Who Is Responsible? Not Me...

Earlier this week, I returned to my classroom from taking my kids to PE. As I walked into the room, I noticed a handmade book of lined notebook paper, stapled down the side, lying on the floor. I picked it up absent-mindely, and looked at the "cover." It was entitled something like "The First Kiss." I flipped it open. And read.

It began to describe a woman character getting ready for a date; putting on a dress, etc. Then her date arrived. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"You'll see," he replied. Well, the story goes, they ended up going to a strip bar. The woman seemed surprised but delighted, and relieved that she was wearing her "bra and thong." Soon the storyline had her pole-dancing, with her date sticking money in her thong.

I was quite surprised by the contents of this story, and flipped to another page. There, something quite different was going on. I will not go into detail, as my 13-year-old daughter reads my blog. But I was shocked.

I marched out to the field, where my class was having PE. They were just getting started. I found the 6th grade girl whose desk was where I had found the book. This girl "loves to write," she had written to me on the first day of school, and I also notice her sometimes making small books. Harmless, I used to think.

I grabbed her. "What is this?" I asked.

"A book I wrote," she replied.

"Oh. Come with me then."

I marched her down to the office. I told her to sit at the kid table there. I looked into our principal's office, but she wasn't there. The office manager told me she had just stepped out, and would return. So I waited. After a while, I went to the office manager.

"I need to go. This girl needs to stay here until the principal reads this book she's written." I left (after all, this was my planning time...)

About 15 minutes later I returned (10 minutes left of PE). My student was still waiting in the office. I glanced at my principal's office. The door was shut and I could see her reading the book.

I went to the door, and noticed that our office manager was also inside the principal's office. I lightly knocked on the door and went in.

"I want you to know," I said as I entered, "that I cannot take any credit for this creative writing piece. I've only had this student for three weeks. The teacher who gets all the credit is Mr. B. He had her last year. We'd better go check out his writing program..."

She obviously copied it somewhere. I wonder where? My principal thought it sounded like a CSI episode.

It was actually a little (ok-a lot) disturbing.