Embarrassing Teacher Moment: Puns

Okay. So we've all had them. Those cringeworthy moments that make our cheeks burn and our heads hang.

I thought I'd share some of mine just to let others know they are not alone.

This one happened when I was looking for a joke to use on a handout as an example of a pun. I found a site that had several to pick from. I simply chose one, copied and pasted, and ran off the handouts. I don't know if I just didn't notice which one I had selected, or if I copied the wrong one and forgot to proofread. However, my students sure noticed.

Here's the joke.

Q. What did the psychiatrist say to the naked patient wrapped in cellophane?
A. I can clearly see you're nuts.

Needless to say, my students couldn't stop laughing. And I had to grin and bear it.

Oh, well. I think they understood what a pun was after that. lol!

Some days it's either laugh or cry.

Substitute Sanity (an oxymoron?)

Planning for a substitute can make you feel a little insane. Having to miss school/class is super hard for teachers. Many times I went to school sick because it was just so much work to miss. It's not like other jobs where you can just call in and say, "Yeah, I'm not going to be there today." Instead, you've got to come up with something that will keep you kidlings busy all period so that they don't have time to destroy your classroom or make your sub cry. In addition, it needs to be educationally sound. THEY DON'T WANT MUCH, DO THEY? 


The administration will say something like...just leave them what you would normally do. WHAT????? Now who is insane?? What would take my students all period to complete when I am there, would take them about ten minutes with a sub. Hmmmmm.....

So much depends on the substitute that you get.

I’ve had GREAT subs, 

and I’ve had HORRID ones. 

The problem is....you never know what you're going to get. Especially if there are a lot of teachers out on the same day. Sometimes the administration is lucky just to get a warm body in the room. Occasionally, other teachers must give up part of their planning period to cover your class. (Yeah, that's always a great experience!!)

So what do you do?

The most important thing I have discovered is to have information for a substitute to access that can be easily located when they are in your classroom that contains clear, concise instructions for managing your class.

 Keeping a substitute teacher binder can be especially helpful. I like to use a small (1 inch) three-ring binder with pockets to keep everything in place. I also try to find one that has the clear cover that you can slide a sheet of paper with the words SUB FOLDER on the front. It makes it easy for the substitute to find. 

Into the pockets I can put things like Office Referrals or Detention Slips as well as Emergency Sub Plans in case I have to miss at the last minute and don't have time to write out elaborate lesson plans. (You just never know when your kids are going to wake up puking their guts up. Or your tire goes flat. Or....well, I'm sure you have your own experiences in this department.)

Inside the binder itself, I can put handouts that I think will make the sub’s job easier: seating charts, reliable students, class rolls, etc. Then I just put it somewhere on my desk where it can be easily located.

You can find some great printables for a Secondary Sub Folder in my TPT store here.

You can also find some easy to use, no-prep Emergency Sub Plans by clicking the links below:

The Cremation of Sam McGee

Casey at the Bat

The Listeners

Mending Wall

The Song of Wandering Aengus

The Boarded Window

Bertie's Christmas Eve

I hope the ideas you found here will help save your sanity when you have a substitute teacher!!

Movies in the Classroom

I'm a big fan of using movies in the English Language Arts classroom. I think that showing movies to accompany literary units is an amazing way to reward students for their diligence and also to show them that text doesn’t have to be written. There is a richness in film just as there is in literature. I know in a lot of districts there is a big push to show film clips instead of the film in its entirety. I disagree with this idea. Students need to be exposed to WHOLE STORIES. Many times what teachers are teaching has to do with ideas that take place over the period of the whole movie: plot structure, theme, character development, the hero's journey archetype. You can't show these things in a short clip.

Movies can hook kids into reading, and if you know anything about me, you know that I think there is nothing more important than creating readers out of non-readers. If a student sees a film based on a book, I always tell him..."The book is always better!!" If he liked the film, he will love the book. But a movie can still offer students a lot of interesting and important opportunities to delve more deeply into a story:

1.  Movies contain many of the things we want our students to be able to analyze in literature: plot, theme, character development, tone, symbolism, complex relationships, subplots, parallel plots, etc. Students who frequently have a hard time understanding these concepts in a piece of literature will often find it much easier to do so in a movie, probably because they pay more attention to film OR...they really have watched the movie but they didn't read the book. (Hey, I'm just being honest here.)

2.  Movies offer students the opportunity to compare/contrast the same story on two different levels. I especially like to watch a movie based on a piece of literature we have read so that my students can analyze the way the filmmaker brought the story to life. Students like to talk about what the filmmaker changed and why, whether their choices were effective, if things should have been done differently.  Together we can analyze if the movie or book is better and why. Talk about a real world application of what we're doing in the classroom!!

When I show a film, I like to show it in its entirety if I have the time. I require that my students complete a Movie Viewing Guide, which keeps them paying attention and also helps them to do some critical analysis of the film as they would do in a text. I use the guide to mark places I want to pause the film. We will watch a section, stop the film, and go over the answers for that section of the guide. 

You know what else? Movies are just FUN! Sometimes kids just need a break and movies allow kids to relax and enjoy themselves. Do YOU remember how much you used to look forward to movie days in school? I sure do. And the movies we watched were ghastly. lol! Teachers need to take advantage of student interest in film and use it. Who says education can't be enjoyable???? 

Not this girl.

My TPT store has several Movie Viewing Guides for students to use as they watch a movie in your classroom. The guides help keep students focused on the film and encourage some analysis of deeper issues. Check them out if you get a chance.

EASY MEALS: Hamburger Stew

There is nothing as draining as teaching, and I never feel like cooking after a day of working. I spend one Saturday morning every month or two making crockpot freezer meals. Then I just thaw them out overnight, pop them in the crockpot, and when I get home I have a hot meal already done. I add a few sides or some cornbread, and we're ready to eat.

Here's a family favorite:
1 pound browned and drained ground beef (be sure to cook before you freeze)
1 can English peas undrained
1 can tomato soup
1 onion cut up (I usually use the frozen chopped onion)
1 can water
1 small potato cubed or 1 can diced potatoes undrained

Add all ingredients in bag except potatoes. Potatoes will turn brown in the freezer, so I usually just add them the morning of.

Cook 6-8 hours on low. Serve with hot cornbread.

You can easily double or even triple this recipe. I actually double it for one meal because I have two teenage boys. lol! It's especially good on a cold winter night. It's really more like a soup than a stew. It you want it thicker, you can leave out some of the water.

This is a recipe that is super easy to personalize. You can leave out the potatoes and serve over rice. You can add corn, carrots, etc. Replace the English peas with green beans. Whatever you and your family like.

Sustained Silent Reading

I believe that the single most important thing I can do as an English teacher is turn kids on to reading for pleasure. Students who read for pleasure have so many advantages over those who don't.

If you don't believe it, check out these statistics.
1. Students in the top 5% of their class read 144 times more than students in the bottom 5%.
2. On national testing, students in the top 25% spent 59% more time reading than students in the bottom 25%.
     A.  Students who read 2 minutes a day score in the 30th percentile.
     B.  Students who read 5 minutes a day score in the 50th percentile.
     C.  Students who read 10 minutes a day score in the 70th percentile.
     D.  Students who read 20 minutes a day score in the 90th percentile.
     E.  Students who read 65 minutes a day score in the 98th percentile.

READING LEVEL OF THE BOOK HAD NO IMPACT ON THESE STATISTICS!!!

Research shows that reading done by college students in their earlier years contains a preponderance of series books like Nancy Drew, Harry Potter, Infernal Devices, Princess Diaries, and Maze Runner.

There seems to be a need for the familiar--text, characters, situations--that are predictable enough to be non-threatening and mindless enough to allow readers to become proficient and fluent, to meet lots of words without having to worry about subplots and character development.

What about the classics?

According to Jim Trelease, author of The Read-Aloud Handbook,  “About the only people in this country who read them [the classics]are teenagers—and only because they are required to….At some point it might be helpful for secondary English heads to define the goal of their curriculum:  Is it to create future English professors or future readers?"

Reading the classics is not helpful in creating a reader from a nonreader. Students need to begin with reading experiences aimed at their ability and interest levels.  Hopefully, by becoming proficient readers, these students will be led into reading books with more depth/substance in later years or in whole-class settings.

RESEARCH SHOWS THAT BEING A PROFICIENT READER HELPS STUDENTS...

→improve spelling

→improve writing

→improve vocabulary

→improve grammar

SSR HELPS TO CREATE LIFELONG READERS.

A big problem in our society today is that people don't read anymore. Not like they used to.

Some more statistics:

1. 40% of the homes in the United States don't buy a single book in a year.

2. Most of the buying and reading is done by 30% of the public.

3. Only 28% of Americans age 15 years or older read for pleasure on any given day.

4. 24% of Americans say that haven't read a book in whole or in part in the past year.

To quote Thomas Jefferson: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

WE NEED TO CREATE READERS!!  

And in case you didn't know it...

You don't create a reader by having kids read classics all the time.  Teach classics as whole class novels, but please...turn your kids on to some fun, independent reading, too. It's well worth the time and effort. Heck, it might even be the saving of us.

For an easy way to implement an SSR program in your classroom, check out these products in my TPT Store. Just click here.

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