying to get convictions or acquittals, and Socrates was interested in eternal verities. These are noble aims in any classroom, but even truth is not the primary mission of Language Arts. What is our mission? I wish I already knew the answer to that question. I will, however, hazard a guess:

We should be teaching students how to ask us the kinds of questions we are asking them. The exact same question is entirely different when it comes from a student. One difference is that when a student asks a question, it’s a real question about something they honestly want to learn. Also, in the end, it provides a better assessment of what our students have actually learned. It is possible to get so good at posing leading questions that students just follow the trail of breadcrumbs into the teacher’s trap. Following a trail of crumbs, however, shows no critical thought and minimal content knowledge. But asking good questions about a text? That’s a demonstration of critical perspective and academic knowledge, and it is the best proof of a good English education.

If you already know the answer, the purpose of asking a question cannot be to get an answer. The purpose of such questions is to help students become questing intellects themselves. Literacy is citizenship, and literature is dead, so every question must be turned on its head.

--H. Scutt