Bribery

I just bribed my students with stickers to get them to stay a little late after class to finish copying down a story they'd made together (each one contributing a sentence at a time).  They worked hard in, so I thought their parents should definitely see something from it.  They're working on the difference between the simple past and continuous past tenses.  I started them off with the first sentence.  Here is what they came up with:

"Today I was walking home when I saw a bear.  I punched the bear.  The bear died.  Then I saw one thousand more bears.  I ran away from the bears.  But, I was dreaming.  I was surprised.  But, I woke up and I saw a bear.  The bear stepped on me.  Then the bear changed into a zombie.  I became a zombie, too.  I drank church water.  But, it was dirty water.  I was surprised, so I yelled.  Then I became a dirty zombie.  Suddenly, I died.  But, it was only a surprising dream."

Best line?  "Then I became a dirty zombie."  I also like that there's a moment where the story seems like it may turn cyclical (8th sentence).  It was even better that my students caught that and joked about it.  My next Fluent class is working on passive voice (much to my chagrin), so they'll be making a story, as well, which I'll post.

Ian and I are attempting chili and cornbread tonight for dinner.  There's a good chance this meal could fail, so I'll only post pictures of the final product.  If it works out, I'll post a step by step recipe.  After all, we're using a pressure cooker for the chili and a crummy little toaster oven for the cornbread.  A recipe like that might come in handy when you're, I don't know, camping or ...being held hostage.

*                      *                     *

Here is what the second class wrote (every third sentence is passive because that's what they were studying):

"I was walking home when I saw a bear.  I was talking with the bear.  The bar was hit by a car.  The bear died.  I was sad.  The car was broken by me.  The police came.  I ran.  The police caught me.  My mom was saddened."

It's a lot shorter because we ran out of time and there were only three students.  So, both classes killed the poor bear, but at least the second (older) class felt some remorse.