So I'm crusing along. First period smooth as silk, second period a bit hectic at first but I rein them in by threatening to give them homework on the weekend. Typically I don't, but at the beginning of class I said "every time you get on my nerves today I'ma write some letters on the board under the Homework sign. If I get the complete sentence finished you will have homework this weekend. A LOT of homework." The interrupted me and I wrote "Write 3." They interrupted me again, and I wrote "pages." Then the self-policing started, the students shushing each other, saying "Shut up!" when others talked or goofed off. I wrote "about how disap." Panic! Gasps! And absolute quiet for ten minutes. Another little outburst, and I wrote "pointed I am in this." And that's as far as we got. The funny thing was, the kids doing the shushing, the kids freaking out most, were the ones who never do their homework anyhow. I don't get why they were so worried about me assigning homework over the weekend. Kids are weird.
Last period was a hard slog for 20 minutes. The same trick worked on them, however, and they were angels for the next hour, taking turns reading, paying attention as I showed them a brief constructed response on the LCD projector, and finally doing their own work individually. Noodles asked if she could erase my board for me, and I said yes. 20 seconds later I heard a loud noise and the entire chalkboard had fallen off the wall. I leapt up and caught it just as it started to tilt out toward several students. Poor Noodles got her wrist bent but she seemed OK. We sent her to the nurse and I filled out an incident report, just in case. I would like to find the dumb ass who attached a heavy slate chalkboard to the wall with glue!
Once the board fell, the students were "off the wall" as well. I couldn't get them back. Thankfully it was near the end of the class anyway.
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