A Byrd's Eye View

Funning

Over the weekend, I gave my literacy student a new and different homework assignment. I told him to take 20 empty flashcards (he usually makes his own flashcards for basic words like "him" and "her" and "their" and "kitchen" and whatever), and on each of these 20 cards, he was supposed to write a word which he saw in daily life, but he didn't know the meaning of it, and he wanted to learn the word.

This exercise turned out a bit more comically than I expected when we got together for our study session last night.

"So! Did you do your flashcards?" I asked. And yes, he had. He reached into his backpack and pulled them out.....

The new words themselves fell into three major categories.....

1. Cleaning products;

2. Movies;

3. Made-up words (my favorite category, but not too good for literacy teaching).

So, anyway, I took the cards from him and we started to read them off....

"Dracula.....Clive.....Hogs....Murder.....Owen.....Caine...."

"Gilbert," I asked. "Did you get these words from movie posters? I mean, Clive Owen and Michael Caine are actors, and Dracula...well, he's a movie guy, too. And 'hogs' - well, 'Wild Hogs' was a Disney movie. Is that where you got these words?"

Gilbert nodded his head in the affirmative. We had spoken on the phone on Sunday night, confirming this week's meeting times. I had asked him then whether he had gotten into his homework at all. On Sunday night, he hadn't started yet. I recognized the syndrome. It's called "Last Minute Homework Syndrome" or LMHS. I have suffered from LMHS myself for most of my life, so I know the signs. Well, now at least I know the kinds of movies that Gilbert likes. He likes Dracula and Wild Hogs.

I read a few more cards:

"Cleans...Wipes...Pure....Scented....Heavy...Duty.....Pine..."

"Gilbert", I said. "Let me guess. You got these words from some kind of cleaning product. Like maybe Mr. Clean?"

Gilibert frowned. "I thought you liked Mr. Clean," he said.

This was true. During our reading tour of K-Mart a few weeks ago, I had admitted to him that I sort of dug Mr. Clean. I mean, Mr. Clean is big and muscular and bald and happy. My kind of guy. I'm sure that housewives around the world have had all sorts of unclean thoughts about Mr. Clean. I know that I have, although this blog entry is the first time I have admitted it to anyone.

Then, there was the third category of words. These were words for which I don't know the definition, and which I have never seen before. Tonight, I will try to get from Gilbert where (if anywhere at all) he saw these words.

Words like:

"Funning". Actually, that is an excellent word. I'm surprised no-one has thought of it before now. Of course my student's "n"s look a lot like "w"s (his handwriting is so bad, you'd think he's a doctor or a lawyer). So, "funning" may actually be "fuwwing", but I like "funning" better, so I'm going to start to use that word. Can you use the word "funning" in a sentence, boys and girls? Like, "we went funning in the park on Sunday after church".

"Forees". Now, I have absolutely no idea what a forees is. It's possible, that, due to the handwriting issue, Gilbert may have meant to write "forces", but since he can't read the word himself, it's impossible to tell. "Forces" could be a movie word, or it could be a cleaning product word. "Forees" could be anything at all. It could be a timepiece, as in "he consulted his forees and saw that he was five minutes late". Or, they could be small insects, as in "her apartment was infested with forees". Can you use the word "forees" in a sentence?

Are we funning yet?

Be happy, be funning, be cool.

Byrd in LA

Posted by wahzoh at April 23, 2008 10:23 AM