Last week was a wreck. I wanted the students to figure out how to write a paragraph by using math: Title+Author+Controlling Idea+Literary Device=Sentence 1. That didn’t really work out so this time I gave them a sample paragraph with the code underneath:

In passage I, To My Dear and Loving Husband, a poem by Anne Bradstreet, Bradstreet conveys the idea that marriage is an everlasting bond between two lovers that survives long after death.

OR

Passage#+TITLE+GENRE+AUTHOR+CONTROLLING IDEA

The point is to use the example to help you write your sentence for an essay about a completely different “controlling idea, title, genre and author.”

Yay, my students (two sections of four) had no clue what I was talking about. Even when I tried walking them through, well look at the example and replace it with YOUR title, YOUR genre, YOUR author, YOUR controlling idea.

Does this make sense? No, no, it does not. I should be able to give them a sample paragraph and ask them to write a paragraph in the same way about a different topic without having my head explode but my head has in fact exploded.

Can I just take the Regents for all of them? Can someone just hold me? I haven’t even eaten lunch. I barely made it out of bed alive. I have PMS.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!