What is Today?

Last Monday I was teaching my students some problems involving the perimeter of a rectangle. In one problem we labeled the length "3w," because it was three times the width. In another we used "w + 5," because the length was five centimeters more than the width. I started reading the next problem to the class, "The length of the rectangle is 19 centimeters." I stopped reading there and asked the class, "What is the length of the rectangle." In my third period class nobody was able to answer my question. I reread the statement with increased voice inflection and annunciation, "The LENGTH of the rectangle IS 19 centimeters. What is the length?" Still no one could answer my question. So I stopped class and told them the following story:

A few years ago I was substitute teaching at a preschool, and we sang a song called "Days of the Week." It went like this:

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Next comes Sunday. Today is Monday. What is Today?

There was always a little pop quiz at the end of the song, but if you listen real carefully the answer to the quiz is found within the song. Sometimes the preschool kids would still get it wrong. So we would sing the last line again, "Today is Monday. What is today?" Then they would answer excitedly, "Monday." We would praise them for their response.

I said to the class. "I feel a little like that right now. Let's try it again. The length of the rectangle is 19cm. What is the length?" Thankfully, they came up with the answer. Which is good, because I can only do one singing metaphor per class period.