I'm a high school teacher. I don't know middle school kids as well as teenagers. So, when I accepted this assignment as creative writing teacher, I'm not sure I understood I'd be teaching fourth to eighth graders. Okay (shh!) I've never taught kids this young before. Other than raising my own kid, I don't have experience in this. So, I'm winging it.
Imagine my complete amusement when a child presented her Author Study yesterday without any sense of irony. "A Drawing of Lois Lowry"... only she couldn't draw. She videotaped herself drawing stick figures and then, erasing them. I could not help myself. I barked out a loud laugh. If she had intended the irony, it would have been hilarious. But, she hadn't. So, she was completely baffled at my amusement.
With indignation, she asked what was so funny. I said, "But you can't draw! This is hilarious." I did not mean to be snarky or rude. I thought it was brilliant. Ironic as hell. The fact she didn't understand what was so funny made it endearing to me. Her response was a further irony: "Well, can you draw?" To which I answered, "As a matter of fact, I can. I was a Fine Arts major in college." Finally, she laughed. We laughed. The class laughed and we bonded in a moment of unintentional hilarity.
I gave her 100%. How could I not?
Middle school students can be the most hilarious people in the whole world . . . unintentionally. Imagine the laughs I got teaching them for 11 years!
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