The Hallo-Wiener

Preface to a story: 
One of my favorite Halloween picture books is called The Hallo-Wiener.  This book is about a wiener dog named Oscar who always gets picked on by the other dogs because of his size and he even gets picked on by the cats too (this is the worst).  For Halloween his mom buys him a costume, a hot dog bun costume, and Oscar doesn't want to wear the costume, but he also doesn't want to hurt his mom's feelings...so he wears the costume.  Of course, all the other dogs make fun of him.  All the dogs go trick-or-treating together and Oscar can't keep up because his legs are so short and his costume keeps getting in the way.  The other dogs get spooked by a "ghost" and Oscar comes to the rescue by pulling the bottom of the costume off of...the cats! In the end the other dogs realize that Oscar's size is important and that he is actually a really nice dog. 

Story: 
The Friday before Halloween I shared with my students my favorite Halloween book, The Hallo-Wiener.  The kids had heard of the book and many of them had had the book read to them when they were younger, but I read it to them anyway.  As I was reading the book, they would laugh at the jokes the author incorporated into the story (there is a play on words that revolve around hot dogs).  One of my students even said, "I never got all the jokes until now." 

When I finished the story the kids all "awed" and commented on how cute the story was.  I had them think about how this story could be related to the personal narratives that they were writing themselves.  I then asked them to think about what the "lesson learned" was or the moral of the story that the author was trying to get across. 

One serious student, sitting towards the back of the classroom, quickly raised his hand and without thinking said, "Don't judge a person by their wiener." 

Instantly the class was in an uproar and I about fell off my stool I was sitting on from laughing myself.  Other students commented to this young boy, "Do you realize what you just said?" 

As he sat there for a second and the classroom continued to be filled with student laughter, the boy finally realized what he had said and smiled himself.  He then said somewhat sheepishly, "Well, you know what I mean."

There's never a dull moment when teaching 6th grade.