I'm goin' where no Third Grade teacher has gone before!* I'm teaching the kids the meaning of "ironic"!
So many of the reading responses questions we explore now and especially those on EQAO can be answered quickly and easily with "It's ironic", and rather than kids fret over trying to explain "What's funny about a man named Mr. Cheeseman who hates cheese?", how about I just teach them irony?
It's not easy, but I think we're up to the challenge.
We've talked so far about how irony is a funny or unexpected surprise, but not quite like a Christmas morning surprise, more of a "Hey that sign for fasteners isn't fastened to the pole!" type of surprise. I've been referring to irony as a sort of quirky twist.
We'll continue to focus on this over the next week or so. I think it can really be a helpful literary device for kids to learn because understanding irony means thinking critically about what we read, see and hear. I also suggested that the kids pay really close attention to some of the jokes in the cartoons they watch, because there are often great examples of irony to be found!
*this fact has not actually been proven
