As Not Seen in Classrooms

Serve up your  slice during The Slice of Story Challenge  in March and on Tuesdays
sponsored  by  Stacey Shubitz and Ruth Ayres of Two Writing Teachers 

My students and I have been reading about fast food and writing. We read quite a few restaurant reviews as mentor texts for our own review writing. My favorite from the reviews we've read is Pete Well's review of Guy's American Kitchen and Bar, "As Not Seen on TV." Rhetorical questions make up the entire review. We read the piece as our article of the week last week. We discussed it in terms of writing style and content during our Thursday Socratic Seminar. Students were fascinated with the style. So much so that they asked to imitate it--some in their own reviews and others just to play. Of course, I ditched my post-Socratic plans and chased that happy.  To their request I replied, "Sure! Let's try it. Why don't you write about teachers, just in general no names, and I'll write about students." Students faces lit up.

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Do we look like monkeys to you? Do you realize that you could take all of those papered assignments and design a boat, then sail off into the ocean? Do you think that would work? Would all of the red pen splotches fool the sharks into mistaking it for blood? Maybe your jokes about pencils and calculators would stop them from eating you? 

Do you like to hover over me like I'm a five year old? Does it make you feel motherly and nurturing? Can you not accuse me, of all people, of doing something wrong when I've been in my seat for the past 45 minutes? Don't you have papers to grade or a job to do? Do you expect us to do the work you assign even though it's as boring as watching paint dry? Are you willing to give up your holiday to work for us? 

Do you get scared when you're stopped by a police officer on the highway and he walks toward your window carrying his speeding ticket pad? Do you think showing me a pink referral form will scare me? Do you enjoy the look on everyone's faces when you say the words "pop quiz"? If you wanted to be a comedian why did you become a teacher? 

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 I compiled the lines students liked best from many of their quick writes. What we noticed after we shared and read them was that we all have lots of experience complaining about things teachers do that aggravate us, but we'd have to draft and draft again to add the level of detail and comparison to our own questions that Wells uses. Sometimes we missed the humor mark and criticisms made students say, "Whoah!" They cringed a little and then checked my face as students read aloud. I wasn't bothered, but there were a few lines that made me sad--why are some teachers so ___ (insert critical adjective of choice)?  hen I shared the lines with my student poets they saw a slam piece in the making. We'll see.

One student noted, "It's hard to write like this." Indeed it is.

Update
4/24/13
Do check out the New York Time's Common Core, Friday posts. In this one, teachers, Jonathan Olsen and Sarah Gross, share their ideas for using Pete Well's articles.