We’re up through chapter 9 of The Giver. And I think I have most of them buying in pretty well. The ones that haven’t read it before (dagnabbit, you dagnab 6th grade teachers who “steal” books), are actually asking questions and not just trying to sneak spoilers into the discussion, so that means I turned them on to something new. The ones that haven’t read it are suitably weirded out and eager to find out more. Since it’s a short “week” (we get Wednesday off too), we didn’t have our usual spelling or academic words pretest today, there’s barely any homework to explain or whine about, and no pink sheet to preview. “Is there a test this week?” “It’s tomorrow, and it’s worth double.” “What?” “C’mon, (to quote Steve in “Monsters are Due on Maple Street”) would someone think a thought around here? What would the test be on? We have the usual reading quiz on the two chapters you’re reading tonight, but that’s about it.” So we had time for a little MadLib action. I like using MadLibs for parts-of-speech review. I like to tell the kids that one of the reasons we work on PoS so much is
Middle school teaching: Five shows a day, 180 days a year.
That reminds me of those great SNL skits about the Sofa King. You know, how the prices are "Sofa King" low, the deals are "Sofa King" great, etc. (You obviously have to say those phrases out loud to get the joke.)