Oh Middle School...

So for the past 8 weeks, I've been mentoring a group of middle schoolers and they read their final pieces last night at the University. 4 of my 7 kids showed up. I was told that one of my students' excuses for not being there was that his mother broke her arm last week and she had to go get her cast during the presentation. I hope she's ok...

Speaking of writing this is pretty funny...
Every year, English teachers from across the USA can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays in order to have them published and sent out for the amusement of other teachers across the country. Recent winners:

1. His thoughts tumbled around inside his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

2. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

3. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like the sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

4. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

5. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

6. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

7. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

8. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil,this plan just might work.

9. Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like" Second Tall Man."

and thats pretty much it...