Monday, March 23, 2009

Hips

My Honors English 10 students are reading The House on Mango Street today. We just started the book, mind you, and I have not taught these students for several weeks. I asked them to choose a vignette (a short little section of the book) and then make some inferences about the text. One boy raised his hand and said, "This vignette reminds me of you!" I asked, "Which section?" He replied, a little embarrassed, "Um, Hips." Awesome. So, I made a face and said, "Oh. Let's move on." He said, "Wait. No. It's just a few sentences. I want to see if other people agree." He proceeded to let the whole class know that they should turn to page 51 and read the first two lines. They are as follows:

"I want to shake like hoochie-coochie, Lucy says. She is crazy. I want to move like heebie-jeebie, I say, picking up the cue. I want to be Tahiti. Or merengue. Or electricity."

WHAT ON EARTH DOES HE MEAN?

2 comments:

Remember to Breathe said...

HAHA!!! Oh, man, I LOVE Mango Street! I'm so jealous you get to teach it! That's hilarious. I couldn't tell you what this teenage boy is thinking... and I'm not exactly sure I WANT to know. :) I'm so glad you got the "golden ticket" letter. Were you losing sleep??? Cuz I pretty much was.

V said...

What? I'm lost. At least it's not boring in your class.