Language Arts 2.0

[Richard Stone]

Richard Stone walked into his classroom. His first class today was Language Arts and he had an interesting lesson planned out. Walking over to his desk, he put his briefcase on the desk and took out some photocopied sheets from the case and then pushed it under the desk so that it was out of the way.

After stacking the papers neatly on the top of his desk, he then selected a dry-erase marker and walked over to the whiteboard. With the blue pen, he wrote New Year, New Ideas across the top of the board. He then capped the pen and walked back to his desk. He knew that some of the students would wonder what he was thinking when they saw that there had been nothing written on the board about that day's lesson, but he'd write down some things later. To start off with, they didn't need to be distracted by anything written on the board.

Pulling one of the sheets closer to himself, he read through it to make sure that nothing had been missed out. Putting it back, he looked at another sheet of paper and read through the lesson plan. He knew that some of them might think that the lesson was a little on the juvenile side, but he hoped that they would enjoy it nonetheless.

[Miranda Florin]

Miranda scrubbed her hands in the equine clinic's feed room, then dried them and grabbed her backpack before making her way towards the academic buildings. Fingal had been coming along in leaps and bounds, and she had started introducing him to a halter, although she hadn't gotten to the point where he would let it onto his head yet. She knew that she would get there in the end, though, and she wasn't going to give up him.

Walking into the language arts classroom, Miranda grinned at Mr. Stone, then sat down in the front row, dropping her backpack down next to her. She looked up at the board, reading the four words that had been written on them, and trying to figure out what that meant for the day's lesson. The simple phrase didn't really give her any idea of what they would be doing, but she didn't doubt that she would learn about what they were doing before too long. Pulling out her notebook for the class, along with a semi-sharp pencil, she settled back into her chair. Just to pass the time, she glanced at the pencil, running a finger across the notches that had come from it being stuck in her backpack for a while.

[Jayne Doe]

Jayne took her time walking from Blue House to the academic buildings. Unlike what seemed to be most of the student body, she didn't have to worry about the issues of early morning practise to use up all her time. Choir was a lunchtime thing and she had yet to introduce herself to the track coach.

She walked into the English classroom as though she owned the place, the way she entered every room. She surveyed the room, seeing only one other there currently. With a shrug, she walked up to the teacher's desk. "Good morning, Mr Stone." She said. "My name is Jayne Doe. I recently joined your esteemed school and have not yet had the privilege of being in your class." She gave him a self-assured smile before she found herself a table in the middle of the room.

Taking her binder out of her bag, along with her pencil case, she turned her attention to the whiteboard. She lifted a single eyebrow when she saw that there was nothing to give her a clue about that day's lesson written there. With a shrug, she opened the binder and took a pen out of the case and then sat there doodling on the first page as she waited for the class to start, already bored.

[Deleted]

Carlos glanced at himself in the mirror of his dorm and straightened the creases in the turtleneck shirt's collar, nodding to himself with a small, satisfied smile before grabbing his packed backpack and slipping quietly out the door. He ducked his head as the bitter cold hit him with enough force to shock his system momentarily and hastened towards the English Department, where his first class was.

Upon entering the building, he slowed slightly, knowing that he'd be early, and took a moment to revel in the warmth of the hallway. He slipped inside the classroom quietly, giving a shy smile to the instructor, Mr. Stone. The first class Carlos had had with the man had proven to be quite hard for him, as they had been given a book to read and he was, quite literally, foreign... But the teacher had made a huge impression on the teen when he'd been kind enough and understanding enough to provide Carlos with a copy of the text written in his native language. Of course, since than the teen had been practicing his english reading and speaking skills and had improved tremendously.

Carlos took a moment to look around at the desks and chose one in the mront, but to the side, near to the windows. He settled down and quietly set his backpack on the ground, rifling through it and finally pulling out a lead pencil and a notebook, which he placed on the desk before reading what little was written on the board. He raised an eyebrow, but chose to not comment.

[Richard Stone]

Richard returned Miranda's smile as his first student entered. His eyebrows went up when she was shortly followed by another student who walked straight up to his table, very forwardly introduced herself before walking off to a table. His eyebrows arched in slight amusement but he said nothing, as she hadn't given him the chance to. He gave Carlos a warm smile as the boy entered and took his seat.

Once the tardi bell sounded, Richard picked up the papers in front if him, stood up and moved his chair to the front centre of the room and straddled it as he smiled at the class as a whole (I'm writing this as though he has a full class not just three students). "Welcome back to Language Arts." He said with a warm smile. "As you would have noticed, there's nothing written on the board." He held the paper so that he could read what was on it. "All of those of you who are holding a pen, I want you to put it down." He grinned. "Now, I want everyone to sit on their hands, or at least tuck them under your legs." He waited while they did as asked. "Right, since you can't raise your hand, so-to-speak, you have permission to call out the answers to what I'm about to ask, which means yes, more than one person is bound to answer at a time." He paused for a another moment. "Right, let's get started. Have you any little white spots on your fingernails?" Pause "If your hands were flat in front of you, would the tip of your thumb reach your second knuckle on your index finger?" Another pause waiting for the students' response. "Which of your fingers have hair on the middle of the three parts?. Which is longer your-your index finger or your ring finger? Have you any freckles or moles on the backs of your hands? Where exactly? Which fingernail is shortest? Which is longest? When your index finger is stretched straight out, how many wrinkles are there in your middle knuckle?." He nodded once the students had quietened down. "Now, look at your hands as we go over the questions again and see how much of your own hands you could remember." He went through the questions again, commending those who had at got the most correct.

[Deleted]

Avery slumped rather pointedly in her desk. She was still feeling the bite of waking up early since this was her first class back from winter break. Giving her teacher the ghost of a look, she moved her arm like a zombie to pick up a pen. It took her a moment to read what was on the board and she nearly nodded in agree. New ideas, certainly; she’d just purchased a new horse or actually really, had gotten a new horse for a late Christmas present. Avery felt her smile grow a bit. She was bit distracted with the gain of Apoc, the brunette was very excited to start him out.

Her mind snapped back into the present as she heard Mr. Stone clear his voice and begin the lesson. She raised a brow slightly as the man asked them to sit on their hands, but did so willingly with the makings of a smile growing upon her face. It turned into confusion as the man spewed out a hundred and one questions about everyone’s hands. She stared back, a bit blank eyed and totally unsure what to answer with. How often did she inspect her hands? Other than washing them and stuff, she couldn’t remember all the details. Especially in the morning. 

Still she attempted. “Umm, no?” Her mother had once told her a long, long time ago it was when you had some sort of vitamin deficiency. To the second one, she said quickly “Yes.” as her fingers were long and lanky. Avery made a confused face at the third one. Hair? She wasn’t quite sure. She nodded at the next one, she had a few, very light freckles on the back of her hand. “I think close to the base of my wrist?” She gave up on the rest of them, but answered with a few she thought was right “Er, five?” She waited as he asked them to look at their hands now and see how many they got right. To her un-surprise, Avery realized she got one right; the one about the long thumb. This caused a smile to spread across her face.

[Ben Hall]

Ben sat attentive for his first English class to start, knowing that this would probably be his best class along with French. Language was sort of his thing, and he actually found it kind of interesting. The words on the board really couldn't be truer, but he didn't think of them too much. He'd been tapping his pen on the desk and hesitantly put it down when instructed. He wasn't fond of the idea of sitting in his hands, as he often fiddled with stuff and this would force him not to.

Once sitting on his hands, he just began to rock back and forth a bit, making up for the lack of movement in his hands. This class sounded as if it might get a bit loud, which was okay by him, but he was sort of interested in what others would have to say. As the questions started, he began to realize that he wouldn't have care about other peoples' answers, for which he was glad.

He answered "No" to the first two questions. To the question about the hair, he answered "...All?" and then stayed silent for the next one, having no clue. He gave a chuckle when teh question about the freckles was asked and he answered quickly, "Freckles, freckles everywhere." The next two stumped him, but he hesitantly answered "Four?" for the questions about the wrinkles.

When they went over the questions, he was glad that he had answered quite a few correctly, probably because of how much time he spent staring at his hands.