nachos, la ropa, and sucking face

Yesterday was Wednesday: Spanish Club. In preparation, I brought improvised nachos. I was overjoyed to find 3 bags of chili-flavored tortilla chips at the supermarket last weekend...I paid N1450 per bag...about $9.50! (Actually, the students will end up paying it, not me.) I was getting so desperate for tortilla chips, I looked into frying my own from Lebanese bread!

I would have preferred to provide a better nacho experience with onion, tomato, shredded lettuce, cilantro, olive, sour cream, guacamole, salsa, etc., but I'm in the middle of Africa...
I do what I can.

While the kids munched on their slacker nachos, I pulled out two bags stuffed full of my clothes. Together, we learned the words for skirt (la falda), shoes (los zapatos), pajamas (las pijamas) and more. I arranged the clothes--la ropa--around the classroom tables, and we played an impromptu version of "musical chairs." When the music stopped, I called on kids to tell me what item of clothing was in front of them. They liked mi vestido--dress--from Forever 21 (hi Ashley!) and rolled their eyes at los calcetines--my [clean] socks.

Things went okay, which is saying a lot compared to the last few Wednesdays. I think the food boosted their spirits, and by the time musical chairs rolled around, they were willing to oblige me. Hey, I'll take what I can get.

Grade 9 and I just wrapped up Romeo & Juliet this week. They took a test on it yesterday and everyone passed. I feel good about their accomplishment. If understanding R+J is the one thing that sticks after I've left, it's enough.

Side note: R+J is very significant to me. I've long claimed it as my favorite Shakespeare play, which all Shakespearean scholars and English teachers know is a copout. But it's true. I read it in Grade 9 with Mrs. Donaldson and the 3 lovely girls who became my best friends. I remember picking up on Juliet's sarcasm in an exchange with the Nurse and thinking, maybe for the first time, that reading not between, but underneath the lines of literature would be my passion. I suppose R+J was the first big step on my road to becoming a Lit teacher.

Back to my current Grade 9: Did we have to pause after every major speech to paraphrase? Yes, we did. Did they sometimes interrupt themselves to ask, "Huh?!" Yes, they did. Did they argue over who got to read the longer speeches? Yep, they did that, too. Did they feel triumphant for having successfully read--and understood--a Shakespeare play? You bet they did. Remember, some of these kids speak English as a second language. Getting through it with some semblance of understanding is all I can ask. I've done my job. Their actually enjoying it makes me deliriously joyful.

In class today I showed 3 scenes from the 1996 Baz Luhrmann version. I chose the meeting scene, the balcony scene, and the last scene, but failed to realize that these scenes contain a substantial amount of face-sucking. There was a lot of "oooooo" and "ugh, again?" from the peanut gallery.

One of my female students sighed dreamily every time Leonardo DiCaprio came onscreen, while the others elbowed her and giggled. I asked her how old she was in 1996, and she replied, "That was the year I was born." (What's that? Miss Maggie feels old? Okay.) The boys especially were confused by the last scene, in which Romeo kisses a "dead" Juliet. "Eww...she's dead!" they kept shouting.

Minus all the making out, I think they appreciated the visual interpretation. I'm glad we read the play first, to get the characters firmly established in their minds, before seeing them rendered onscreen. I've determined that movie adaptations of books are Literature teachers' Enemy Number One. Nothing zaps kids' ability to identify with literature quite like the complaint, "But that's not how it is in the movie!"

Mrs. Donaldson, I think you'd have been proud of me and my kids this week. Thank you for teaching me well so I could teach them.