Censored

Running a Slice of Life Story Challenge for a bunch of sixth graders on the verge of full-blown adolescence has had its moments, both rewarding and challenging. Many days, I feel like I've been walking a tightrope between encouraging the kids to write authentically about what's going on in their lives and their minds and keeping their posts appropriate for a school activity.

For example, here's a slice from today (the bolding is mine):

Today we were supposed to be hosting a party for no reason with some of my dad's college friends. Apparently they didn't check their calendar and now they can't come. Now my dad is really grumpy because he was looking forward to drinking a lot of beer and other adult beverages. I like parties but luckily we have invited other friends of ours that also like to "have a ball". They have a kid in 3rd grade that is very aggresive. The last time he was here we were jumping on the trampoline and he gave me like five nut shots. I'm very scared of him. Today I will wear pads. Just in case. WISH ME LUCK!

What to do? Well, my Saturday night solution was to excise the bold passages (it actually works out just fine without them) and reply to him as follows:

This post is really testing the limits of what is appropriate for school, C. You may notice that I deleted a couple of things.

I will also take up the conversation with him in person on Monday. Before my intervention, another student had already read his post. Here's her reply:

Wow Ms. S. you edited A LOT! And I thought the first one was rather hilarious. OH WELL we are on the school grounds of the internet.

I posted once more to the thread. My point exactly.

(Click here for today's sample of my 6th grade students' response to the SOLSC challenge.)