Reflecting On My Grade 5 Writing Life

A student once asked me an interesting question  during a share time ‘What was writing like, when you were in Grade 5?’


Well, it was actually like this…


Writing Time With Miss Dungeon

In Grade 5
Our teacher Miss Dungeon
Would ask us to write
She called it-
Composition
She gave each of us a book
A book she called
A composition book

Every Thursday
Straight after lunch
Was composition time
We all knew this because Miss Dungeon
Would stand in front of the class
And using her very loud voice
That made the windows rattle
Announce
OPEN YOUR COMPOSITION BOOKS

With pencils poised
We would sit silently
Waiting
Waiting
Anticipating
Until Miss Dungeon
Standing at the front of the room
Giant like on a raised platform
Looked over her spectacles and announced the weekly writing topic-

Autobiography of an Ant
START WRITING NOW

No smile
No Frown
START WRITING NOW…

A few kids began writing
Some stared out the window
Some froze at their desks
And the rest of us stared at the blank white page of our composition book
No one looked at Miss Dungeon
No one dared to look at Miss Dungeon

YOU’VE GOT TWENTY MINUTES
START WRITING

The room fell silent
Pencils scratched wobbly words
Blank pages slowly filled with ant words
Miss Dungeon prowled the room
Gliding along the aisles between our desks like a shark
A grey nurse shark

Suddenly the silence was shattered
ADD MORE DETAIL
ADD MORE DETAIL
Miss Dungeon demanded
Jabbing her finger
Spearing the page
Sharing her rage with a bewildered writer
After twenty minutes Miss Dungeon bellowed
STOP WRITING
CLOSE YOUR BOOKS
PASS THEM TO THE FRONT

We put our pencils down
We sigh with relief
We stop thinking about ants

She would return our ant stories
Covered in red ink
And a mark out of ten
And we would await the next topic
When next Thursday
We'd do it all again
Composition
A new topic
Thrown our way by Miss Dungeon.

Alan j Wright

'I Bet There's No Broccoli On The Moon.'


I think they were quite surprised...

 * Miss Dungeon is a pseudonym for my Grade 5 teacher. Her real name was close to this.




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