Finding Funny: Figurative Language
Words That Are Funny...
Sometimes a book is funny because of the words. They might be nonsense words, silly words, or similar sounding words that have more than one meaning (homonyms). Below you will find an video clip adaptation of the classic book, The King Who Rained by Fred Gwynne.
Finding Funny: Realistic Fiction with a Humorous Twist
Click here to watch the Three Stooges: Brideless Groom
The Three Stooges are an example of old-fashioned slapstick humor. We will show the first four minutes of this short video clip to kick off our next reading unit. We will be using this to demonstrate the kind of humor (slapstick, potty humor, overt silliness) that we will NOT be reading in this unit. Some things we will not read as a class are: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Ook and Gluk, and Captain Underpants. We will compare this to the kinds of realistic fiction with humor that we WILL be reading. Books or characters may include: Clementine, Hank Zipzer, Horrible Harry, Skinnybones, Marvin Redpost, Junie B. Jones, Superfudge, or Gooney Bird Greene.
Goals for the unit are...
Three parts to this unit include: monitoring for sense, fluency, and inference...
The Three Stooges are an example of old-fashioned slapstick humor. We will show the first four minutes of this short video clip to kick off our next reading unit. We will be using this to demonstrate the kind of humor (slapstick, potty humor, overt silliness) that we will NOT be reading in this unit. Some things we will not read as a class are: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Ook and Gluk, and Captain Underpants. We will compare this to the kinds of realistic fiction with humor that we WILL be reading. Books or characters may include: Clementine, Hank Zipzer, Horrible Harry, Skinnybones, Marvin Redpost, Junie B. Jones, Superfudge, or Gooney Bird Greene.
Goals for the unit are...
- to laugh and enjoy reading humorous, realistic fiction books
- to recognize when they don't understand, or "get," the jokes- use strategies to help clear up confusion
- to work together in book clubs to create deeper comprehension of the texts
- to understand that there are different types of humor
- to understand that there is more to a book than the actual words on the page (inference)
- to understand that the author wants books to be read in a certain way and will practice doing so
Three parts to this unit include: monitoring for sense, fluency, and inference...
- monitoring for sense: recognize that parts in humor books can be confusing; humor can be difficult at times; students should be able to recognize when they don't understand the humor; ability to draw on a repertoire of strategies for making sense
- fluency: to understand humor, it helps to "hear" the character's voice; working on fluency is closely related to getting the joke in humorous books; provide many opportunities to read aloud so students can bring out the voices of the characters they read; practice little bits of improvisational drama; engage in small reenactments; shift goals from fluency alone to link between fluency and inferential comprehension
- inference: inferential comprehension; search for hidden meaning in funny parts; see if the character is using humor to cover up something more serious; interpret text for deeper meaning