Ad Lib

The students work in groups, creating fictive dialogues involving characters from The Great Gatsby and The Crucible. I question one group's commitment to the note-taking aspect of the activity.

Me: "Are you guys writing this down?"

Alan Lackey: "No. We're going to ad lib. Because, as we all know: The greatest minds ad lib their greatest inventions. As such, Albert Einstein ad libbed the atomic bomb."

Me, internal: "WTF?"

Hate...Baby

Student, pregnant, to other student: "You know what, I'm not even going to hate you because my baby will come out looking like you."

H.A. Brownies

When my homeroom kids have birthdays, I make them cake. Unless there's a special request for, say, brownies.

Charles: "Mr. Vonn can I have brownies?"

Me: "Sure."

Charles: "Cool. They gotta be soft... we don't want no hard-ass brownies."

Raggedy Chargers

Student [Lawrence]: "Mr. Vonn, is your laptop charger plugged in?"

Me: "Yeah, it's just broken. See, it doesn't light up, but it still chargers." I demonstrate this.

Lawrence: "Man. Even the teachers got the raggedy chargers. That’s how you know a school’s broke."

He makes a point.

Ramen

Student 1: "You like those Roman noodles?"

Student 2: "They're called Ray-man noodles."