Two for Two

Today was a successful day in terms of student quotes. There are two stories in particular that made me laugh & I'd like to share them.

Thank you, Martin Luther King (aka, MLK)
YG is my mentee. We were chatting for awhile in my room today & I asked her what her plans were for this weekend. I reminded her, "It's a long weekend. There's no school on Monday, thanks to MLK." She replied, "Oh, I don't know what I'm gonna do, BUT when I told my mom we didn't have school on Monday, she didn't believe me. She asked me why & I told her it was Milk Day."

I died laughing. Don't worry, I used it as a teachable moment (after I laughed) & she now realizes that MLK are the initials of the extremely influential black man in history who she has seen, heard, & learned about SEVERAL times before. She gets how it all relates now. :)

Superheroes in Labor
In 6th grade ELA today, we were discussing a Green Lantern poster in the room (seen left). We pointed out that the animators use colors to represent certain emotions or qualities found in each character. Near the end of the explanation, one student raised his hand & asked, "Does it still hurt superheroes if they have babies? Or do they not feel the pain?" I had to clarify to my co-teacher that the student was referring to childbirth. My co-teacher had the wisdom to say, "That's a good question..." Was it? Was it even on topic? No. But nonetheless, good question.

Eleven Knees???

One of our spelling words this week was "allusion."

Before their test today, we reviewed each word's meaning. An allusion is "a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, a place, event, literary work, myth, or work of art, either directly or by implication."

I gave the class an example. "FN has Hercules-like strength." When I asked the class for an example of an allusion, AZ said, "Ms. Schwarzlose is pretty like Shakira." (I can't complain about that compliment, can I?)

When I said, "Well, thank you. Shakira is half Lebanese too, actually," one student yelled out, "WHAT? SHE HAVE ELEVEN KNEES?? She can bend her leg in all kinds of directions!!"

Ahh, the joy of working with ESL students. :) Today was also a culture lesson on how people from Lebanon are called "Lebanese" and how subject/verb agreement is very important! She HAS eleven knees. ;)

Place of sadness

Yesterday was the first day back for the students after Christmas break.

First period, my ESL students came to my classroom for advisory & we were reviewing their new schedules for this semester.

AL (Brazilian kid - ie, drama king) was looking over his schedule & he couldn't stop talking about how miserable he was going to be this semester because he didn't want to have these classes. I, of course, was laughing because I can never take him seriously.

Near the end of advisory, I asked all the students as a class, "Ok, so is everyone comfortable & they know where they are going today?"

AL dropped his head & replied rather dismally, "To a place of sadness."

:)