Friday, March 9, 2012

At Least She Asked

I've been teaching sixth grade a long time, and every year the kids really enjoy writing fictional short stories. We use the writing process: they plan, compose, confer, and revise until their pieces are as polished as possible. Today I had the following conversation with a student as she worked on her first draft:

Student: Will you read this part of my story and tell me if it's okay?

Me (regarding the look on her face with a bit of concern): Sure.

We hold hands as we get to his house.  He tells me to come to his house, and I follow him to his room.  We have a lot of fun and then we fall asleep in his bed.

Me (with eyebrows raised quite high): If you're asking me if it's appropriate for the characters in your story to have sex, I'm going to have to say no.

Another student (overhearing our conversation): Ewwww! Who wants to read that?

First student: Fine! I'll change it.

In the interest of engaging them in writing they really care about, I give my students a lot of freedom, choice, and leeway when it comes to topic and content, and to be honest, there have certainly been times when I have had to address inappropriate themes and action, but that was definitely a first.

6 comments:

  1. I guess I'm kind of surprised this happened with a sixth grader. I would think high school perhaps, but holy cow! You handled that well. It makes me glad I'm teaching 4th grade :)

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  2. EEEk! You did handle that well! What trust to run that by you!

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  3. You handled that well. Two thumbs up.

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  4. Smells like springtime, or is that smells like pre-teen spirit?

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  5. Yikes! You did diffuse that well. Thank heavens she didn't elaborate on "we had a lot of fun".

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  6. Did I mention my own story was about a kiss on the cheek? Thanks for putting it into perspective.

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