A Food Court Drama
, illustrated by Michel Streich
Learning intention:
I am learning to consider context so that I can spell homophone words correctly.
Success criteria:
- I can identify homophones.
- I can use context clues to correctly spell a homophone word.
- I can use homophones to create humorous texts.
Prior to reading, show students the title A Food Court Drama and ask them to predict what the play is going to be about. Some students may assume it will take place in a food court at a shopping centre. Read the text as a class or listen to the audio recording. Ask students what a “food court” is in relation to A Food Court Drama (answer: a legal courtroom). Explain that this is a play on words. Ask students to find other examples of where the author has played on words in the text. (There are a wide range to choose from.)
Give the following joke: What does a vampire have to watch out for at a restaurant? A stake sandwich.
Ask students where the humour lies in the joke. Students should recognise that the steak/stake homophone (words that sounds the same but are spelt differently) has been used to give the answer two meanings. Explain that using a homophone is another way to create humour.
Brainstorm some words that are homophones, such as: there/their/they’re, where/wear, eye/I, see/sea, sight/site/cite, bored/board, bare/bear, hare/hair.
Ask students to focus specifically on food-related homophones and explain that they’ll be inserting a joke somewhere into A Food Court Drama. Some food-related homophones include:
Pair – pear
Court – caught
Knead – need
Piece – peace
Carrot – carat
Cereal – serial
Steak – stake
Meat – meet
Scent – sent – cent
Ate – eight
Sauce – source
Mussels – muscles
Instruct students to insert homophones into the play to produce a humorous effect. They can work in pairs.
Some examples:
Cook: I’ll meet you later.
Vegetables: You’ll what us later?
(meat/meet)
Cook: Check out my mussels.
Judge: You look pretty scrawny to me.
(mussels/muscles)
Cook: We ate at eight, which seemed like the best time to dine.
(eight/ate)
Students share their answers with the class.