Exaggerate: (v)- to magnify beyond the limits of truth

Today in class, we read some Mark Twain and talked about exaggeration. We talked about exapmples of exaggeration from the story, then for fun, I asked them to write a paragraph using exaggeration to describe their experience with this week’s snow storm.

To inspire their young minds, I showed them a Facebook post from my friend Brian:

Brian McMurray
Survival Log: Day 2 - Things are beginning to degrade. The snow has piled up past the garage doors making travel difficult. I have removed the tires from the car and shredded them to fashion a series of digging tools. Was also able to duct tape a fork to a pool cue and create a makeshift harpoon, which I immediately used to harpoon the neighbor’s cat. Poor guy never saw it coming but at least now we're eating.

These were some of the paragraphs my gems came up with... clearly we still have some work to do...

"I was so bored during the snow storm, I thought I was dead."

"On our snow day it was so bad. The snow drift piled up to the sky. The wind was so cold that when old ladies go outside, they swear up and down they see polar bears."


"There was so much snow I couldn’t see outside. We were out of food so we had to eat snow. I died of the ultimate brain freeze."

"On Tuesday, Des Moines Schools got out of school early because there was snow up to our eyes. We had a hard time getting home. There were 1,000 car accidents in 15 minutes. It was OUTRAGEOUS!"


"On Tuesday was a bad day because it was alot of snow. It was really coold outside. We whent home urly. It was exaggeration to be home and I didn’t know what to do."

"The snow was so white and deep it would go past your head. This big bad blizzard happened on Wednesday. Oh jeez it was BIG! The wind would blow you away all the way to Mexico."


"Yesterday during the blizzard we didn’t go anywhere cuz we couldn’t get out the door. My mom suggested we clean the house. We really had no choice cuz my mom was a force to be reckoned with. That was the worst day of my life. School would of bin better."

Thanks for being awesome... or not

On the back wall of my classroom, I have a “Wall of Awesome.” This is where I post work containing written responses to short answer test questions that reflect my expectations for my students. These responses A. actually answer the question being asked, B. are written in complete sentences, and C. make sense.
These are some of the responses that did not make the cut.

Q. What are two things that Charlie does after the operation that show he is a genius?

A. What are lood think that he show after the operation that show that he a genius he is think and showing his feelts.

A. He approves on his reading.

A. He win to the mouse, and starts to speel right.

A. He proves his writing.

A. He read a book in 4 days. It was a big fatty.

A. He remember and a think.

A. starting to use big words, and

Q. How does Charlie’s understanding of his past cause him to feel sad or ashamed? Use two details from the story to support your response.

A. He feel that he didn’t like he mad good choses because he not starmt it make him fell bad about himself.

A. He rliza how people mad fun off him.

A. He was made fun of hes made fun of when hes a genius.

These answers came from the first few tests I graded. After reading these, however, I had to set the rest aside and not look at any more for a couple of days –I didn’t think my brain could take it. Tonight I plowed through the remaining 70 tests and I am proud to say, that after that first batch, they showed great improvement.