English Class Moments of Awesomeness for May 8-12, 2006

As in the past, these appear in no particular order.

This is an all English I edition of ECMOA. Enjoy!

And remember, new moments are coming soon. . .

It's Romeo & Juliet time! Sharing Shakespeare's plays with the Froshies is definitely a high point of the job. Especially when the class treads the dangerous waters where I pray that the students don't pick up on the really inappropriate and dirty jokes that good ol' Billy has sprinkled throughout his works and heaven forbid, ask me to explain what they mean. Usually we slide right along without a hitch. However, there is always one that makes the students laugh every single time. In Act I Scene i, there is a bit where the two families are gearing up for a big street fight and daddy Capulet says to his wife, "What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!" Of course the kiddos all snicker because it sounds like Cap is calling his wife a 'ho. This is where I have to explain every single year that he means quickly, or now, or right away, not whore.

This year during 6th period, I made my own error at this point in the play. . . kind of. The student reading Capulet's part read his line and the girl who was reading Lady Capulet's part (who has the next line) was kind of spacing out. A student sitting directly to my right asks me at this interval, "What kind of ho are they talking about?" Just as he is asking this question, I'm half listening to him and looking at my list of who has which part. Not really hearing what he has just said, I say the girl's name to get her to read her part, except that it sounds like I'm answering his question. As in "Girls Name" is the kind of ho they are talking about. The student who asked the question starts cracking up while I cringe at the implication. I apologize and clarify. I'm just glad that this particular student is a pretty good sport. All in all, it was pretty funny and pretty awesome.

Quotes for the week:

"If I knew sign language, it would eliminate a lot of confusion."
Student on not understanding what his classmates sign to each other during class.

There was a big water spill on the first floor of the building in which I teach, and the custodian crew had shampooed the carpets in the hallway. It hadn't dried all the way, so it smelled like wet dog for most of the day. By the end of the day, my room smelled pretty funky.

Student 1: "It smells like moldy feet and hot butt."
Student 2: "How do you know what that smells like, you freak?!"

Continuing the the R&J theme:

"Who's Mercutio? It that the one with the M?"
Apparently, this student thought that everyone had been saying "Recutio" all this time.

"If it's dumb, I will hate you until the end of time."
A student's response to me explaining that the entire class would be learning the dance from the 1960s Romeo & Juliet movie that we were watching. Here's the kicker--and a test to see if any of my English I students read my dorky blog--I said it as a joke. I'm totally pulling their chains. I told them to ask my students from last year, and they took that as an affirmation that they would indeed have to learn the weird jingling wrist-bell dance from the movie. I love it! The scary thing is, however, that some of the students were a little bit excited about it. Wha???

Incredibly awesome. Have a good week!