Today is the end of 3rd quarter.  Can you believe it?  We’re already three quarters finished!   Today, I graded for about six hours.  YUCK!  My kids have been working on a big writing project for three weeks and they handed in the finished project today.  Luckily, we had a half day so I was only at school until 6:00 and I got it all finished.  I still have to bubble in my grades on Monday but that shouldn’t take too long.  In the midst of all of my slogging through stories, I have found a couple gems.  To understand this a little bit better, you need to know my standing rule:  In my classroom, when you are writing, you are allowed to use your own name, my name (Mrs. B), but no one else’s in our class.  This rule is an attempt to prevent you from using your most hated classmate’s name as the really bad guy.  Anyway, consequently, I end up in a lot of stories.  I was the playground bully in one, an oracle who gets killed in battle in another, and then there were these two:

By E:
[this is my paraphrase of his much longer story.  These are the highlights with mostly his own words.]
Some lions attacked Mrs. B.  I got there and saved her because I didn’t want Mrs. B to die.  I told her she didn’t have to be scared because I was with her.  Then we went in the house and closed the door because the zombies wanted to eat us.  Then the wolves attacked us.  Then she went to the top of a building and then some lions were attacking us.  I said, “Don’t
worry; you’ll be fine with me.” Then I said, “Don’t move, there’s a snake under your chair.”  Then some aliens came in a space ship.  Then the lions came back.  But the aliens were good aliens.  They saved us because they killed the zombies.  The zombies ate the lions.  Mrs.
B found a gun and shot the wolves.  Then there were no animals because
we killed them.  The End

And then, this one by A:
[This story was essentially the Good Samaritan story except that the king pretended to be hurt by the side of the road to see who would stop and help him.]

First, Mrs. B (who likes to go to the meeting and beauty parlor and to go to trip somewhere) was going to the moon to see the biggest water falls. When she was going to there, she saw him. She thought that some of the foxes or dangerous cats attacked him. He was so smelly. So, she didn’t go near him because she thought the foxes or dangerous
cats will attack her and she also was worried because she will be later at Jupiter at attend her meeting.