Laughing in the Margins

I simply must proclaim the rhetorical ingenuity of David Sedaris, the man truly is blessed with the gift of gab and language. I started reading Naked this morning while my class was doing some work and I had to stifle SEVERAL laughs. My students must have thought I was trying to hold back barfing. At one point, in the middle of the chapter about his Ya Ya, I had to go to the bathroom and let out some laughs. I had to eventually stop and picked it back up in between classes. I went to an empty room where no students would come in and read and laughed out loud to my heart's content. In the middle of my second class I let out a laugh and my students were amazed that a book would make me laugh. They were taken aback that words could actually do that and just stared in disbelief as I tried to explain to them how texts can indeed elicit affective responses. I was a tad mortified as one student asked, "Is his book a movie?" I just shook my head.

In that same class, one group, of three men and one woman, starting a rather heated debate, including flinging insluts to each other, because of a topic they picked for their group project....strippers. Now there is some merit to that topic if you think about it, however, the guys being guys and not men (see Dave Barry's "Guys vs. Men") were being testosterone neanderthalsand the girl was not having any of it. However, I think I had them both stumped because I pointed out that both had their reasons and unless one could disprove the other without calling one another a waste of human space or a nzai feminist that they had to just respect each other. Luckily, they turned the agrument (read= throwdown) into a viable topic for their project. These are a sharp group of kids and it never ceases to amaze me how astute they can sometimes be. With the exception of one special student who thought it funny to visit a burn victim unit and juggle torches, or to go to a homeless shelter with a big cheeseburger and enjoy it. One student actually got mad enough and told him to get the fuck out of the classroom. As a teacher, I just had to remain silent...but it;s fun to play devil's advocate to get them to respond.

Thanks JeJe for commenting. Did I ever tell you you;re my favorite? I miss chatting it up with you. Talk to you soon.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 13, 2003 at 1:52 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.