E.E Cummings
said, “The most wasted of all the days is one without laughter,” and I think
the same is true for a day in the classroom.
Even if we aren’t a natural stand-up comedian, bringing content related
humor into your ELA class (or any class for that matter) will not only make for
a more positive learning environment, but will also help your students retain
the content you are teaching. By doing these 5 simple
things, you won’t only bring a smile to your students’ faces, but you will also
help them feel more comfortable in your classroom to engage which will allow them to more easily connect with content and skills.
Put a
smile on your students’ faces when they enter by having some humorous
decorations on your classroom bulletin boards.
With a quick search online, you can find funny author memes or quotes, grammar
jokes, or ironic moments to display on a board
each week. Having relevant humorous material in the classroom will put your students at ease and make the classroom a more welcoming environment. One of my favorite ELA
displays that gets students attention is my “English Is Weird” poster set
because it allows students to consider strange, surprising, and odd details
about the English Language.
Bring
some performance into your middle and high school ELA class with Readers
Theater. If you are reading a short
story, a play, or even a few chapters out of a novel, assign roles to a few of
your students and have them do a dramatic presentation of the text. All it takes are a few basic prompts and
costumes, and you will be surprised at how the energy in your room
changes. I would often raid the costume
room of the drama teacher for items/costumes or scrounge a few items from
home. Don’t feel like searching? You could also assign roles to students the
day before and tell them to bring in their own costume. When teaching a drama
unit, I keep a costume section in my classroom, so I can easily have access to materials
I might need for performance (see my Shakespeare inspired costumes below).
One of my favorite short stories to do Readers Theater with is Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl. While it is certainly uses dark humor, the frozen leg of lamb scene always gets students giggling, and they typically do better on questions or assessments related to this story because they more easily retain the discussions we had during the performance. Below are some of the props I use for this story. Finding a fake lamb leg is nearly impossible, so I made one with a brown paper bag :).
One of my favorite short stories to do Readers Theater with is Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl. While it is certainly uses dark humor, the frozen leg of lamb scene always gets students giggling, and they typically do better on questions or assessments related to this story because they more easily retain the discussions we had during the performance. Below are some of the props I use for this story. Finding a fake lamb leg is nearly impossible, so I made one with a brown paper bag :).
If
you want to instill a love of reading in your students, present them with texts
that have an element of humor, irony, sarcasm, or surprise. If you are teaching short stories, try a
story like Charles by Shirley Jackson, a story with a surprise twist about a
boy misbehaving at school or The Chaser by John Collier, a story about a love-potion gone wrong. Bring satire
into your upper high-school grades by having students read Body Ritual Among The Nacirema by Horace Miner, a paper on a
little-known tribe living in North America with curious practices and customs
(which actually describes the modern-day American – Nacirema spelled
backwards). If you are looking for some
humorous poetry, you might want to check out “Did I Miss Anything?” by Tom
Wayman, “Television” by Roald Dahl, or “The Cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert
William Service.
If
you are teaching grammar, integrate real-life, funny spelling, punctuation, or grammar errors that relate into your instruction. You can do this by adding a “commercial”
slide into your presentation that includes a funny misuse of that grammar
concept or some funny examples at the bottom of an assignment or
worksheet. Sadly, you will have
absolutely no problem finding real-life examples. A quick Google/Pinterest search will yield
thousands of examples of grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors on tattoos,
signs, cakes, social media posts, and the list goes on. You could also dedicate a bulletin board in
your classroom to grammar fails and have students find
their own examples to post.
As
much as they won’t admit it, teenagers get a kick out of their English teacher
using groan-worthy wordplay. Bringing
puns into your classroom is an easy way to get a student laugh, or at the very
least an eye-roll and a smirk. It will also allow them to consider the nuances of the language and hopefully encourage them to share their own puns. Get your
copy of this free poster set with food-related puns that give students some
valuable or “sage” advice by clicking HERE.
Here
are some other easy ways to bring puns into the classroom: write a pun of the
week on the board, give students an incentive or reward when they use wordplay in
class appropriate to the content you are teaching (candy always works), or do a
pun-related activity. Click HERE to read a post on the blog by The SuperHERO Teacher that includes a
free Decode The Pun activity.
I
hope these ideas bring some laughs in your classroom and also help your students feel more comfortable and ready to learn. Have other ideas to share? Click the comment button at the bottom of the
post and join the conversation.
Want even more ideas for bringing laughter into the ELA classroom? Check out these activities and posts from other Secondary English Coffee Shop bloggers!
Room 213 shares her thoughts on putting
assessment aside and learning for the sheer enjoyment of it in her blog post:
Learning Just For Fun?
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Secondary Sara puts a fun medical twist
on student skill development and goal-setting with her activities for curing “Procrastinitis” and other diseases.
Nouvelle ELA uses funny examples to help students learn how to analyze literary quotes - Literary Quote Analysis
Nouvelle ELA uses funny examples to help students learn how to analyze literary quotes - Literary Quote Analysis