Teaching Tip #146

Teacherscribe’s Teaching Tip #146

Inspiration (Part 7 – final installment)

Then she read . . . my words.

     I couldn’t believe it.  I tried to act nonchalant, but I beamed.  She reveled in my narrator's twisted logic and morbid sense of humor.  She delighted in the gore and carnage I created.

        When she finished, she walked over to me and set her personal favorite response on my desk.  All of the blood in my entire body rocketed to my head.  I felt like a thermometer in boiling water.  My classmates were astounded.  I had never done anything worthwhile in my classes before.  Let alone anything worthy of praise.  In her comments, which were scrawled all over my paper, she noted how I used great suspense to build up to the story's climax.  It wouldn't be until later, much later, that I actually understood what those terms meant.  But she liked it.  She saw my potential and gave it the motivation it needed to flourish.  I never thought about driving truck, farming, or working at the beet plant again.