For the past two weeks I’ve been struggling to improve my student’s writing by encouraging them to add details through the use of descriptive language — i.e. adjectives.

This has been a more difficult task than I’d anticipated.  Despite the fact that I have exhausted every possible method of instruction, my students continue to pen highly lackluster sentences.

“I like flowers.  They are pretty and nice,” wrote one of my aspiring Hemingways.
“I love my mom because she is good and nice and pretty,” raved a junior Steinbeck.
“Recess is fun,” observed another Caldecott hopeful.

It does “sound” a bit better in Spanish, but still….

Desperate, I stood in front of my class today, readying them for a simple writing exercise involving the use of adjectives.  We had *just* finished an adjective worksheet so I asked them to help me brainstorm some adjectives that would help us with our writing assignment.  Chalk in hand (yes - CHALK!  It’s prehistoric!), I was poised over the board ready to record what I was certain would be a waterfall of dynamically diverse adjectives.

Sanchez?  Sanchez?

(that’s the Spanish equivalent of Buehler?  Buehler?)

“Guys,” I implored.  “All you have to do is look at the worksheet we just did!!!”

My students searched the ceiling for adjectives.

“Come on,” I encouraged.  “Think about yourselves.  What words describe you?”

“I’m from Illinois!” one of my students yelled.

“No you’re not,” shot back another. “You’re from Cary” (our town).

A small riot broke out as my students began to debate the validity of their origins.

The room quickly filled with the odor of burning brakes as I struggled to put this runaway train back on its tracks.  I was getting edgy.

“Okay,” I snapped.  “I know we can do this.  Think about your mom or your dad.  What about me?  What describing words can you think of?”

My students’ faces brightened considerably.

“Mean!” exclaimed one of the kids.

“Impatient!” called out another. (points for him because at least this is one of the week’s spelling words!)

“How do you say kind of chubby?” quizzed a boy in front.

After a day like today I have only this to say — no fancy adjectives needed:

Teaching is hard.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 13th, 2010 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Motherhood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.