English Class Moments of Awesomeness for the week of April 17-21, 2006

These still appear in no particular order, but you probably knew that already.

Creative Writing

"Or naming them after months, like Spring."

They had a journal entry prompt which discussed names that you should never name children. The student realized his mistake, but the pause between his comment and the class laughing was perfect, and of course awesome.

The following quote originates from a journal entry asking what one piece of memorabilia would they want if they had an unlimited amount of money. One student--a boy I might add--wanted to buy somebody's (I don't remember who) two-million dollar diamond-encrusted dress just because it would be cool to have. A girl in the class was asking him what on earth he would do with such a thing, and he said he just thought it would be cool to have a two-million dollar diamond-encrusted dress hanging in the closet. The girl kept asking why, to which he replied with finger pointing at the girl for emphasis:

"Could you say that you have a two-million dollar diamond-encrusted dress in your closet? That's what I thought."

Reading/Writing II

There were quite a few related to Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum." We read the short story and talked about how it compares with modern day tales of horror. Nobody dies in Pit, and there's barely any blood. Nowadays, you have to have a minimum body count of 10 to make it worth the eight bucks you pay to see the darn thing. (So I am told.) One student pointed out how Poe's story was smarter because it made you think about how much it would suck to wait for days to die.

The same student's summary of a modern horror movie:

"I'm going to chop your head off, and everything's going to be alright."

We also watched a movie loosely, loosely based on Poe's story. It was made in 1961 and stars Vincent Price. It's one of those movies where it's so bad that it's good. Well, to me anyway. My students may have had a slightly different opinion.

"The story was better than the movie, and that's saying a lot coming from me."

"She's just dehydrated."
- Referring to a corpse that had just been exhumed.

"If I was a ghost, I'd be all Marco."
- Referring to the spirit of Elizabeth calling out Nicholas' name.

"Oh look at that guy makin' out with the corpse. That's hot."
- You should really just see the movie.

English I

We read John Steinbeck's The Pearl in English I which is about a guy who finds a pearl and believes that it will drastically improve his life and the future for his infant son.

One moment of awesomeness is when two students began to make a really good comparison between the main character in The Pearl and Anakin Skywalker in Episodes I-III of the Star Wars movies. Both the changes that the characters go through and the reasons for the changes are quite similar, and I was proud of them.

The second is a quote from a student who was proclaiming her distaste of the Star Wars movies.

"When he's all 'Luke, I am your father,' I was like, how stupid is that."

In my other English I class, they made the connection between the pearl in novel and the ring in Lord of the Rings which is also a good comparison. The truly awesome thing is that both 5th and 6th periods made the suggestion that we watch all three movies (Star Wars for 5th and Lord of the Rings for 6th) in order to obtain a better understanding of the novel. If only they knew...