I haven’t written about students in a while, so here’s a sweet story about a great reading class I have. This type of class is my favorite textbook class, using a really well-designed and well-written National Geographic textbook. It doesn’t hurt that the students aren’t bad either: 2 high school students and one woman who’s a little older. I used to have another high schooler, but time constraints caused her to drop the class. She’s the reason I’m writing, though: I want to talk about one of the funniest things I’ve heard a student say recently.
As our first class was about animals doing unusual and surprising things, we played that game where you write your three favorite animals and some adjectives, and then discover that the first means such and such, the second means this, etc.
As they searched for the best adjectives, Kiki was looking for good descriptors for dinosaurs, and our conversation went almost exactly like this:
K: I don’t have a dinosaur with, so I don’t know what to say. I have big, friendly, and cute.
M: I… don’t think dinosaurs are really like that. Big, yes. Maybe strong? Powerful? I would have to say violent. [demonstration of violent]
K: But that’s not the dinosaur in my heart.
Adorable! I only wish I could accurately portray her tone and manner as she said it…