Oddballs...

Freshmen truly are an odd species.

This week:

One of my students made up quotes for his Romeo and Juliet essay-they were very obviously not Shakespeare's words. Something like" I really love you, Juliet, and I will die if I can't be with you."

I had a student hide his paper behind the bookshelf (while I was watching) and then later accuse me of losing it behind the bookshelf. I don't think he expected me to believe his story because he was laughing as he pulled out the bookshelf and said, "Look! Here's the paper that you told me I didn't turn in! You had it all along!"

A quote from a journal: "I learned a lot of new weather words in Spanish. I'm practically a Mexican weatherman."

One of my students was reciting the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet and he was saying his lines all out of order. He looked up at me and said, "Line." I couldn't help but laugh because I had no idea where he was or what line to give him. I could hardly get the words out to tell him because I was laughing so hard. Thankfully, he was laughing with me. This right after the "This is hard for everyone. Please don't laugh if a student forgets his or her lines" speech. Oh man. As you can imagine, we had a hard time re-focusing.

We're having a Shakespeare Festival next week. A student asked me if he could get extra credit for dressing up as Juliet. Then, he proceeded to ask me if he could get extra-extra credit for wearing make-up. I'm pretty sure that the state standards don't say, "Analyze the way in which a work of literature is related to the themes and issues of its historical period; boys should dress up like girls."

I've been laughing more than I've been teaching this week (and it's only Tuesday)!