MadLibs

“You may lie.” (Also: MadLib)

November 24, 2009
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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

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I just read a webnews headline that read: “Twitter is the New CNN.” Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket? If Mr. Coward were to “tweet” his way through a typical day period (which is about as likely as, oh let’s see, Hell freezing over is too cliche, how about…Bill Gates going broke.) 8:21- the homies r screaming since vp said hand over your heart 4 the pledge – oh the pain! I left the door open: some poor late kid in the hall looks alarmed 8:22- I gotta put a switch on the speaker: more drivel from some underprepared kid talking 2 close 2 the mic…sounds like the bus station back in the day 8:26- blue slip. since it doesn’t say NOW, I set it next 2 the Popple…probly forget it later 8:30- finally!! “share” time is over and we can start – don’t remind me that I told Vero she could share first tomorrow about something she will have forgotten by then if we’re lucky 8:32- checking vocab hw, 1/4 not holding…”why is my grade so low?” it ain’t rocket science people 8:38- correcting warm up…let one of them try to write on the shmartboard …you [...]

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Mr. Coward has been teaching on the beautiful central coast of California since 1989.

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