1: Let’s play a game.

This is good for a cheap and immediate shock of interest, like a Red Bull shot. The heads come up, the eyes glint for a nanosecond. But if you’ve ever had Red Bull you know the truth: “It gives you wings” translates into “It gives you mild nausea and makes your teeth feel soft.”

Equally wide is the gap between whatever index-card Jeopardy knockoff you have planned and your students’ concept of a real game. The fundamental thing to remember is this: a game, by adolescent definition, is something antithetical to school.

So if you’re going to call it a game, be sure it takes students so far out of their seats, so completely busts the clock-watching with its engagement, that students have no way of contradicting the term. Otherwise, do their preternatural sensitivity to hypocrisy some credit.

Honest substitutes: activity, exercise

2. We’re going to have a party.

There are occasions when the word “party” is acceptable in middle school, usually in a compound noun phrase such as “pizza party,” where the implied desirability of the initial noun (”pizza”) overrides the lame adult misuse of the secondary noun (”party”). These occasions are extremely rare, however. In general, honor again the principle of Fundamental Antithesis.

Honest substitutes: celebration, free time, acknowledgement

3. This will be fun.

Never mind that whatever you’ve got planned is actually going to BE fun. To your students, SAYING it’s going to be fun is tantamount to your vice-principal’s comb-over, both morally and aesthetically.

Honest substitutes:

I think you’ll really like this.

You might find this interesting.

Or the phrase I hope you pull out, because despite all of our frustration at the linguistic goose-stepping our students require, we still love our subject, our classroom, and the light of understanding in our kids:

I think this rocks. Maybe you will too.