Stories from the Front Lines

These are some of the email anecdotes I have gotten from two teachers who are using TLS in their classroom. 

From Perth, Australia:

* Three students chose to stay in at lunchtime to ensure they got their homework
done for next lesson! NEVER happened before.

*I have students visiting me before school to clarify or go over homework that is
due so they can make sure they have done it right

* Students are giving me homework BEYOND what I have asked for...I threw a
creative question in for Wendigo. What happened when Sam and Dean were kids to
make the Winchester boys hate camping so much? I asked for two paragraph
response, I've had kids hand me a three page short story!

*Class discussion evoked strong responses but one kid whom I have always had
grave concerns about attention wise; after I asked the question why do you think
Dean has a fear of flying (apart from the element of humour injected into the
episode) and he immediately stuck his hand up and said "It's because he's not in
control Miss, Dean hates not being in control." I was beaming from ear to ear,
this is real engagement and thinking about characterisation and what motivates
our fears.

From Daleville, AL

*One class went all out creating a Class Hunter's Journal and designed it on the computer and is really detailed with keeping up with it. My honors kids have already gotten impatient and said they were just going to start writing their own episodes, so I got to talk about the fan fiction a little earlier than planned, and I'm going to let them start that for some extra credit now before I assign everyone a fan fiction assignment. So, my two weeks have been a little crazy, but successful. My principal even came in and watched part of the pilot episode with us and then said to me later that he thinks this is going to be a good thing.

*Oh! Also, my kids were picking out allusions that you didn't have listed and I didn't even catch either. It's awesome!

*My honors kids are super amazing. They've even been making Facebook posts to discuss journal topics that they didn't have enough time to talk about in class. We just wrapped up our 1st 9 weeks and everyone save one student did well in that class.

All of these stories sound like lots of my experiences so far and I am so thrilled it's working.  We are all waiting for the "real" proof, but it is so much fun to come to a class each day where the kids are excited to learn and I so believe they are!