First of all, I hate logging into this thing. I think I actually have to type in my email address instead of my username. Oh well.

Today in class we studied the song "Santeria" by Sublime and tried to connect themes from the song to our reading of Othello. As I started the day I really had no clue how the class would react to studying a song because it seems they hadn't had a chance to do anything like this all year long (and maybe ever in their lives). Before listening to the song the class read through the lyrics individually. I noticed that at least three different times, students asked if they were actually going to get to listen to the song. I have a bunch of different takes on that. Some students were probably excited to get to listen to music in class, but I'm sure others were just glad they didn't have to read any Shakespeare for once.
We went over some essential vocabulary words before listening to the song, and one student who has been particularly challenging in terms of classroom behavior was able to make probably his first academic contribution to the class. "Santeria" uses some Spanish words like "sancho" and "heina," and this student, Ethan, was able to define these for the class. I was hoping that one of my students would be able to help the class understand what these terms meant, so when Ethan raised his hand saying he knew those words I was so excited.
The first two weeks he was extremely disruptive in class. Last week after a class we had a short talk at lunch about classroom conduct. His dad had left a note with counseling to have his teachers contact him, so I also talked to his dad on the phone the night before our short conference. This third week though he has shown some behavioral improvement. (I'd drop the "extremely" and just call him disruptive now.) Generally the class listens to him, so it felt great to have him making a helpful contribution to the class. He seemed to stay on point throughout the rest of the song. I knew coming in he'd enjoy the lines in the song with the most attitude, for example, "Daddy's got a new .45," or "Believe me when I say that I got something for his punk ass." This was my first major success with Ethan.
In terms of the work he produces and his performance on quizzes, I wish there was some kind of success to talk about. He's bombed the first few vocab quizzes and didn't do too well on the first Othello quiz. Early in the semester he wrote that his goal was to pass the class. When I talked to him about that goal earlier in the week, he pretty much told me, "Well it's just a goal. It doesn't mean I have to do it." He failed last semester, and he's off to a really slow start this grading period. I'm struggling to find ways to get him to care about completing assignments, though I am relieved his behavior has been improving. He seems to have a decent understanding of Iago's character, though I'm not sure how much of the play he's actually read. I'm going to try to have the students do some persona-writing this coming week. Hopefully he'll respond to pretending to think and write like Iago.