Spelling, creativity, audience, purpose, and laughter for extra credit

Here's a thought: If you're going to have your writer make up sentences for their spelling or vocab words, go for who can be the funniest or the weirdest and still convey the meaning of the word.

I guess that's obvious. But especially in regular school, it's often just about writing the easiest, shortest, most obvious sentence so you can get the darn thing turned in and get credit for it. It can get so boring and awful for everyone. If kids are trying to be funny, they're writing for an audience besides the teacher, and they're writing with a purpose beyond showing that they know how to use a word correctly. They're writing to entertain. The results have to be better than the alternative.

This is not exactly the same thing, but when I taught high school, I sometimes gave partial credit for wrong answers if they made me laugh. I hated giving short answer quizzes and getting them back completely empty, which wasn't unusual since so many kids didn't do their reading homework. It got so depressing. So I started telling kids to write something no matter what, and if it was funny or creative, they'd get a point or two for trying. And then we'd all get to laugh when I read the best answers to the class. It was better than crying.

Fashion policery, imagery and vocabulary

I was indulging in a little HuffPo fluff reading about celebrity red carpet fashion (fashion risks: success or stumble?) when Tai snuck up behind me and said, "What's that?" So I explained the concept to him and he stood beside me as I clicked through a few slides.

About this one he said, "She looks like a milkmaid going a-Maying."

Courtesy of Huffington Post

That's one sleek and sexy milkmaid (HuffPo called this one a Success), but I get his point and I love that he said "a-Maying". Where did that come from? How many times can he possibly have heard or read that term?

You'd think that playing celebrity red carpet fashion police would be a very girly-girl thing to do, but both of my boys loved it. They had something to say about everyone:

That dress looks like her pants are falling down.

She looks like a criminal. 

(Sorry, Beyonce fans. Wondering if it's the skin tone, stripes, or shades. Hope I'm not raising a racist.)

That's just...weird.

So I'm hatching an idea that involves finding slideshows like this--they're everywhere on the web--and writing comments about each slide. We work on refining the imagery and similes, and go for really apt description. This will be a do-it-together activity so we can be funny and snarky together (who can come up with the most creative critique or the spot-on-est description?), maybe with a pint of ice cream or a bowl of popcorn. Probably the fashion blunder photos will provide the best fodder. As always, we'll need to start with a couple of good model sentences.

If celebrity fashion doesn't appeal, I'm sure there are variations: tricked-out cars or bikes, home decorating disasters, bad hair, hats.

I'll try it this week and report back.