I am going to start stories a little earlier this year. I don’t know why. I’ll keep on focusing on the kids and doing the personalization and norming of the classroom and all that, of course, until the classroom is entirely personalized and the rules are clear, but with September visions start dancing in my head of actors being goofy and general silliness happening , so why not start a story or two in the next week and see what happens? I can always punt and go back to those things that we listed here last week as options to the Circling with Balls activity when it begins to lose steam.
Anyway, I asked Jim Tripp if he had anything in the way of a good starter story, as it were, and he sent me this one, with a nice note explaining a few details. My opinion on where this can be used is that this story could fly well in any level, 1 all the way up to AP. Here is Jim’s introduction to the story and then the story below:
The beginning of the year is a great time for this story. Nevermind that some of the terms used are always in the first chapters of textbooks. What we who use comprensible input can use is that there is probably at least one student who met someone famous, or at least quasi-famous, over the summer. (Or they went somewhere where you and the class say they met someone famous.) You might find this out from a questionnaire you do, or from a summer prop, a conversation in the hallway, or from some PQA in class.
And don’t feel pressured to do this story in multiple locations right now. If you only talk about one student, and how that student meets only one person, you can still get in enough meaningful repetitions of the structures to allow students to acquire at least one of them. I think it’s definitely a worthwhile story (worthwhile meaning that it allows you to deliver some compelling CI). Here it is:
Nice to Meet You!
meets
My name is ______
gets really nervous
nice to meet you
Jonah meets Adrian Peterson. Jonah says to him, “Hi, my name is Jonah.” Adrian Peterson gets really nervous. He says, “My name is Tony, Tony Danza.” Jonah says, “Nice to meet you Tony.”
Lindsey meets Channing Tatum. Lindsey says to him, “Hi, my name is Lindsey.” Channing Tatum says nervously, “Nice to meet you.” He gets more nervous and says, “My name is Luke Skywalker.” Lindsey says to him, “Nice to meet you Luke.”
(Repeat scenario with a different student and a different celebrity.)
Nice to Meet You!
Extended version**
by chance
meets
My name is ______
gets really nervous
forgets his name
nice to meet you
By chance, Jonah meets Adrian Peterson at Buffalo Wild Wings. Jonah says to him, “Hi, my name is Jonah.” Adrian Peterson gets really nervous. He forgets his name. He says, “My name is Tony, Tony Danza.” Jonah says, “Nice to meet you Tony.”
By chance, Lindsey meets Channing Tatum at the Cedar Rapids airport. Lindsey says to him, “Hi, my name is Lindsey.” Channing Tatum says nervously, “Nice to meet you.” He gets more nervous and forgets his name. He says, “My name is Luke Skywalker.” Lindsey says to him, “Nice to meet you Luke.”
(Repeat scenario with a different student and a different celebrity.)
TPRS TIP: Celebrities worship our students, not the other way around. Sometimes we make exceptions of course, but the default is that our students are the best-looking, the coolest, the strongest, etc.
**Don’t get confused by this second, longer story with the extra target structures. The way Jim writes his stories is he always offers a longer version to go with the original. Here is what he says about this embedding of vocabulary in these extended versions of his stories:
“The extended versions include 2-3 extra structures to add length and complexity to the stories. Extended versions are ideal for the teacher of longer classes (i.e. block classes in high schools) and/or more advanced students. Another way to utilize the extended version is to incorporate the additional structures into the reading the day after the story is asked. Thus, the simpler version is used when we ask the story, and the extended version is used in the creation of the reading, which is especially pertinent in accelerated or block classes.”