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Saving Baby Pandas

The kids are reading a book in which an English teacher reads kids' journals out loud to the class.  My students were appalled.  One of them wrote:
I think Mr. Birkway is a horrible teacher because some people use their journals as a diary and write private stuff in them.  I know my teacher would never do any stuff like that because she cares about the students and knows our personalities.  I think she knows every one of us and what we do by heart.  Mr. Birkway did have a point about what the students write about.  he says this person is expressing their feelings and getting it off their chest.  But I still don't like the fact that Mr. Birkway read those journals.


On another note, many of my students need extra credit.  I told them that they could get partial credit if they wrote me a letter about why they weren't doing homework.  One kid, "Francisco," said that his reasons were boring - could he make up a fictional reason?  This is his letter:
Instead of doing my homework, I've been too busy saving the little baby pandas in China.  I was saving them from being killed and turned into clothes and furniture.  Another reason why I couldn't do my homework because I had to give surgery to a woman who had heart problems, and she was 7 months pregnant also.  The operation went really well.  the baby came out weighing 4 pounds 3 ounces.
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Comments

Gracie B. said…
Please tell me you gave Francisco credit. Any letter that creative deserves it. Great work!
4:00 PM
Bronwyn said…
I sure did! :) I counted it as creative writing.
7:54 PM
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