It's 8 a.m. and I'm Off. A New Semester, a New Course, a Service-Learning Opportunity, and Tapping My 4th-Grade Self (Bowl Cut and All)

I asked mom to find a photo of my 4th grade self and she sent me this beauty, which I think is 5th grade, but maybe not. Definitely have the awkward hair, big-crooked teeth, and 80s clothing, and I spent most of yesterday trying to remember what it was like to be in 4th grade. Why? Because my students and I have a special arrangement with a 4th grade classroom in Bridgeport this semester and throughout the next fifteen weeks we are going to be applying what we learn in collaboration with what they're learning in 4th grade.

Of course, I have Kwame Alexander and James Patterson to thank. They debuted Becoming Muhammad Ali last year, and I knew I'd find a way to put it in one of my courses. It turns out the book is semi-perfect for the curriculum being offered at the school, especially with a focus of non-fiction and poetry in the months to come. Yes, Becoming Muhammad Ali is fiction, but it's based on truth. These writers do their homework and that is the point. My goal is to model ways to expand literacy 3rd-5th, while they set out to design their own reading and writing projects for their partners. I think one of my first tasks is to get all the 4th graders to make fun of my elementary school picture. Well, not in a cruel way, but a guessing what life was like before cell phones, flat-screen television sets, and the Internet.

I have vivid memories from 3rd and 5th grade, but struggled more with the specifics of 4th. I do remember there were two grade-level teams, and one spent the year planning and going to Boston, while the other (mine) spent the year working towards a trip to Cooperstown, New York, to the Little League Hall of Fame and a pioneer village of sorts. I remember reading How to Eat Fried Worms and making myself sick imagining that this is something Peter Boy, Bobby, Mike M., Jimmy and I would do. Yuck. Still makes me sick to think about it. I think we also read Judy Blume's Super Fudge. I need to revisit that, though.

4th grade was a time of Atari, skake-boarding, riding bikes, and playing baseball. Seems like most of our time was at the Cicero Little League fields, where my dad coached, I played baseball, and Casey began her softball career. I remember all the swampiness of those fields (it was Cicero, after all). Perhaps this is the year I tried to slide into 2nd base but made that decision half-way from 1st, so had to crawl on my hands and knees the rest of the way. That's Crandall, for you.

It's a 6:30 a.m. wake-up call this morning, so I got coffee in my blood before the students arrive in an hour or so. It's always fun to teach a new course, because I'm on my toes with curiosity about what will and won't work.

I also have to get my gimmicks out, because something has to keep us awake. My graduate courses are always well into the evenings, so this graduate course (designed for seniors about to enter their 5th-year Masters) is going to test my grogginess, indeed.

And we're off!!!