YAY, my day is coming.

                I am biting my nails waiting for October 10^th. This is the day that I will begin a Unit on figurative language. I have searched the vast world that we know as the internet, and found what I believe to be the best activity that my 8^th graders will complete. I grow more excited as everyday passes and the unit grows closer.

                I have gradually come to recognize ways that keep the students on task and activities that help my class retain information. With the student’s attention span in mind, I began my search for lessons, activities, and worksheets that I can provide to learn/relearn figurative language. It was during this search that I encountered the figurative language rap. For those of you who have never encountered this marvelous tool, I highly recommend looking it up. I plan to open my unit with a video of an 8^th grade class that recorded their own version of this rap and posted it on YouTube. I can tell this will interest my class because when my CT and I were reviewing it the class could not stop looking our direction while the music played. Also, while watching the video we could already see the classroom personalities that will shine during this activity.

                For the activity, I am planning to allow the students to record their own version of the rap. I have it in my plans that the whole class must pass the unit test with a B or better and then we will assign roles and perform a skit for the video. I also am going to send a permission slip home so that if the students want to post the video on YouTube, like the other class, we will be able to do so with parental consent. I am posting this as my blog in hopes to gather more resources or works that will be good to incorporate. I would also like to know if you can foresee any complications I may encounter giving such an assignment to 8^th graders. My class is fairly mature but I have this pit in my stomach saying that something is just going to go wrong. I am afraid that my excitement has grown so much that this activity is going to fail and not be as successful as my mind has created it to be. I am asking sincerely, PLEASE HELP. I need some reassurance to help re-boost my confidence before the beginning of my unit.