I love teaching vocabulary

Last Friday, I stayed late, too late, at school, grading papers. Part of the reason for that was that I took up my students' journals to grade something they had written within, and I didn't want to take all the journals home over the weekend. Another part of the reason was that two of my former students came in asking if they could do anything to help me around the room.

I immediately put them to work, but as they were very talkative the whole time, it probably took me longer than it would have otherwise.

But that's not the point of the story. The point of the story comes from something that the boys told me about another student in their class. They told me that this child had been suspended for bringing alcohol to school.

When they told me that, I asked, "What kind of alcohol did they bring?"

One of the boys replied, "The white kind!"

And thus began the vocabulary lesson for the boys, as I rattled off a litany of possibilities, trying to hit on the white alcohol in question.

"Vodka? Rum? Everclear? Zima? Peach Schnapps?"

Afterwards, I was glad they had not said someone brought drugs to school. I could see a teacher grilling the kids:

"Was it marijuana? Coke? Cheese? Heroine? Yellowjackets? Speedballs? Goofballs? Ludes? Shrooms? X? Spanish Fly?"

(I later found out from another teacher that the alcohol in question was an airline travel-size bottle of Bacardi Rum.)