Blog 24: Humor in Grammar Teaching (The Strawman Meets his Match)

by: Amanda Wieland

The responses are due on Wednesday, Nov. 17th, by class time.
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Alleen Nilsen and Don Nilsen, authors of “The Straw Mane Meets His Match: Six Arugments for Studying Humor in English Classes, start their article off by saying just how little validity their six claims to teach humor in the classroom are. Yet, their claims for teaching humor within the classroom are extremely strong, from this readers standpoint. Overall, the two authors write about six different reasons why teachers should incorporate grammar into their everyday lessons.

The first argument is that kids already get enough humor outside of school. This reason, the authors feel, is why humor should be found inside school as well. By not bringing something found in our everyday lives into the classroom can in turn make feels see just how irrelevant and unconnected to life school really is. Nilsen also argues that “[i]t takes skill and practice, along with a broad, cultural background of knowledge, to understand a full range of humor.” They note that as is with most literature, some humor can be more subtle than others, which is what this skill and practice gets students to recognize.

Another argument which is tackled in this article is the feeling that teaching humor will take away from the time teachers need to teach grammar, composition, literature, and public speaking. For the case of grammar, the authors note that students often respond better to lighthearted, humorous sentences within their problems. Taking on the argument of writing and speaking next, the authors feel that giving students items such as urban legends, or humorous monologues to write down can be better for students. They also feel that by analyzing humor itself can be a good way of incorporating more literature analysis. They feel that students are “genuinely interesting in figuring out what causes them to laugh;” therefore, have them look into humor. Nielsen presents ten different features with what people more often than not, find funny: surprise or shock, superiority, hostility, a trick or a twist, incongruity and irony, sudden insight, exaggeration, succinct word play, ambiguity, and situation.

The third argument is that teachers are supposed to be preparing kids to earn a living, not make them laugh. Yet, the authors feel that comedy is a very impressive way for students to earn a living. They also feel that comedy is a skill or trait which will carry over into other areas of student’s lives. They find it hard to name a career where humor would not be a positive attribute to the work environment. As a last resource for humor helping out in the job environment, they feel that humor helps in creative ways to solve problems. After all, humor in itself requires extreme creativity.

The fourth argument for leaving humor at the door is if teachers bring humor into the classroom, there will be censorship problems to handle. In a rather blunt manner, the authors simply agree with this statement. Yet, they also feel that humor can also be a way to help improve censorship. This can happen through the teaching of what is, or is not appropriate for the classroom setting.

Following censorship is the argument that humor often times hurts other’s feelings. Again, the authors agree with this statement. Then, they give the example that even though people get hurt by cars, hammers, or sticks society does not simply band them from existence. Similarly to censorship, the authors feel that humor can be used as a tool for either building or tearing. The authors feel that helping students achieve the balance of smiles, rather than painful stabs at the person is a balance that the teacher needs to help establish. They give the example of those who tell jokes about their own culture and why it is acceptable, rather than an outsider of a culture making fun of said culture. They feel that people say these jokes about themselves, because they have the right to challenge and criticize their own culture. On the other hand, when outsiders challenge or criticize and unknown culture merely adds to stereotypes.

The last argument which is challenged is that teachers can’t teach about humor if they can’t tell a joke or write a funny letter home. The authors then give several types of classroom activities that can be utilized to help teach about humor; writing parodies and pattern jokes, collecting funny news clippings, collecting humorous icons, and researching and writing about humor.

Personally, I feel that this article can be very helpful to the beginning teacher; yet, authors also warn against incorporating humor too fast, and to be open to questions from parents, co-workers, students, and administration about your humor antics.