Patricia Grisafi
I love how creative young people are—especially students who manage to translate that creativity into their writing. Whether its fan fiction, angsty poetry, or stories about crazy, make-believe fantasy stuff, it’s really fun to take a trip inside their little, developing brains before they start censoring themselves and caring about what others think of them.
On Reddit, teachers are sharing the best plot twists in their students’ writing, and I am loving all of the weird and wacky and heartfelt stuff these kids come up with. Never lose that magic.
1.
“Teaching 8th grade English: a student was writing about a supernatural investigator. About two thirds through the story the narrator is listing all the greatest horrors he had seen. The list ended: ‘I once saw an English teacher named Mr.[my name] slough off his skin and devour a classroom of students…’ It was a great surprise (and story).” — HappierThanThou
2.
“I had a student who was obsessed with Silverback Gorillas. I mean, EVERYTHING he wrote was about silverbacks. Even fir the most random question, for example, about Shakespeare’s sonnets, and his answer would somehow quite logically twist around to his gorillas. After a while he added a character – the Queen of Sanzibar. She controlled this wild and often violent band of gorillas. At the end of that year, I ended up moving away and at my farewell lunch he gave me a card which says, ‘there will never be another story about the Silverback Gorillas of Sanzibar because the Queen of Sanzibar is moving to Australia.’ Blew me away. I never thought his stories were analogies of our school/students or that I had made that much of an impact on his life. Humbling.” — jlr257
3.
“When my nephew was 6 or 7 or so they had to write a description of how to make a sandwich. My nephew proceeded to write a detailed account of how to make a ‘Sand Witch’ which includes getting a mold of a witch and putting wet sand into it …you get the idea. The teacher said in all her years of teaching that no kid had ever done that. She asked to keep a copy because she thought it was so funny.” — jessflyc
4.
“Teaching middle school, gave an ‘About Me’ essay early in the year. One student wrote about how they had a rough home life, parents divorcing, etc. It was very well written and heartbreaking until the last paragraph where he talked about finding religion in the past year. ‘I’ve learned not to judge people who do wrong, because only God can judge… and they will burn.'” — mikeymacc1
5.
“One of my kids got a writing assignment to write a new ending to a story. It was a classic star-crossed lovers narrative so I figured they’d do a happily ever after. Nope. The female protagonist ended up using the dude for his knight status to escape the thumb of her father, then killed him and went out on her own.” — Rhodehouse93
6.
“I taught an English 101 where I had a very open-ended writing assignment to gauge where the students were. It was a long time ago, but if I remember correctly it was to write about something that happened in your life that was memorable. Like I said — very vague. One student wrote about how his friend had run away from home and asked to stay in his tree house. Ok…mild enough. Then it turned pretty dark when the student wrote that he was woken up by fire sirens only to find the tree house was completely engulfed in flames. Of course no one realized it was occupied. That was 25 years ago and I still remember the chill I got when I read it.” — tenzin
7.
“A student once wrote a story under the assigned heading of All That Glitters is not Gold. It was a first person narration told as a comedy about a mother telling her daughter on her 21st birthday about the night she brought her home from the hospital. The twist was that the mother was talking to herself in what was supposed to be the child’s bedroom, her child had actually died the night they brought her home. This. Floored. Me.” — BabyfaceBroadcasting
8.
“Really kind of annoying kid. Good person, but too much charisma and used it to goof off during class, regularly pulled 70s as a result of not paying attention. Held a poetry workshop he opted into. Wrote a poem about his dead parents (I knew he lived with Grandma, but not why). The last line was ‘I laugh so I don’t cry.’ Shattered my heart.” — lyrasorial
9.
“One of my middle school students in Korea ended a story about his family with it raining alcohol and snowing cocaine. Everyone freaked out and murdered one another.” — fancyenema
10.
“I had a student write that she flew to California to see Post Malone because he’s ‘so hot.’ She got a henna tattoo on her chest of him before the concert. Unfortunately, it turned out she’s allergic to henna and it turned into a terrible rash. She still has the scar. Plot twist, it turned out to be a permanent tattoo.” — gman4734
