Saturday, January 2, 2010

The Wisdom of Sophomores

A couple of months ago, Relyn over at Come and Sit By My Fire wrote a post that I knew I could use as a quick writing assignment with my classes.  So I stole borrowed her challenge to write a six word autobiography.   She gave several great examples which I shared with my class, and then I just turned them loose.

The kids loved the length of the assignment.  (Shocker!)  They thought it would be quite easy, but quickly discovered it required thought.  (Darn it.  They hate to think! That was when the moaning started.)  Several had to rewrite, but most discovered that in about 15 minutes they were ready to post their six word autobiography on our classroom blog. 

I have to share some of their six word autobiographies with you: 

My story is still unwritten today.

Love, laughter, and pain.  That's life.

I'm here to mess stuff up.   (Yeah.  He gives me gray hair!)

Living for the moments.  No regrets.

Trying my best.  Losing with pride.

Life is too short.  Going fishing.

A good book with some errors.  (I want to steal that one!)

A firey little ball of compassion.  (I'd snitch this one, too!)

Many interesting failures, but ultimately success.

I stopped needing approval.  Just me.

Random, for the fun of it.   (And boy is he!)

Pushing through the storm of life.

Life is hard.  Makin' it work.

Loving myself.  Trusting others.  Just happy.

Filling up my half-empty cup.

So here you have the lives of 15 and 16 year olds summed up in just a few words.  I wish you knew some of the people behind the words.  These are incredibly fitting. 

Yep.  Sophomores surprise me daily.  Most of the time they surprise me in a good way.  Though I did leave off the "I'm only here for the beer."  (He surprises me by pushing my buttons.  Daily. *sigh*) 

School starts again on Monday.  Lord, give me the energy to keep up with them and the sense of humor to put up with them.  So be it.  Amen.

11 comments:

Mrs. E said...

Confidential to cousin R-- the beer boy is your new funny guy on FB!

Anonymous said...

I'm telling you.......I KNEW he was a GREAT guy!! Happy New Year cousin!! R

Gayle said...

I love this project! My son in 7th grade and daughter in 8th grade did it at the beginning of the year. When we (the parents) went in for the meet the teachers night, they were all posted in the classrooms. I could have stayed to read every one of them!

A said...

this is a really cool assignment! it's impressive the 6 words your students came up with!

Chronicles of Dolliedaydream said...

A very Happy New Year Mrs E to you and yours wishing you a fantastic 2010 and thank you so much for all of your lovely comments - they mean a lot to me xxx

Anonymous said...

Love this... except they need to learn not to end sentences with prepositions.

Theresa Milstein said...

I enjoyed these - thanks for sharing them. On 12/29, NPR just interviewed the editors and some authors of six-word memoirs. There had also been a contest for six-word New Year's resolutions, and some were read on-air. Here's a link to the book:

http://www.amazon.com/All-Changed-Instant-Six-Word-Memoirs/dp/0061719439/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I6QYBQY6PRT0N&colid=1SY1YDJXR2R4U

My New Year's wish would be:
Want my life to take off.

ELK said...

great idea....stunning results...love your new header friend!

Pugelicious said...

Love the first one. Very wise for such a young soul.

Puna said...

I love it. I did a six word project this summer. Mine was "Live as if you've been forgiven."

Katie @ Can't Get There said...

I like "Trying my best. Losing with pride." and "A good book with some errors." I blogged this assignment a while ago and came up with, "Loved. Laughed. But did she live?" As soon as I figure out the answer, I'll blog that, too. ;)