mo' freshmen, mo' problems: vol. 4

My freshmen recently submitted the final drafts of their personal narrative essays. We spent a considerable amount of time working on creating interesting leads, developing details and using dialogue. Unfortunately, I must have neglected the lesson on conclusions. Please allow me to share some of my favorites:

That supid carpet warehouse fire had made that day one of the scariest in my lifetime, along with many others. It probably ruined some people's lives as well. When things calmed down, we all returned to our cars and carried on down to Florida. Those hours were the most nerve wrecking hours of my life, but I was soon fine, because hey, I was four years old and we were on our way to Disney World.

It took me about four hours to get away from the bear. I tried to climb a tree but the bear followed me. When I got home I found 2 dogs and I told them to attack the bear and they did. Guess what they won. But then they attacked me and they beat me up pretty bad, but I killed one and I went to jail because of it. The dog I killed was an old scruffy dog. It looked like it hadn't eaten anything in a long time.

Ever since I had to get those stiches I haven't really spun around that much anymore. I've been scared to spin around. You never know when something bad could happen to you like it happened to me. Yet I have had many more accidents after falling on the weight incident, and I've gotten many more stiches as well. Also, I have been kind of scared to go to the hospital because ever since they strapped me onto the table I've been terribly scared because they give you shot and, to tell you the truth I absolutely hate shots.

So, let's see. In addition to working on conclusions and writing in complete sentences it appears that I need to add developing empathy for your fellow man, how to survive a bear attack and general balanceing skills to my lesson plans. Good to know.