Have You Ever Wondered About What 7th Graders Think About Vampires?

Then today is your lucky day! 

During the second week of school, every kidlet in our school district took a literacy pre-assessement which required them to read some stuff and then write about what they read. The results give the teachers a good idea of what we need to spend the next two semesters teaching. The kidlets then get to do the same type of thing again in the spring so we can compare their essays and see how much they learned about reading, thinking, and writing. 

Each grade level team gets to chose their own prompt and sources, so my fellow 7th grade teachers and I decided to pick some things the kids could have some fun with. For the last two years, the 7th grade pre and post tests have been focused on legendary creatures. The kidlets are given two readings (usually an article and a legend) about a  creature, and then they use those readings (and whatever prior knowledge they have about that creature) to help make an argument for or against that creature's existence. 

Here is this year's prompt and some responses that reminded us why we love working with those awesome 'tweens. 

Background: In our culture, everyone has heard of vampires. They have appeared as everything from glittering schoolboys to hideously deformed monsters. What isn't  known is that their existence has been debated by intellectuals for centuries. 

Prompt: Write a persuasive argument for or against the existence of vampires. Use evidence from the articles provided to support your claim. You must address at least one of the opposing viewpoint's claims with your own counterclaim. 

People think that stories of vampires are just legends. But here’s the thing: Legends aren’t just stories. They come from lessons and ring with truth. I honestly don’t know if they are real, but I think they are.

I am against vampires because they are dangerous and could give you a disease.

Most stories about vampires are from the 1800’s when the people were just weird. 

Then the doctors discovered Pool’s body was swollen. With what, you might ask? Well let me just tell you… it was swollen with blood that was dripping out of his mouth! Gross! I feel bad for those doctors.

Honestly, I do not believe vampires are like Edward from the world famous Twilight (she should have picked Jacob, by the way). I also don’t believe they are hideously deformed, either. But I do believe that even though they have a human silhouette, no one will ever know what they look like.

(About a man who claimed to have been attacked by a vampire) Is he crazy? Yes! He is crazy! When I go to the doctor for shots, I might think she is a lion because she is trying to give me a shot. But is she really a lion? No! She is my doctor who is trying to keep me healthy. 

In most movies, vampires mostly just fall in love. Twilight is about vampires who fall head over heels for each other. In real life, vampires are really just people with tuberculosis who cough up blood. 

Vampires were originally created from sinners. 

Some facts about vampires are that they like to take a bite out of your skin so they can suck your blood. Vampires only bite people so they can get more vampires on their side. If someone gets bitten and starts to turn into a vampire, you want to pray for the whole family and hope the rest of the family don’t turn into vampires…I try to sleep so I can see my windows and doors, just in case. 

Doctors in 1727 didn’t come in contact with a lot of corpses. That said, the doctors wouldn’t know how a corpse looks. But the blood in the dead guy’s mouth, now that is creepy. But today we know that is still normal for a corpse. So that corpse was just doing what a corpse does. 

The article “Beware the Night” is convincing, but not convincing enough. When it says that the man started rubbing dirt all over his body, that is just too weird. Why would you want to rub dirt all over yourself  and try to dig up a grave to suck the blood out of someone? I think you should just go to Stokes, buy some tomatoes, and just suck out the juice. 

And our favorite…

Do you really believe in vampires just because the definition is a wandering, blood-sucking woman who exploits and ruins her lover? I mean, just because some women can suck all your money and energy at the mall does not make them a vampire. It makes them a girl or your wife.

2013 District Direct Writing Assessment

So, the prompts the kidlets were supposed to write to this year were poorly phrased and not at all well thought-out. But, because my kidlets are brilliant, their essays were still pretty awesome, and some  were also pretty funy. Here are some of the lines that made me smile during the day-long grading session.

2013 Direct Writing Assessment Prompt for 7th Graders:

Assume the persona (This is where 2/3 of the kidlets’ heads exploded) of a character in a work of fiction or drama that you have recently read. Write a letter (And this is where the other 1/3  had a meltdown. “Letter!” they screamed – really, they SCREAMED it—“We have been practicing essays! How do we write letters?!?”) to the author of the novel and explain why your character should have done or said things differently from what the author had you do. Explain why you should have been different and how it would have affected the outcome of the book.

 

In a letter to Dr. Seuss from Sam I am in Green Eggs and Ham: I think you should have had us wear helmets when you made us go through that crazy path. I could have gotten hurt… Also, it was a pretty bad idea to only have one plate of eggs and ham at the end. There should have been a plate for both of us.  I know you are a doctor, but you should really think these things through.

 

 

Also to Dr. Seuss, this time from Thing two in The Cat in the Hat: Why did the whole book have to rhyme? Also, I would change the fish to be less of a drama queen. I would also make him a tuna fish, but that is just my taste. I also think it is unfair that I have to be Thing 2. I am much cooler than my brother, so I should have been Thing 1. If you really wanted to make the book better, you could add Thing 3. That dude is awesome. It really would have been a party if 3 showed up.

 

 

In a letter to Stephanie Meyer from Bella in the Twilight series: I should have dated Jacob because Edward gets me pregnant.

Also to Mrs. Meyer from Bella: Edward wanted to eat me. What the crap is up with that? Jacob is nice and has a hot body and you stick me with the pale blood-sucker? I mean, COME ON!

 

 

To Lemony Snicket, author of A Series of Unfortunate Events, from the villain Count Olaf: …Also I am unpleasantly repulsive. I wanted to be young, tan, and handsome. Plus, I have always wanted two eyebrows, not just one.

 

 

In a letter to Obert Sky, author of the Leven Thumps series: I really wish you would have explained what happened a little better. I am willing to bet that at least 15 of the people who read your book were just as confused as me.

 

 

In a letter to Suzanne Collins, author of the Hunger Games trilogy, from the evil President Snow: Do you know what you should change about me? I do! I am RUDE, IGNORANT, DEPRESSING, and mainly just MEAN! Now I am even being mean while I’m trying to tell you not to make me so mean! Ahhhhh!

 

 

Another letter to Ms. Collins, this time from main character Katniss: Imagine if someone or something is about to kill you and you have just enough time to escape, but you’re too busy whining to notice. Sound familier? It should because it’s life! I shouldn’t be such a whiner because A) it wastes time, B)it bores the reader, and C) it annoys EVERYBODY! A main character should be likeable and no one wants to like a whiner, understand?

 

 

In a letter to J.K. Rowling from Harry Potter’s Professor Snape: You really should have let me kill Harry. I would have killed him slowly, painfully, listening to his cries of agony (We decided it would be safest to give this kidlet a good grade… we didn’t want her to come after us.)

 

 

Also to J.K. Rowling, this time from the bad guy: Dear Author, This is Lord Voldemort coming at you live from my grave… First, let’s talk about the way I look. I’m very thin and white and I don’t have a nose. You could give me a nose; even bad guys need to smell!

 

 

To the creator of Sponge Bob: Seriously Mr. Writer Dude! Why am I a sponge? I don’t want to be all squishy and absorbent. And why am I a fry cook and not a cleaner who washes tables with my head? I’m a sponge!

 

2013 Direct Writing Assessment Prompt for 8th Graders:

Write an essay for your English teacher describing what animal best represents you as a person and why. Explain what you, as an animal, might represent in our culture (After reading a couple hundred essays, we discovered that 8th graders have no idea what "culture" means.). Use details and examples to support your ideas.

 

 

I would like to be a dog so I could sniff people whenever and where ever I want.

 

 

I am, like, a total honey badger… It doesn’t matter where a honey badger lives, because its awesomeness covers the whole world.

 

 

Wolves are loyal, courageous, brave, and very protective of family. And you know, they are also carnivores and anyone who knows me will tell you that I don’t mind eating a big hunk of beef.

 

 

Tigers have razor-sharp teeth and an I-am-lazy-now-but-just-you-wait attitude. I would not want to be near those teeth when a tiger pops a cork and gets angry.

 

 

I picked pandas because they represent a multi-racial culture. Pandas are black, white, and Asian. The only thing even more multi-cultural than a panda is a panda holding a taco.

 

 

Bobcats are also hunters. I am like a bobcat, but I hunt ladies. I hunt them just like a bobcat: I sneak in and snatch them right up, just like a bobcat snatches up a rabbit.

 

 

Running through the majestic Yellowstone forests. Trampling the odd smelling visitors, ramming their funny looking tin boxes with wheels, and knocking their bear-proof garbage cans down for my buddy, the bear. The animal that best symbolizes me is the buffalo. I even look like a buffalo. The word is right there in the name, “buff”…just like me.

 

 

Otters spend their time looking for food and new adventures. I am always looking for a new way to cause grief in the classroom. Like the otters, I will never stop.

 

 

A quality that both the mountain goat and I share is that we are both strong and sturdy. I am not as muscled as a mountain goat, but I am no cream puff… If you want to challenge a goat, he will fight you to the end. Just like George Washington and his army fought for America’s freedom.

 

 

The animal that would represent me the best would be a sponge. Sponges are lazy, and so am I. For example, the other day I was watching TV on the couch in my living room and decided I wanted a pillow from the other room. I didn’t want to go get it, so I used my cell phone to call my neighbor. Well, my neighbor didn’t want to come over to get me the pillow, so I got up to get it myself. When I got to the other room, I was too lazy to go back to the living room, so I just slept there. I think that is exactly what a sponge would do.

 

 

The bravery of a gorilla is above any other wandering beast in the world. Another word for gorilla would be a stud. Chuck Norris got lost in the wilderness and was raised by gorillas, that explains it.

 

 

I have a lot in common with tigers. For example, tigers and I both have one main priority. For them, it is their cubs, for me it is my iPhone. They both need to be treated with care or they might die. They both need somewhere warm to sleep and food to eat, but one gets actual food, the other gets electricity. Cubs and iPhones are both a lot of responsibility. I think it is safe to say that tigers and I have our hands full.

REPOST:The 2009 DWA, Part 2

Another (not so quick)  flashback to the 2009 DWA when the kidlets had to write about a historical event they would change:

Before we begin round two of this year’s Direct Writing Assessment Greatest Hits, I think I should provide a little more evidence that our species is not doomed .

Exhibit A: “Because of the Holocaust the world had to decide where to put the Jews. Of course, the Holy Land, and then that just started a whole lot of other problems.”

Exhibit B: “Curiosity is a friend of mine, so I just had to investigate.”

Exhibit C: “When my parents divorced I became two different people, my dad’s house guest and my mom’s best friend.”

See, most 7th graders can be very creative and insightful when they want to be.



But, because they are so darn entertaining, here are a few more exceptions that prove the rule.

One poor girl wrote about being injured while roller-skating because she was blinded by the disco ball.

One little guy wrote about an injury, but managed to look on the bright side: “I got 16 stitches in my chin but it wasn’t all bad cause I had a good lookin nurse.”

One kid took the prompt very literally and wrote about what they would change about their HISTORY CLASS. “I would change history so we could do our homework in class… I would also make it so the teacher couldn’t give us more than two assignments a day and we could go to the restroom whenever we need to.”
"Car accidents do not lead to a good time. "

A 7th grade girl wished she could go back to the beginning of her 6th grade year to stop herself from “falling in love” with her sixth grade boyfriend. I thought her description of that first meeting was interesting in that it explains what a sixth grader is looking for in a relationship. “He was kind, sweet, cute, and lived within walking distance. So you can see how I fell for him.”

One peace-loving kidlet was especially concerned with war. Or, more specifically, with the death tolls of various wars and their effects on the human population. “Eventually there will be more bunnies than people. As a result, unless you want to be a bunny slave, I suggest you stop killing each other.”

A Little More 7th Grade Revisionist History
“I would change what happened when President Bush gave a speech in Iraq. Someone in the audience threw a shoe at his head. In Iraq, that is the worst insult you can give. Angry, President Bush ended the speech by declaring war. I think declaring war on a whole country when just one person throws a shoe at your head is a real waste of money and soldiers.”



“I wish Black Beard the pirate had not been killed. I would make him sketch a map to his treasure so I could dig it up.”

One creative little guy thought that the discovery of America would have been much more interesting if… “Columbus drove speed boats and the Indians lived in really nice trailers in a trailer park by the dock.”



This is the first paragraph from an essay titled, Truth About Salem. “Salem Oregon; such a beautifully simple town. It was not always like this, though. Dark secrets are hidden beneath its streets. Mysteries that will give not only children, but adults nightmares. This of course is why I want to go back and change the Salem Witch Trial so that it never happens.”


“I would change the Boston Tea party, because it just wasn’t cool and was a serious downer. Instead, we would have a holiday about balloons on June 10th, my birthday. We just don’t have enough holidays honoring balloons.”

Hurricane Katrina was a popular subject:

“I wish the Katrina water had turned to cottage cheese so no one got hurt."

“I would change Hurricane Katrina to something less deadly, like an alligator raid or raining Pepsi cans.” That would be awesome and a miracle.”

In the last post, I shared a few samples from the thousands of essays written about World War Two. The only topic that the 7th graders found more change-worthy than the holocaust or the attack on Pearl Harbor, was September 11th, 2001. Reading about the tragic events of that morning over and over and over and over and over and over could have gotten kind of rough…if the kids had actually known anything about what they were writing about.

You would not BELIEVE how many essays about 9/11 started out with, “If I could change on event in history, I would change 9/11. I don’t know what day it happened, but….” For example…

“I don’t know what the date was, but it happened at 9:11 in the morning.”

“On that day in November, at 9:11 a.m., millions of people died.”

“I don’t know when 9/11 happened, but it was soon after it that they named the emergency number 911.”

“9/11 happened when two Vietnamese military men decided to get revenge on the United States once and for all.”

“I would change how the Nazi’s blew up the twin towers.”

“One plane hit the twin towers and the other was going to hit the Octogon.”

One kid thought the terrorists deserved to be “remurdered”. I agreed.

“After the tourists knocked down the first twin tower, they flew around and knocked down the other one. Then they decided to do the same thing to the White House, but the president flew back to DC and stopped them… I don’t know if those tourists ever got caught.”

“If I could change one event, it would be 9/11. I would change it by getting Chuck Norris to help take-out Bin Laden.”




Noble Attempts at Figurative Language
"She pulled me so hard I thought dogs would start crying."
"I was walking with my friend and my big fat 5th grade mouth said the meanest thing in history."

A Few More Spelling Issues"Call me old fasten."
One poor girl was traumatized after learning that 2,000 mustangs were recently “youthinized”.

Similes and Metaphors
"Hurricane Katrina was as horrible as a cat locked in a cage with birds."


"Before my grandpa died, he was like a train: all great and grand, then he got some kinks, then he crashed."

One little guy wrote about his ward boundaries being changed during stake conference. He said he kept trying to ask his parents what was going on, but “They shook me off like a dog shakes off water after going swimming.”

"The Japanese forever cut through the Pacific Islands like a samurai sword through a watermelon."


"The Beatles went out faster than a tube of red lipstick at Courtney Love’s house."

"My parents take away privileges faster than a starving wolf would kill a one legged deer."



The 2009 Winner of the Miss H Award Excellence in Essay Writing is…“I wish I wouldn’t have let my friend shake my hamster till he peed.... I wish I hadn’t made him go through the tube he didn’t fit through.”
In conclusion, somewhere in the state of Idaho there are 47 very tired, yet entertained 7th grade English teachers, 19,000 brilliant and/or confused 7th graders, and one very traumatized hamster.

Please pray for us all.

REPOST: The 2009 DWA, Part 1

Back in the day, all the kids in the state of Idaho wrote essays for the state direct writing assessment, hereafter referred to as "the DWA."

When our state started having serious budget issues, the DWA became one of the first casualties of the education cuts, hereafter referred to as "the reason I cry myself to sleep three nights a week."

After we lost the state test, my school district, hereafter referred to as "awesome", stepped up and provided an opportunity for us to have a district wide DWA.

This district assessment, while providing awesome data on the kidlet's writing abilities, has failed to provide me with the same quality and quantity of hilarious blog material that the near 20,000 state essays did. What a sad, unforeseen effect of budget cuts, eh?

So, because it is DWA week, and because my kidlets are far to brilliant to make enough funny errors to fill a blog post, I have decided to re-post some some of my posts from past DWA's.

Here is the first one:

In November of 2009, over 19,000 Idaho seventh graders wrote essays about a single topic: If you could change any historical event, from world history or your personal history, what event would you change and why?

What follows are quotations from actual student essays, written by real-live seventh graders.

But before I jump into the quotes that, for so many reasons, brought tears to my eyes, I thought I should state, for the record, that there are a lot of very intelligent 7th graders in this state. 7th graders who wrote things like...

“Sadly, I cannot rewrite history with this pen.”
Some kids showed creativity and forethought. “I would change things so that Leonardo Davinci was born in modern times. With all of our modern technology, who knows what he could have done. We might have time travel machines or teleporters. But if he hadn’t have been born back then and learned all that stuff about the anatomy, we all might have died from diseases a long time ago, so maybe I wouldn’t change that.”

“I would go back and stop money from being invented. I would change that because I think the world would be better if we just traded for services.”

“I would change Martin Luther King Day to ‘Feel Good About Yourself Day’. I think he would like that more.”

“I would stop the wheel from being invented… then we would have flying cars.”

Of course, this post would be a lot less fun if I were to focus on those truly insightful essays. So please enjoy the following quotes, and try not to think about how these kids are going to be running the world in a few years.

Many kids decided to write about events in their own personal history...

“I am going to tell you about a major milestone in my life: my first head injury.”

“In this essay I will tell you about the personal event I would change. It is the night I was too scared to go to the bathroom.”

“I would go back and change the time I broke my femur and my elbow. I didn’t get to see my friends for three months! At one time, I got so bored I thought about reading.”

“My reaction to finding out that Santa wasn’t real was shocking!”

“I wish my insulin system hadn’t gone insane and had just been a good little vital organ.”

Last year, the number one topic was dead grandparents and, although there weren’t nearly as many this year, we didn’t escape them entirely.

Some were sweet: “Not having a second grandpa is like only having half a heart.”

And others were, well… a little disturbing. “I would change my grandpa’s death. I mean, he had smoked for like 50 years, so we knew he was going to die. I just wish it hadn’t of been in that fire. I would have told him not to fall asleep smoking. Then his cigarette would never have fallen on his oxygen tank.”

Other kids wrote outside their own experience.

“I think we should change the invention of drugs. I heard about this guy once, in a mental hospital because of LSD. He thought he was an orange and every time the doctor or nurse came to check on him, he ran away because he thought they were trying to peel him.”

There were quite a few essays with political themes. Of course, the brain of a typical 7th grader doesn't have a whole lot of storage space for actual political knowledge, so the essays ended up full of "facts" like this...
“Another reason John McCain would have been a good choice is his vice president would have been Hillary Clinton. They would have made this a better place to live.”

There was also a lot of, what we are going to politely refer to as '7th Grade Revisionist History'...

One kidlet wrote that he/she would get rid of “the NASA” because “once Lance Armstrong went to the moon, there wasn’t any point to going back.”

More 7th Grade "Historical Information"...

“I would change Abe Lincoln’s death. Yeah, we all knew he was going to die some day, but he didn’t have to be murdered. He was important before he died because he was the 14th president of the United States and he signed the declaration of independence.”

“Lincoln was killed in his favorite movie theater.”

 

"I would go back in time and stop President Lincoln's assignation (he details how he is going to save the president, then concludes...) After he was done thanking me, I would tell him, 'You know how I just saved your life? Well, if you wanted to do something to thank me, you could lower the driving age to 13.' And because I saved him he would totally do it.

&

“Think of all the good Abraham Lincoln could have done if he hadn’t been killed. He changed the ‘Slavery is OK’ law to be the ‘no slavery’ law and he might have modified other laws, like ‘no littering’ to ‘absolutely no littering’.”

There were sooooo many essays about World War II, wherein we fought the “Natzies”, the “Nautsies”, the “Nazeys”, the “Naughtzees”, and even a Nazi or two.

One kid said World War II was in the 1960’s, another dated it in 1912.

“Hitler was a small man, but he made big trouble for Germany.”

“First of all, I would like to announce that I think Hitler was just a plain, flat jackass.”

“My friend is a Jew, so if he was alive during that time period, he would be dead.

One kid wrote two pages about how to avoid World War II. His solution? “All school and work should have been canceled so people could stay home and eat ice-cream and listen to the radio that day. Then everybody would have been in a good mood and not wanted to fight.”

“We lost World War II. That made President Roosevelt so depressed, he had to go in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.”

“If I could change something in the past, I would kill Hitler. I would stop him from killing all of the Jews. I would stop him because my cat is a Jew.”

One very articulate kiddo wanted to prevent Twilight from being written. His closing argument was that it printing all of the books was bad for the environment. “Did anyone ask Papa Tree if they could cut down his kids and write tales of vampire love all over their insides?... In my opinion, the Twilight books could be the cause of our specie’s demise.”

Winner of the 2009 Best Title Award: The Slutter! (the essay was about the senseless “slutter” of the buffalo by the white settlers.)

Winner of the 2009 Best Closing Award: “So that is a part of my life I would like to relive. But I think next time, I will change my brother into a girl. That would be a dream come true.”

And they wouldn't be 7th grade papers without a few... Spelling Mistakes“The Silver War was where one part of the United States fought agent the other part.”

“The Hellicost was wrong in so many ways.”

“So many inecent people were killed in World War II.

Hitler was just “so cold bludded.”

One darling thought the correct spelling of peaceful was “pissful”.

One kid wrote about his uncle’s “mamorial service”. Which got me wondering… if a memorial service is held in a church, would a mamorial service be held at Hooters?

If you enjoyed these 7th graders musings, stay tuned for more of my favorites, including excerpts from what is quite possibly the best essay ever written about hamsters.

To be continued...