Y’all! I did it! Well, that could be an overstatement. How about…It might finally be happening!

I write a lot about the challenging kids here. I write about the ways they make me reflect on my teaching and my attitude, and whether or not it is too late to become a florist. But today…today!

Student Q (that’s how you know they aren’t the student I wrote about yesterday) has long expressed his frustration about ELA, specifically my class. The kid has an air of ennui so palpable, Anna Wintour would raise an eyebrow. But I know a secret about this kid. Well, not much of a secret, since he talks about it every time we start a new unit. See, he wants to do creative writing. Not enough to join my club, mind you, but enough that he brings it up every time the class has an assignment.

But Student Q doesn’t want to do just ANY old creative writing. He wants to do one that fills him with excitement. He wants one where he can excise all his thrilling ideas about conflict, and intergalactic drama, and worldwide destruction, and heroic escapes. And somehow essay writing just doesn’t provide the medium he needs to be able to really SHOW his POTENTIAL. (When you read that sentence, use “spirit fingers” when you get to the ALL CAPS parts.)

But now! Now…we are starting a new unit. One that invites, nay, demands the spirit of creativity from the students. And to get that unit started, we will focusing on drama. Not the traditional Shakespearean drama of my memories.

We are going to be focusing on War of the Worlds.

Y’all, Student Q lit up like I told him I knew Santa Claus’s phone number. And then…when I broke it to him that he would finally, finally get to write that story he has been dying to tell me since the beginning of the year…he actually jumped up and squealed (yeah, squealed) “Yippee!!”

Yippee? Who says yippee anymore?

So I have finally done it! I reached a kid through his interests, after months and months of not being able to. I have no idea what kind of story I might be in for. I have already had to tell him (mind you, I haven’t posted an assignment yet) that I would prefer it not exceed five, double-spaced pages. I want to finish grading these before the students graduate from high school. Normally, I have to answer the question “Ms., how long does it have to be?” not “How long can I make it?”

I am so excited!