Two day week! Woo hoo. The timing worked out better this year, and I finished The Giver last week (no Jeopardy, though), so I have two days for “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.” Perfect. For these two days, we’re going to work on listening skills. Today, we didn’t even use paper. Even seventh graders appreciate the irony of a whole period IN ENGLISH, without writing. I always start this play by discussing a few things: 1. What makes people afraid. We start with death (and spiders) and come around to the idea that it’s really the unknown that most people fear. “If someone came back from the dead, and said, ‘Hey, it’s pretty cool floating around on a cloud, riffing on your harp all day,’ I don’t think anybody would be afraid of death. ” 2. What fear does to you. It makes you dumb, especially when you’re in a group. We talk about Franklin Roosevelt’s famous line about nothing to fear but fear itself, and after a quick summary of the Great Depression (it’s convenient, if painful, that we’re reliving certain aspects of that currently; this year’s bunch seemed to grasp the ideas better), I ask them,
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.)