Making Teaching Fun: Music, Money, and “Ass”

My first class of the day is usually asleep pretty much all period, some days. But I’m working on making mornings more exciting for them–and for me, when it comes right down to it.

And I’ve had glimmers of hopeful improvement.

“This is now my favorite class,” a boy exclaimed a few weeks ago after I used Gym Class Heroes’ Stereo Hearts music video to teach about metaphors. “I love that song!”

“You’re my favorite teacher,” another student told me this week. “You called my mom and said nice things about me, and she was so happy she gave me $30.”

(“You owe me half,” I said; “Yeah, right,” she said.)

“I love this class, now,” yet another said just yesterday. We were reading Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona and to preempt giggles I had decided to replicate a note-taking activity I’d used a couple years ago when I taught The Wind in the Willows.

Before reading the play’s second act, I told students to write “Vocabulary” at the top of a blank sheet of paper.

“Then,” I said, “write this down. It must take up at least half of your page.” I wrote on the board: “ASS.”

Trying not to smile at my students’ snorting, I explained that while we know multiple definitions for the word, Shakespeare’s “ass” in this play probably meant “stupid, foolish, or stubborn person.”

“Write that definition down, below the word,” I said.

As they snickered and wrote, I moseyed around the room, and stopped at the desk of the best-behaved student in the classroom.

“J– L–!” I feigned shock. “What is this bad language you are writing on your paper! You should be ashamed!”

In my second class, when a student wrote @$$ instead, I said, “R–! You. Are. Cheating!” (She quietly made corrections.)

Another student, one who thanks me after each class and makes a point of stopping at the end of every day to say, “Have a good evening,” pulled me aside. “When we’re reading the play, if it’s our character who says…that word, what should we say? Should we improvise?”

“You’ll be okay,” I told him, and in fact none of my students had to say “ass” at all, because whenever relevant lines neared, I edged over to my computer and clicked dictionary.com’s audio for the word. Sometimes, for effect, I clicked it lots of times.

I was a bit worried that my excessive enjoyment of the whole ordeal would net a less-than-desirable response from disturbed parents, but so far I’ve received just this email, music to my ears: “Loved your AS_ exercise you did with the class yesterday. We all hooted with laughter when she recounted it. :)”

Money.