full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Jerome Hunter: 3 skills every middle school boy needs

Unscramble the Blue Letters


You might imagine that it looks a little like this. This was me in sixth grade, and like many middle school students, I was earnest, I was goofy, and I was just dicveornsig who I waetnd to be. Now I had no idea that I'd go on to teach middle school. They say the grade levels you teach are most reflective of your personality. So I'm not quite sure what it says about me that I later went on to found a middle school for boys.

But in all seriousness, it didn't take long as a teacher to rezalie that my male students were acting kind of strange. I remember there was this one year, we were doing a get-to-know-you activity where students would use old magazines to create cleaogls representing who they were. And many of the collages had all of the things that typical middle schoolers like: the outdoors, sports, the lestat fhosian, the hottest shoes, you know, all the important stuff. However, there were some that were not exactly what I had in mind. A gruop of middle school boys created these collages that were comical, if not concerning. It was almost as if they had made templates of who they thought that they should be. gilrs in bikinis, fast cars, professional wrestlers, first-person shooter viedo games. You get the idea. One cglloae actually had to have had at least 25 different images of Kim Kardashian.

Open Cloze


You might imagine that it looks a little like this. This was me in sixth grade, and like many middle school students, I was earnest, I was goofy, and I was just ___________ who I ______ to be. Now I had no idea that I'd go on to teach middle school. They say the grade levels you teach are most reflective of your personality. So I'm not quite sure what it says about me that I later went on to found a middle school for boys.

But in all seriousness, it didn't take long as a teacher to _______ that my male students were acting kind of strange. I remember there was this one year, we were doing a get-to-know-you activity where students would use old magazines to create ________ representing who they were. And many of the collages had all of the things that typical middle schoolers like: the outdoors, sports, the ______ _______, the hottest shoes, you know, all the important stuff. However, there were some that were not exactly what I had in mind. A _____ of middle school boys created these collages that were comical, if not concerning. It was almost as if they had made templates of who they thought that they should be. _____ in bikinis, fast cars, professional wrestlers, first-person shooter _____ games. You get the idea. One _______ actually had to have had at least 25 different images of Kim Kardashian.

Solution


  1. collage
  2. fashion
  3. girls
  4. collages
  5. latest
  6. discovering
  7. wanted
  8. video
  9. realize
  10. group

Original Text


You might imagine that it looks a little like this. This was me in sixth grade, and like many middle school students, I was earnest, I was goofy, and I was just discovering who I wanted to be. Now I had no idea that I'd go on to teach middle school. They say the grade levels you teach are most reflective of your personality. So I'm not quite sure what it says about me that I later went on to found a middle school for boys.

But in all seriousness, it didn't take long as a teacher to realize that my male students were acting kind of strange. I remember there was this one year, we were doing a get-to-know-you activity where students would use old magazines to create collages representing who they were. And many of the collages had all of the things that typical middle schoolers like: the outdoors, sports, the latest fashion, the hottest shoes, you know, all the important stuff. However, there were some that were not exactly what I had in mind. A group of middle school boys created these collages that were comical, if not concerning. It was almost as if they had made templates of who they thought that they should be. Girls in bikinis, fast cars, professional wrestlers, first-person shooter video games. You get the idea. One collage actually had to have had at least 25 different images of Kim Kardashian.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
middle school 12
middle schoolers 4
school boys 4
typical middle 2
redefine masculinity 2
feel good 2
essential question 2
students felt 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
middle school boys 4

Important Words


  1. acting
  2. activity
  3. bikinis
  4. boys
  5. cars
  6. collage
  7. collages
  8. comical
  9. create
  10. created
  11. discovering
  12. earnest
  13. fashion
  14. fast
  15. games
  16. girls
  17. goofy
  18. grade
  19. group
  20. hottest
  21. idea
  22. images
  23. imagine
  24. important
  25. kardashian
  26. kim
  27. kind
  28. latest
  29. levels
  30. long
  31. magazines
  32. male
  33. middle
  34. mind
  35. outdoors
  36. personality
  37. professional
  38. realize
  39. reflective
  40. remember
  41. representing
  42. school
  43. schoolers
  44. seriousness
  45. shoes
  46. shooter
  47. sixth
  48. sports
  49. strange
  50. students
  51. stuff
  52. teach
  53. teacher
  54. templates
  55. thought
  56. typical
  57. video
  58. wanted
  59. wrestlers
  60. year