Teacher Man is Frank McCourt's final memoir. It is still disjointed, like 'Tis, but not as bad. It is more of an elaboration on the teaching aspect of his life, so it was a little more enjoyable to me. Regardless, I still recommend it with the catch as before -- only if you like Angela's Ashes more than I did! Read on!
As an aide at CMS, I got to different classes each period with different students. In one of the sixth grade reading classes, the word of the weeks is arduous. When I was in seventh grade, that was one of our vocab words.
WHO REMEMBERS THEIR 7th GRADE VOCAB WORDS?!?!?
Answer: People who had a teacher who used rhymes for remembering. She'd put up an overhead [oh I'm old!] with the word, the rhyme, the definition, and the picture. And it worked.
Examples:
- Arduous: hard on us
- Aloof: on the roof
- Churlish: girlish
- Asunder: split by thunder
- Chattel: cattle
- Chicanery: like Sean Connery
Not only did she use rhymes, but rhymes which hinted at, or directly gave, the definition. This teacher, whose name I cannot even remember, taught me vocab words I can still recall. She taught us a prepositions song, most of which I can still sing.
I never thought of her as anything special, but I guess she was.
