They like me, they really like me

I've been working with my drama class the past few days. . . milling and seething, text lay-ups, etc. It's been a ton of fun, and the students have pretty much embraced everything we've done. But today was, I think, my favorite teaching day ever.

Remember how we did the monologue for Antony and Cleopatra with Sandy? I did that exercise with my kids today using a monologue from JC (O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth). We read through it a couple of times and had them emphasize words they thought were important. They they each chose the word that meant the most to them and we went around the circle and they just said that word. Then they said the word with an action. (I think we did this with Michael?). The final time we went around the circle they just did the movement, but they had to be totally comitted to that movement.

It was amazing to see the different actions as they flowed around the circle. When it was done, nobody said anything for a moment, then one of the students sort of sighed, "that was cool" and they all grinned at each other. A student I've had before looked at me and said, "You know you turned into a really good teacher this year."

Thank you, thank you, thank you all for turning me into a "really good teacher" this summer!

-Mel