Teaching Chronicles: The Giggles

I wanted to show my students that not all non-fiction was boring; in that attempt, I gave them a passage full of words added to the dictionary in the last year.  The words were fun like "boo" and "chickapoo" and below that compendium was incidentally another list: "Things everyone should know about Chuck Norris."   It was not their intended reading but got copied on the last page.  One by one the most genuine and furtive giggle emerged from students.  Large boys were giggling and trying to keep it in.  At least five students at any given time had a finger to their mouth, aware they were in English and trying not to have fun.  It was probably the greatest sound ever.  Teenagers spontaneously giggling collectively by their own discovery.