I vow to never raise my voice because what’s the point? When have you ever listened to a person who was yelling at you? When has anyone ever been inspired by or attracted to a yelling person? “Oh hey, that person is yelling, we should all listen and take into consideration whatever it is he’s saying,” said nobody, EVER. So, one of my rules that I will stick to, above all else, is that I will not raise my voice. If student chatter becomes too loud, or if they need to stop talking altogether, then I will ask once, and then one more time. If students do not quiet down after the 2nd request, then I will start handing out referrals. I refuse to raise my voice, but I’m not going to set aside time to ask them for silence more than twice. I’ve realized after working with middle schoolers that they were taught how to come to attention in 6th grade, and they know better than to challenge a teacher’s request. I plan to lay that law down on the first day of classes, and I do not mind making an example of anyone who challenges me. I’m committed to this because I’ve never liked people who yell, and I think it makes teachers look like they don’t have control when they have to yell. I think giving a warning is fair, but students will only get one warning. The next time I have to quiet them down outside of the first two requests, they will be referred.
Monthly Archives: April 2017
Knees to Stand On
This was the final short story I wrote during my senior seminar for Creative Writing. It reflects some of my greatest strengths I acquired through the Creative Writing program at Georgia State University.
A teacher asked the class to creatively present what we learned during the semester of our first Practicum. Here’s a prose/poetry piece I wrote.
City by the Sidewalk
I was prompted to reflect in some artistic way what “urban” means to me. “City By the Sidewalk” is what I came up with. I developed a writing exercise out of this short story.
City By the Sidewalk
Paint a scene from an odd perspective. You can describe anything, but do so from a perspective you wouldn’t normally choose, one that makes you uncomfortable. This exercise forces you to broaden your perspective and to describe things in a way that is foreign to you. Below is an original of mine (wrote this in McGrail’s class). I decided to describe an urban city from its reflection in a pothole:
“The lights from the street lamps, from the line of brick shacks, lights from the high-rise buildings look up at us from the puddled potholes in the street. There’s a layer of oil in the pothole puddle and you can see the bottom of your foot’s multicolored reflection. You learn to keep your head down on certain streets, and eventually you remember the places in the sidewalk where there is no more sidewalk or where it’s all caved in. You’ll sometimes wonder what could have possibly happened to make the sidewalk completely bashed in right there. Sometimes you’ll zoom in and focus on these cracks and crevices or try to step over them and a body will jump out at you. Well, the body doesn’t actually jump out at you, but you’ll be walking like a zombie looking at cracks in the sidewalk and then BAM there’s a body…a person…a freaking human being…sleeping in between the side of a building and a dumpster.”
“City By the Side Walk” By Chelsey Cashwell
Research
Gender Roles
Flash Fiction and Narrative Technique
Teaching Philosophy and Resume
University Supervisor Evaluation (final)
MT Evaluation (Final)
