Sacre vert! It's that time of year again!

[luddite lady]

A few of you may be interested in knowing that tomorrow I'll be unleashing my Drapeau vert unit on this year's unsuspecting crop of grade eight students. Actually, a handful of them knew this was coming. They're the kids who were in the grade seven half of a 7/8 split class last year. Poor souls.
I'm in the process of rewriting the final chapter to include all the MSG goodness. And no, it won't be as long as my mid-life crisis story! It's only grade 8 and not a freakin' post-graduate course!
As part of tomorrow's wardrobe, I plan to wear a green shirt and the flag necklace that English lion made me. That way I'll be just like Ms. Frizzle, every geeky teacher's idol.

[English-lion]

cooooool glad to be of assistance

One thing I noticed with the necklace is that it flips to the back I have no idea why?

[luddite lady]

[quote="English-lion"]8) cooooool glad to be of assistance

One thing I noticed with the necklace is that it flips to the back I have no idea why?[/quote]

Knowing flaggy, the things flipping over to cop a peek down our shirts!

[Maud138]

Have fun, LL and do share some fun with us

[kimmy]

WOW!! was that a year ago already?!


Oooh yes let us know how you get on...... We LOVE to hear about the kids!!

Kimmy

[Madgrad]

[quote="English-lion"]8) cooooool glad to be of assistance

One thing I noticed with the necklace is that it flips to the back I have no idea why?[/quote]

Slap a little Scotch tape on it mebbe? (I noticed the same thing, but I just flip it back over.

Have fun, LL! We'll be interested in hearing what this year's crop thinks!

[smudge]

Ah Madame, s'il vous plait, racontez encore l'histoire du drapeau vert!

Here's the original :
http://www.stewartcopeland.net/forum/vi ... ht=drapeau

Educational magic.

Tu rock, LL.

[IndyGirl]

Have fun with the lesson plan, LL. Let us know how it goes.

[DirtyMartini]

Haha. Formidable.

Be sure to let us know how it goes this year, llady. Looking forward to reading the MSG chapter.

[English-lion]

*bump* how did it go

[luddite lady]

Thanks for asking, everyone. Things have been going well in drapeau vert land. It's my real life out of school that has been way too busy lately.
My grade eight students have been subjected to Le Drapeau vert for a whole week now. We've only read part one when I introduce The Police and the concept of the flag. It seems to be going slow, but we've accomplished a lot. I've used those two and a bit pages to review the passé composé with avoir and teach the passé composé with être. Now, if only Stewart had named his song Mrs. Vandertramp instead of Miss Gradenko! (Sorry for the very inside French language learner joke.)

Enough of the grammar geekiness...My students have said a few amusing things over the last week. When I began the unit I promised the kids who already learned it last year that there would be a few surprises to keep it interesting and that we'd still play the board game at the end. Immediately, two kids started arguing good humouredly about how the other had cheated last year. Talk about holding a grudge. The game might get pretty ugly this year.

When I began by asking general questions about The Police, I was surprised that many of the "new", uncorrupted students were answering correctly. I asked how they knew so much and five or six of them told me they had watched the Spectacle episode. Then a "new" kid said, "That drummer guy must have been on drugs that day or something. He was so hyper. Like, relax, dude!" Another then said, "Yeah, it looked like Sting wanted to kill him." I assured them that Sting always looks that way and I admitted that Stewart can be a bit excitable. A third kid piped in, "Andy looked bored and kind of like he wished he didn't know the other two." If we have time at the end, I might let the class watch the show on DVD.
The students' copies of the story include black and white photos this year. On their own initiative, most of the kids have already diligently coloured over the pictures of the flag using green marker. That just cracked me up.
The music during seat work has been a pretty big hit too. We've been working our way through Reggata.

[luddite lady]

I'm the one who created the test, administered it and corrected it. Nonetheless, it still makes me laugh almost aloud to see a French reading comprehension quiz with such answers as Kellie, Stewart Copeland, and "Il y a seulement un drapeau" (There is only one flag.) Funnier still is that almost everybody in the class got between 80 and 100 per cent on the quiz.
We've reached the part in the story when Nancy gives me the ticket for the wonderful seat and Kate enthuses about seeing a concert with our "amies internationales". The kids thought that Nancy's generosity was incredibly sweet, but they were sceptical about Kate's quote.
"Did this lady from London really speak to you in French?" one wanted to know. I explained that I had translated into French the spirit of the things Kate said to me before the concert. This didn't satisfy them, and they wanted a direct quote. The cleanest and most likely thing I could come up with on the spot was "This is going to be bloody brilliant!" The kids liked that and deemed Kate to be cool.
Later a student noticed that at one spot I had erroneously spelled Kellie's name with a '"y" at the end, and I got duely reemed out for it. My students have got your back, Kel.
Monday we are going to start the board game. If we get through our work quickly, we'll play about 10 minutes at the end of each class. The rush is on for us to get to the final chapter before graduation. And that last chapter is shaping up to be a long one. In any language it's difficult to briefly explain receiving a free concert ticket from a drum god, literally meeting a world of people at Fat Annie's, the grand finale concert complete with paper flags and the Flag's final enshrinement in Stewart's studio. And brevity has never been my long suit. (Yikes! Once the jokes get that awful it's time to call it a night!)

[DirtyMartini]

I'm the one who created the test, administered it and corrected it. Nonetheless, it still makes me laugh almost aloud to see a French reading comprehension quiz with such answers as Kellie, Stewart Copeland, and "Il y a seulement un drapeau" (There is only one flag.)

Imagine how that sounds from this end.

Later a student noticed that at one spot I had erroneously spelled Kellie's name with a '"y" at the end, and I got duely reemed out for it. My students have got your back, Kel.

HAHAHA. Good kids. Please send them my thanks. But Frenchly.

Glad to hear it's being received well yet again. Bizarre though it all may be.

[IndyGirl]

Nice! It sounds like everyone is enjoying the lesson plan.

[smudge]

[quote="luddite lady"]
We've reached the part in the story when Nancy gives me the ticket for the wonderful seat and Kate enthuses about seeing a concert with our "amies internationales". The kids thought that Nancy's generosity was incredibly sweet, but they were sceptical about Kate's quote.
"Did this lady from London really speak to you in French?" one wanted to know. I explained that I had translated into French the spirit of the things Kate said to me before the concert. This didn't satisfy them, and they wanted a direct quote. The cleanest and most likely thing I could come up with on the spot was "This is going to be bloody brilliant!" The kids liked that and deemed Kate to be cool.[/quote]

I just read this. Oh lordy. First up - they're right about Nancy. Secondly, the 'cleanest and most likely thing' you could come up with on the spot is - oddly - EXACTLY what dafttart would say in the circumstances. Because she is bloody brilliant. As are you.