How to put a corpse in your classroom and other teaching weirdness.

Today was one of my favorite days of the year.  It was Gatsby's funeral!  Every year after we finish reading The Great Gatsby we go all out and throw that poor man a funeral.  No one came to his funeral in the book, so we figure what better place than West Jordan, Utah to throw the old sport a bonafide, prim and proper funeral! Show him the love he deserves! (In case you missed it, the book club discussion for The Great Gatsby is here.)

This is one of the few teaching ideas I have that is 100% mine.  It was not begged, borrowed or stolen from anyone!  Just my little brain working over time.  The kids absolutely love it and I can't help but think that it could be adapted to be used for a myriad of different things.  For English teachers the obvious idea is to throw a funeral any time a character in a book dies.  For other teachers, moms, entertainers of the masses, ETC., I would still think it could be a pretty useful trick to have up your sleeve.  The possibilities, my friends, are endless.

HOW TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE THERE IS A CORPSE IN YOUR CLASSROOM

STEP ONE:  GATHER SUPPLIES:  

You will need:   

• Blankets/old clothes/ something bulky.
• Some kind of ball
• Men's dress shoes
• Sheet
• Picture frames
• Fake flowers.

STEP TWO:  Put three or four desks together.

STEP THREE:  Arrange the blankets and clothes together so that they look like some kind of mass lump.

STEP FOUR:  Put the soccer ball on top of one end of the clothes.

STEP FIVE:  Drape sheet over blankets and soccer ball.

STEP SIX:  Place shoes at the foot of the "body".

STEP SEVEN:  Add feminine touches, like flowers and picture frames.

FINISHED.  It now legitimately looks like you have a corpse in your classroom.  Congratulations, you will scare the crap out of anyone who enters.

The kids rocked their funeral speeches and I was so proud of them and their love for Jay Gatsby.  In a totally weird creepy English teacher way, I felt like Jay Gatsby was there with us.  It's as if his character is so strong that in some way he has become part of the class.  The literature we study lives and breathes, and as we mourned his loss I felt a real sadness.  Sadness at a fictional character who never was nor ever will be, but who represents pain and sadness and the loss of dreams all the same.

The kids wore black to show their respect.

Farewell, old sport.  We will miss you!

UNTIL NEXT YEAR!  Fingers crossed and double crossed and triple crossed that I will find a school in California that will let me teach The Great Gatsby until my dying days!

I wrote about last year's funeral here.  It involved me hiding a real kid under the sheet and using him to jump out and scare the other kids in the middle of class.  My best teaching experience to date.