Teaching Idioms

I have to admit that I was not looking forward to going back to work today. It felt like summer and summer means vacation, and I hadn't taught for almost two weeks...

When I planned the lesson for the 10th grade, I wrote out the "plan" to hand to the students. I've found this a good way of dealing with them, showing what's expected, and then they work (hopefully) in small groups and I go around helping. This time I asked them to translate the title and the subtitle, which had the idiom "a fresh slate." Now that I'm blogging it, I wonder if it should be "clean slate," but whatever. I had fun explaining how in the olden days paper was a luxury item and people had small slates, like blackboards, they took along.

A bit later, one of them asked me what an underdog was. That really inspired me. I promised to give them an example they'd never forget, and it would be from the Bible. I wrote on the whiteboard:

Which of the two people is the "underdog?"
Goliath or David

And then I went over the Biblical story with them. Of course, David was the underdog!

Some days I so enjoy teaching!