Teen Literacy Tips

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. I'd also love to hear what you have to say, so please feel free to comment on any post. Thanks for visiting!

For a fun Christmas/vocabulary activity try having your students translate these verbose Christmas carol titles back into their original form:

Example: Soundless Nocturnal Timespan (answer: Silent Night)

1. Move Hitherward the Entire Assembly of Those Who Are Loyal in Their Belief
2. Ornament the Enclosure with Large Sprigs of a Berry-Bearing Evergreen
3. Vertically-Challenged Adolescent Percussionist
4. First Person (Singular) Experiencing an Hallucinatory Phenomenon of a Natal Celebration Devoid of Color
5. Majestic Triplet (First Person Plural)
6. The Yuletide Occurrence Preceding All Others
7. Precious Metal Musical Devices
8. Omnipotent Supreme Being Elicits Respite to Ecstatic Distinguished Males
9. Caribou Afflicted with Vermillion Olfactory Appendage
10. Allow Crystalline Formation to Descend
11. Jovial Yuletide Desired for the Second Person (Singular or Plural)
12. Commence Auditory Reception, the Celestial Messengers Produce Harmonious Sounds
13. Village Expectations of a Yuletide Emmisary
14. Bipedal Travel through a Geographic State of Fantasy During the Season of Mother Nature’s Dormancy
15. Arrival Occurred at Twelve O’clock During Clement Nocturnal Period
16. Exclamatory Remark Concerning a Diminutive Municipality of Judea
17. Ecstatic Experience Directed Toward Global Inhabitants
18. First Person (Plural) Acoustic Awareness of Extra-Terrestrial Messengers at Great Altitude
19. Obese Male Personification Consisting of Aggregate Compaction of Individual Water Crystals, with Appellation of Surface Crystalline Deposition of Water Vapor
20. Tintinnabulation of Vacillating Pendulums in Metallic Resonant Spheres
21. Improvised Infant Furniture in Remote Location
22. Imperative Expedition for the Purpose of Proclaiming Upon a Specific Alpine Formation
23. Wintertime Festivity Consisting of a Dozen Planetary Sidereal Rotations
24. My Sole Desire for the Yuletide Season Is Receipt of a Pair of Central Incisors
25. Are You Detecting the Same Aural Sensations as I Am?
26. Who’s the Mystery Offspring?
27. Testimony of Witness to Maternal Parent’s Infidelity with Kris Kringle

Answers:

Some of my students read this blog, and I haven’t given this to them yet this year, so I will post the answers early next week. If you can’t wait that long, use the contact form on the About page and I’ll send them to you via email.  [Update 12/18/2007: Click this page for the answers.]

Share!

If you use this is in class, consider sharing one of your Christmas activities with Teen Literacy Tips readers by posting to your blog and leaving a link below in the comments section.

Share This

Related articles on this site:

• Resources for Teaching Public Speaking
• SFWA Accuses Teen Literacy of Copyright Violation
• 20 Books Worth Teaching to Teens