The Honors kids are working through a parts-of-speech review, and today we went over pronouns. (Not for the whole class, mind you — we only spend about 15 minutes per day working on this. Otherwise, it would be numbingly boring for everyone, including me.) Students were identifying demonstrative, interrogative, and relative pronouns, and number five was a question, an excellent opportunity to see for interrogative pronouns.

“Let’s skip to five,” I said, giving them a moment to read it. “The first pronoun in that sentence — can anyone identify it?”

A smart young lady raised her hand. “What,” she replied correctly.

And then it hit me — there’s always a joke of the day. I like to make the kids laugh, though most of my jokes make them groan. But here was a chance to recreate a classic.

“Number five,” I repeated. “The first pronoun.”

“What,” she repeated, a little confused.

“I’m asking you — the first pronoun in number five.” I had to phrase the next part just right. “It’s what?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“It’s what,” she confirmed, her eyebrows furrowing a bit more, smiles starting to appear around the room.

“What?”

“Number five?”

“Yes. I’m asking you. The first pronoun.”

“What.” She was starting to catch on here.

“The first pronoun!” I let a little faux frustration creep into my voice. “Look at number five and identify the first pronoun.”

“It’s what!” a full smile as she had caught on at that point.

“Why are you asking me?! I know what it is. I want to see if you know. What is it?”

“Yes!” Now she had it.

“Yes, what?!”

“Exactly!“

By now everyone was giggling, including her.

“Does anyone know what we just recreated?” I asked.

“Who’s on first?” came a voice from the back.

“Very good!” And our first brain break of the day was to watch the first few minutes of that classic.