It is spring break for me, so last week's stories will appear next week. For this week, I'm on my "summer schedule". However, finding a TV show that starts with J that I like that you may not have heard of turned out to be impossible, so I'm pulling a story from March that did not quite make the cut the week it happened.
Thursday. Eleventh grade English.
"These words aren't real."
The students were doing a crossword puzzle. (Well, two actually, if I want to be precise.) It was prep for their "final" the next day.
A sampling of the "fake" words on the crossword: permeate, elicit, wheedle, hiatus, umbrage, corpulent, nebulous, unwieldy, contrive, and vapid.
While this was the first time I've subbed for Ms. J this school year, I've subbed for her many times in the past. So, I understood where these words had come from.
Every day, she gives them five new vocabulary words. She gives them the words and definitions. They then match the words to one of five sentences she has also given them. The words are good. The sentences are clever.
Their "final" (for the last day of the third quarter) was just a vocabulary test on two weeks' worth of words. (They were being tested on 40 words.)
To the boy who made the statement, I assured him that the words were real. I knew the words. I use some of the words on the regular.
I asked him if he was planning to go to college. He said he was. I told him it was good to build his vocabulary for college, and he might find that some of those words were useful.
He saw my point, actually. (The classes were pretty good.) And then he went back to work.
It was a long assignment. But they had all the tools they needed to complete it. I hope they all did well on that test.
Today's A to Z Challenge post brought to you by the letter
WOW....a positive statement from a teen about going to college. That is awesome
ReplyDeleteIt happens more often than you might think by reading my blog. The college-bound don't often make for funny stories.
DeleteI raised my eyebrows a little realizing that a college bound student thought these words were fake. I wonder if he has thought about his possible major.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Ms. J usually does this vocab with her 9th grade classes. Everyone is a bit behind due to 2020 and 2021 school years.
DeleteI did once play an April Fools joke on my class when the 1st happened to fall on vocab test day and replaced all their words with obsolete words from the middle ages. They, of course, found it delightfully fun & not at all stressful.
ReplyDeleteFunny he thought those words were fake. Glad he saw your point, though!
I can understand thinking corpulent is fake. There's something about it that just looks false to me.
ReplyDeleteYou taught him two things.. you taught him words. You taught him to be open to new ideas.
ReplyDeleteThe words came from Ms. J. (It's a nice bit of luck that her last name actually starts with a J.)
DeleteI don't think I knew all of those words in 11th grade. At least I do now! Wheedle does look and sound fake. I don't think I've heard it used in decades. He'd probably seen permeate in science and just got meaning by context.
ReplyDeleteThey had all the definitions. At least, they were supposed to have the definitions. They copy those down on the day they get the words.
DeleteTo me, word are fun to play with. Not much when it comes to numbers.
ReplyDeleteCoffee is on and stay safe.
That's a great teacher, to build their vocabulary that well.
ReplyDeleteIt's a great assignment that she does. Too bad the kiddos don't think so.
DeleteIt sounds like he was taking umbrage with the assignment, Dropping in from the A to Z challenge. I am so focussed on getting all my a to z movies in, I haven't written about my own adventures in substitute teaching for a while.
ReplyDeleteWe could do an A to Z of subbing. I was just contemplating that the other day.
DeleteThat was the right advice you gave. And I am glad the kid responded positively to it.
ReplyDeleteI was going to contrive an unwieldy sentence to elicit humor, but decided it would be a vapid attempt to wheedle into your comments.
ReplyDeleteTrying to come up with a paragraph from the vocab words is tough. I believe I did a blog post of that once upon a time.
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