"You're a Word-maker..."

Today in class, my sophomores found passages from the novel we're reading, then wrote words to describe the tone of each passage.  This is the week before Spring Break, so some students got a little punchy and began making up words.

Then their teacher got a little punchy.

"You're such a word-maker," I said.  Then I thought about it.  The tune to "Heartbreaker" by Pat Benatar started running through my head.  Soon I was singing:

You're a...
Word-maker
Thesaurus-writer
Synonyms, don't you mess around with me

You're the right kind of sentence
To release my inner imagery

You're a...
Word-maker
Thesaurus-writer
Synonyms, don't you mess around with me

The next thing I knew, I was singing it all afternoon.  It really is catchy.

My delightful 7th period (which I can now share is my favorite--thank you, blog lock-down) added this addendum at the end of the day: "And then we gonna go all antonym, yo!"  Yes, the shift from 80's pop icon to gansta rap is a bit jarring, but they did include a hand signal: picture a "hang loose" gesture upside down, kind of like the letter A--for antonym.  Brilliant.

And just in case anyone isn't familiar with "Heartbreaker," (and so you can have "Word-maker" in your heads all day, too) this is my gift to you.  Go ahead...sing along.

Blog Lock-down

Amidst all the talk of a government shut-down, I feel rather guilty for explaining my own shut-down.  But since some of you have asked, here's the story:

I was talking with a few students not long ago, and one of them told me a story about getting flicked off by someone with a Twins bumper sticker.  I asked him to describe the car, because said flicker could most definitely have been one of our Minnesota acquaintances.  The student asked why I wanted to know, and I explained that Matt and I have several friends from Minnesota living in Maryland.  I said that we function like an immigrant community, forming our own "Little Minnesota," watching football, going to baseball games, etc.  Out of nowhere another student asked, "And blogging?"  I told him that was ridiculous, then Googled myself as soon as I had a chance.  Our blog is the fourth link.  This is the same student who has a D because he hasn't turned in a single homework assignment all quarter.  Obviously, his free time is being terribly misspent.

And so we're locked down for the foreseeable future.  Thank you for continuing to love our family and language as much as we do.