Idioms, idioms

8th grade girl talk in Advisory:  bring on the sass.

Student A (in reference to an upset student): "Poor thing."  

Student B: "THING!?!  OMG.  You can't call a girl a thing!!" 

Mrs. Malik:  "Poor thing just means pobrecita."  

Student B:  "Ohhhhh.  I was gonna say!!"

Dracula hates Snapchat more than I do!

Fiiiiinally grading those Dracula tests.

Directions:  You are Dracula and have been a vampire for over 100 years.  Give some advice to a new vampire on what he or she should do or not do.  Write at least 5 sentences.

"Stay away from garlic, steak, and crosses.  Don't do an Instagram or Snapchat."


No red meat OR social media!  :)

No Edward Cullen here.

From my vampire-loving, Twilight-obsessed 10th grader:

"You live in Washington?"
"Yes.  Last year."
"You go to Forks?"
"What?" (Am I forgetting a suburb?  Fort something?  Those words do sound similar.)
"Forks."
"Ohhhh.  I lived in the capital, Washington, D.C.  That's where the President lives.  Washington state is on the other side of the United States, near California."
(Supreme disappointment.)  "Oh."
"There aren't any vampires in Washington, D.C.  But we do have monster politicians!"

Sorry to let you down.  Again.  Two weeks ago I refused to show Twilight as an addition to our Dracula unit.

Gothic/Horror Stories

My high school class is reading Dracula, and to accompany our reading, we are composing our own Gothic/horror stories.  My students have great ideas.  I don't actually like being scared, but they do, and they've taken to the task with great passion.  They might not be turning in their homework still, but all 16 students have a rough draft that creeps me out.  We are in the final phases of editing, and I've offered some help to students who've sought it.  There are the normal rounds of editing:
"'I' must be capitalized.  No exceptions."  "But Miss...  It's too hard."
"You do not need to hit enter for every sentence.  That does not count toward your minimum one page."
"A two-paged story should have more than one paragraph."
"You're in 9th grade.  Do you know how to use a period?  Obviously not." (Ok, ok. I was a bit more kind than that.)

But I also love the errors due to second language acquisition.
"Her stomach grumbled."  It was annoyed from a lack of food.
"It was a dark and stormy nighty."  This could get interesting.  Keep it PG-13, folks.
(fighting off the zombies) "yaa. im to good."  Where to start?  How does one gently critique that?
"Ultra mission ! Now his job is in hospital to bring “Mega medicine” back to company . Doctor ,nurse, security guard , FBI them all zombie ! " I love my Thai exchange student.

I hope one of them wins the Halloween story contest sponsored by our library. Can you win in spite of grammar?

"It is not my ability, but my response to God’s ability, that counts."
— Corrie ten Boom