I was reliably informed before I started to teach that there would come a day when I would have enough anecdotes about teaching/my students to fill a book. I think, given the next two examples, I'm going to have enough by the end of the term to fill several.

1. My RW students are reading C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe for class. Last week, we worked on making predictions about books based on their covers (a proverbial sin, I know). Every student is working from the same copy of the book. It looks like this:

I was just curious to see what vocabulary they knew out of the gate, so I had them name the things they saw on the cover of the book. I got the expected responses: "castle," "lion," "woman," "horse," "trees" (pretty good vocabulary, considering). Then, from some corner of the classroom, I distinctly heard the word "penis." I thought I'd misheard. I went on with the rest of the vocabulary. A few seconds later I heard it again, and this time there was no mistaking -- someone had just dropped the "p-bomb" in class. 

I said, "what?" (while probably coloring eight shades of pink) and asked that side of the room for clarification. One student held up the book and pointed to the pillar on the right-hand side of the cover. "I think this is penis," he said. A few other students nodded their agreement.

I have a sneaking suspicion that he knew perfectly well what it was -- maybe he didn't have the exact word for it -- but he looked pretty serious when he said it. I mean, I don't want to make assumptions about what they're teachings kids in Anatomy 101 these days (or Intro to Architecture, for that matter), but it could be mighty embarrassing if that student ever visits the Roman Coliseum on an architectural tour.

2. I've got a pretty diverse group of talkers in my classes. Some students like to contribute often, while others I sort of have to, well, pull it out of them. One of my students has absolutely no problem speaking up in class -- and he does so to such an extent that it's almost distracting. He's a bright kid, eager to learn and very motivated (he came to me during the first week of class and asked for extra homework -- extra homework, people). He's also got a great imagination. During a free-writing exercise in which I asked my students to imagine what they might see if they ever went through the wardrobe and into Narnia, he came up with an elaborate story about how he'd use the wardrobe as a time traveling device to go 1,000 years into the past, what he'd bring ("Pepsi and my laptop. I know there no electricity in the past. I invent it.") and all of the strange, strange creatures he might happen to run into. 

I mean, that story alone would be fodder enough for an anecdote, but would you believe it? There's more. 

Every instructor is required to teach two classes of standard curriculum instruction, for four hours a day. In addition, we must teach or participate in one to two hours of extra instruction a week, called a "module." Modules can be about pretty much anything the instructor wants. Some instructors have a "lunch module," where students go out to lunch at different restaurants around town. Others teach a "sports and fitness" module, which basically boils down to going to all of the basketball and football games in the area and requires very little actual physical exertion. This term I'm teaching a module on the history of Western music. I'm starting with the old fogey composers and hopefully by the end of the semester we'll be talking about the 'Stones and Lady Gaga. 

Today was the first session of my module. I almost scrapped it because no one showed up at the proper time (Arab students -- almost always late!) but we started cooking about ten minutes after the scheduled start time. I'd prepared a PowerPoint presentation with some questions -- What do you like to listen to? Why do you listen to music? -- just to get them talking. We got on the subject of types of music and so I asked them how many they could name off the top of their heads. Then I put up this list:

I asked them if there were any types of music on this list that surprised them, or with which they were unfamiliar. I commented that I, myself, was unfamiliar with what "House" music sounded like. My imaginative student raised his hand and confidently informed me that "House" music was a kind of music that happened when a few guys get together in somebody's kitchen or bathroom and play music. When somebody asked for an explanation of R 'n' B, the same student informed the class that it was a type of music played by three people named Ryan, Nancy, and Brian -- "R N B." 

Now, of course there's a danger that this kind of frequent participation can actually become distracting to the other students, and I hope that I am able to make the distinction between "funny" and "might become a problem." But for now? I'm enjoying their creativity and contributions to class.