Books and Rivers ....

Holy Collard Greens!

We're reading To Kill a Mockingbird in two of my classes. Sigh.... My favorite book and likely the reason I'm not married. Oh, Atticus ...! ;)

At any rate, I was sure, totally and completely sure, my students would LOVE this book. I mean, seriously....  I had no doubt.

Then, ....

I went to school today and students told me To Kill a Mockingbird was discussed on Facebook last night.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My heart skipped a beat. I almost jumped. I gasped. They loved it! I knew it! Oh, ...!  They were talking about themes and ....

"Yeah," said one of the boys. "One of the girls posted, 'Sorry, Ms. ______. This book isn't horrible, but it is SOOO boring.'"

I'm not entirely sure what look crossed my face, but I gasped and some of the students started laughing. Of course, others whispered, "I liked it."

Hmmm....

That, well, that was my first clue that they might not love the book as much as I thought they would.

My next clue ....

We were reading and discussing part of the book. I was reading and putting my all into it! Southern accent, yells, whispers, ... the whole thing. I even snorted when it said Burris Ewell snorted. Yup. Loudly!

Then, I got to the part where Scout was mad at Calpurnia and said she'd show Cal ... when Cal wasn't looking, she'd go drown herself in Barker's Eddy ... that would show her.

Well, ....

Do you know what happened?

Do you have any idea?

You'll never guess in a million years!

One of the boys said, when I paused for breath after my most melodramatic reading ever, "Open a window!"

What...?

The boy beside him said, "Maybe we can throw our books out the window, make the river and drown them."

:o

SACRILEGE!!!!!!!!!!!

After gasping and sputtering and scowling my best scowl, do you know what I did?

I said, "Boys..."

They said, "Yeaaaahhhh...."

Scowl, scowl, scowl ....

"Boys," I continued. "I don't know which one of you it will be, but ..."

The boys looked at each other and looked at me.

"But, ... I'm telling you right now that I'm going to see to it that, by the time we're done, one of you is going to LOVE this book."

Gauntlet thrown.... 

Of course, it lost some of its sting when, in response, one of the boys pointed to the other boy.

I laughed like a fool.

Copyright 2013 -> Shannon