Weird lessons always have a place in my classroom. Today, I want to spotlight the unique, delightful, memorable, and weird lessons for your ELA classroom.
My aunt tells a story about her geometry teacher: Sister Mary was very by-the-book, and her two passions were Jesus and mathematics. However, she would occasionally deviate from her lesson plans and spend a class period reading from A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh.
This story always stands out to me. For one, my aunt has a cycle of stories and anecdotes she spins on repeat. More importantly, her story captures what she remembers about her geometry teacher. She doesn’t remember proofs or figures, but she does continue to cherish Winnie the Pooh.
While I am not a nun and could never teach math of any stripe, I do want my students to come away with special memories of our classroom.
Of course, I could reach for a favorite read-aloud, but sometimes you want to create a classroom moment while still staying aligned to curriculum.
With this in mind, I wanted to share 9 weird lessons that will charm your students and create special classroom memories.
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My Favorite Weird Lessons
The absolute weirdest lesson I’ve ever taught goes with the the Ted Talk “Why city flags may be the worst-designed thing you’ve never noticed” by Roman Mars. I use this Ted Talk during back-to-school as a way to start the year with non-threatening but engaging material. Students end up designing their own flags, and when I hang them, previous students always come back and share their memories. While this may not seem like an obvious ELA lesson, it hits a variety of reading and writing standards. You can grab all of my resources for this weird lesson here.
Sometimes weird lessons are products of necessity. That is the case with Single-Player BINGO. I developed this innovative game when I was looking for a game students could easily play independently and/or during stations. I also wanted a game students could use with any text.
For me, the best weird lessons lead to memorable conversations. Peer Editing Tickets always lead to such moments. Peer Editing Tickets rely on students to give each other guidance about their writing, but they also recognize each student’s unique writing strengths. Taking ownership of their growth is a creative way to engage students in metacognition.
Weird Poetry Lessons
Poetry is one of my favorite ways to engage students. In part, I like pushing against students’ common preconceived notions about poetry. These two weird lessons capture that spirit!
First, “One-Word Poem” by David R. Slavitt is a one-of-a-kind poem. In particular, this lesson begins by asking students to define the “rules” of poetry. I enjoy listening to students’ dialogue about any “rules” they associate with poetry. Because, surely, Slavitt’s poem pushes against all of those rules. Read it here. (If Slavitt’s poem is not for you, check of these other post-modern poems.)
Similarly, concrete poems often violate the “rules” of poetry. On one hand, concrete poems get a tough rap in high school as not being “literature,” but I disagree. There’s no way you can tell me that “Easter Wings” by George Herbert is anything less than classic. Read it here.
Inquiry-Based Learning
Perhaps the most memorable lessons I teach each year are rooted in inquiry-based learning. An inquiry-based lesson is always one of those weird lessons because students are taking the lead! While you can use inquiry-based learning in a variety of ways, I have three all-time favorite recommendations:
- First, I always teach parallelism with an inquiry-based lesson. I use this lesson plan. Students feel such strong emotions during this lesson that they never forget!
- Second, when I’m teaching American literature, I usually do an inquiry-based lesson focused on aphorisms. This lesson plan helps students quickly understand the meaning of “aphorism” and work through several common aphorisms.
- Additionally, I often use inquiry-based learning to help students understand the characteristics of the heroic archetype. To make this as hands-on as possible, I use this set of free task cards to help students work backwards to develop an understanding of what it means to be a hero in literature.
- Finally, my freshmen just completed an inquiry-based lesson focused on understanding the structure of sonnets. I describe this lesson in detail in this post, and I hope it brings your students as much joy as it brought to mine!
Honorable Mentions
While these are not necessarily weird lessons, these are among the most memorable and special lessons I teach each year.
First, I teach a weird number of lessons about letter writing. (I know that writing letters is a little antiquated, but please remember that I wrote an entire post about epistolary novels.) For one thing, letter writing is a good way to practice tone. However, letter writing is also flexible. Here are some letters students can try:
- Cover letters
- Thank You Cards
- Professional emails
- Letters to the author (or to their characters)
- Letters of recommendation (or requests for)
- My freshmen just wrote Valentine’s Cards for Romeo and Juliet
Finally, I love giving students an opportunity to create a bucket list. We do this sometimes during back-to-school stations, but this is also a good part of a mid-year reset. You can also adapt this to have students write bucket lists for their characters.
