The+ Nominalized Adjectives with a Joke

(TESOL Materials--Articles, Using Jokes to Illustrate Grammar Points)

Google Slides: slides, pub

This joke is repurposed from my collection of jokes.  I use it in my class to teach  t"The + nominalized adjectives".

In class, I run through it as you would do any other joke/riddle.  I give students the question, challenge them to solve the riddle, and then show them the answer.

After giving them the answer, I highlight some of the sentences like "The poor have it" and "The rich need it".  I ask the students to identify what part of speech "rich" and "poor" are.  If the students say that "rich" and "poor" are adjectives, I then ask the how "the rich" and "the poor" are being used in the sentence.

I then give them the rule that "The + adjective" can refer to a group of people.