Writing assignment: Write to a fictitious pen pal, telling him or her what happens at our school dances.
ACTUAL seventh grade response:
Dear Mr. Mink,
Hello Mr. Mink, you are of this moment reading this letter in your very small tin foil hat on the rail road tracks.
You needed assistance with your BBQ?
You said you were BBQing on the tracks and the train hit it? OK...
Fix it using imaginary tools by Magico and follow the east to use the instructions.
Hope this helped!
Sincerely,
Jack
(Name has been changed to protect the privacy of this odd child)
I met this boy's father at conferences tonight. What do you say when all you really WANT to say is, "I think your son is pretty strange." ?
3 comments:
Dude, don't harsh this child's creativity. Correct his damn grammar maybe, but don't bat an eyelash at his story. Reacting is what he wants you to do. He's in 7th grade. You need to win. You need to come to Seattle in like 4 DAYS!!! Yes! Don't balk at children. Be entertained, amused, open. Encourage the revitalization of the conservative values of giving back, leaving somewhere better than you found it, and rugged individualism (which means encouraging the letter to the imaginary penpal). He could work on sentence coherence a little bit. Maybe add a sentence like, "Hopefully, you will read the tradewinds before attempting flight on such a balmy Tuesday". Ha. Mine's more odd.
peace.
Thanks, Matt. Now I feel like a terrible teacher. But trust me, this kid isn't slowing down anytime soon. Excerpts in the past week alone have inspired another teacher and me to compile them. Bestseller, I'm sure.
Yes, we need to come to Seattle in like 3 DAYS!!! Very excited. I'll call you with flight info.
Adios.
Ok, this is a super old post, but it is worth commenting on. I did writings like this in my english classes too. If I had a teacher tell me to write to an imaginary friend, I'd first be a little concerned the teacher still spoke to his/her imaginary friend then proceed to write something not unlike what you mentioned.
A couple of my teachers had us keep journals where we were supposed to write about our lives. We were told they weren't read. Each day we journaled I let my writings get stranger and stranger. Eventually my teacher sat me down to talk about my troubled writings and when I brought up that she lied to me about not reading them that was the end of our conversation.
It was the greatest day of my elementary school life.
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