Helloでございます *

Takeo Seiryo J.H.S.
is a junior high school for the smarties.

In Japan, Junior High Schools are grades 7-9, which I think is a very good division. The little 7th graders can be tiny (but sooo cute!), but they are old enough to be curious about adulthood, and having eighth and ninth graders around are good role models. So many seventh graders look up to their sempai, or elder classmates, and the 9th graders are all very busy with entrance exams, exit exams, in the middle exams, and I-don't-even-know-why-they-have-them exams.

I have 480 students: 40 students per class, 4 classes per grade, and 3 grades.

All of my students are very motivated, and while they were rather terrified of be at first, now I'm being greeted as I walk down the hallways. The 7th graders (called 1st graders, because they are first year middle school) are always the noisiest, the 8th graders (second years) are becoming quieter, and the 9th graders are rather studious. 3rd year English classes are divided into three parts-- four lower ranking classes and two higher ranking classes. Each class has around 25 students.




These are poems from a fun class I did with my lower-level third-year students-- it was before tests and the teacher didn't want to do anything to stressful... so poetry!!! :D

One of my team-teachers had a poetry worksheet, and I created a supplement worksheet with 5 of my poems and two haiku I found from the internet. My worksheet looked something like this:


Ms. Mary's Haiku

Alone in the cold
the blue chrysanthemum clings
to the craggy ledge

rain softens shadows
with a gentle purr, waiting
outside my window.

The shell twists back on
itself, coming round again
and again and again.


Mary's 1234-1 Poems

Travel
... very far
Making new friends
Leaving old ones behind.
Me

Biscuits
and tea,
reading a book
on a rainy Sunday:
Bliss.




Then the students wrote their own 1-2-3-4-1 poems, using mine as models.

I really enjoyed reading all of them! But, instead of giving you the 90 or so poems I had to read, I'll give you my top 20 favorites. :)



morning
a street
died some cicadas
silent inform end summer
lonely

tennis
very interesting
hit! hit! hit!
and run! run! run!

rainbows
many colors
very big bridge
people become very happy
Peace.

April
school start
come new students
studying talking playing loving
youth

Food
I’m loving
Meat cake maruboro
Everything is beautiful
HAPPY

kendo
origin war
I play kendo
It’s afraid and interesting
Try!

Art
use pencil
And paper ext…
Best need soft idea
Interesting

Animals—on the print

Tennis
very interesting
serve receive stroke
on a sunny Sunday
exciting

Japan
our country
beautiful green safe
it is very small
forever

Friends
I’m happy
I love them
talking, playing, crying, laughing
youth

A full moon
with a dark night
shining beautifully over the horizon
very beautiful

sports
playing basketball
run, cried, laughed
we practiced very hard
happy


* * *


Sometimes, the students didn’t write much, if at all. So, I wrote them poetry on their empty pages.

Empty.
This page
makes me wonder,
where are all the
words?

“School,”
she wrote,
but then she
drew a picture. No
English.

“Dream,”
he wrote,
but then said
nothing. It was rather
sad.

“Spring,”
she was
going to write
something—but had no
time.

To a poem that had

School
very funny

written on it, I replied:

This
poem was
started, but it
was never finished. So
sad.


*The title of this blog post was a quote from one of my students. でございます (de gozaimasu) is a politeness modifier. Golly, I love English/Japanese mixes.