Today I have a kid in class for the second time this year. I barely recognize her. I consider this a victory even though I had nothing to do with it. I have comp & lit kids borrowing: Slut, Bitch, Cutting, and a book about coming out. They are all rather sophisticated books on interesting topics despite the names. 🙂 They are doing an amazing job of reading. My kids are now keeping reading logs and their reading rate has gone up significantly. They are *reading* for 20 minutes a day without complaint or falling asleep. (Ok, once in a while someone dozes a bit, but they are usually sick or under a lot of stress.)

This is successful. I’m amazed. 🙂 I have more classroom participation than my mentor teacher can believe. She taught this class for 9 years and she is flat out shocked at how well my kids are doing. That feels so good.