Writing Class Results

I am teaching a writing class to the older children at Brownsville Mennonite School, and their first assignment was to write an interesting blog post (as opposed to "yo all my shweet PeEpS i no its been a long time.") which would then appear on an actual blog: this one. So here are four of their posts. Feel free to comment on any of them.

By Preston:
The First and Last Flight
One cool, sunny Saturday morning I went out to fly my model airplane. Me and my dad tested all the things necessary to make it go. Finally after a long process of making sure everything was ok, it was ready for takeoff. The plane zoomed of the field and it flew really nice. The engine was running smoothly and it was turning good. Then all of a sudden it happened. I was flying and when I turned the plane, it got into a twirl. The plane went down down and crashed in the field below. The fuselage was all broken and the wings were too. The tail, the rudder, and the engine were all okay. Overall flying the model airplane is very fun.

By Ben:
Imagine that you are in a valley. Now imagine that there are 3’000 foot cliffs at each side. That in simple terms describes Yosemite National Park, and if you’ve never been you should, and here are some reasons why. Back in June, Dad and I went down there. We had a great time just looking at the scenery. Looking up at those massive cliffs just about gave me the woozies. Also in Yosemite are many beautiful waterfalls, including Upper Yosemite Fall, a 1,500 ft waterfall.
Another thing Yosemite is famous for is its bears. Although we didn’t see any they used to be a huge problem because people would feed the bears, so sometimes they would raid cars in an attempt to get food that was left in there. Another little interesting thing about the bears there is that even though they are Black Bears, they range in color from blonde to cinnamon
red to black. So, if you’ve never been there you are really missing out.

By Kayla:
Our Camping Trip
Around three weeks ago Dad took Shane, Kyle, Bryant, Tyler, and me camping. Mom would have gone, but she was sick with a bad cough and headache. We drove along the McKenzie River to Blue River Reservoir. The scenery was beautiful.
We got to our campsite at about 7:30 in the evening, and had to set up camp. Shane and Kyle helped Dad with the tent while the younger boys sat around the campfire. I helped by getting the blankets and food out. The nice warm fire felt real good since it was so cold.
The next morning we ate our breakfast of blueberry muffins that Mom had made for us. Dad then took us down the Reservoir farther, and we went fishing. The water was real cold, but the weather was nice except the morning was cold. The boys caught five fish in all. I didn’t get lucky and catch one, although I had several bites. The couple next to us gave us six fish so we came home with eleven fish total.. Dad and my brothers got to clean the fish. I didn’t help because all the guts and blood were to disgusting. We had a great weekend camping with Dad.


By Emily:
Last Wednesday, as I was eating lunch, the light in my desk turned off. My first thought was that the electricity went off, but as I looked around the room I noticed that almost everyone else’s light was still on.
It turned out that Justin had absentmindedly kicked the back of his desk, jarring the plug behind it. Since Justin, Preston, and I sit in one long desk separated into private offices by dividers, this made all three of our lights turn off. Another swift kick made them turn back on.
The boys must have thought this was pretty cool, because for the rest of the day the lights kept blinking on and off and on and off and on and off. Every once in a while the lights wouldn’t come back on when the desks were kicked and the whole row had to be shaken violently. On one such occasion I got my fingers pinched. When I complained Preston said, "Well, sometimes you need to sacrifice your fingers for the light."
But something was changing. The more the lights turned on and off, the easier it became to make them go on and off. By the next day the slightest bump of the desks would plunge us into darkness. It was time for drastic action.
We pulled the row of desks away from the wall and looked behind it. The poor plug was dangling half in and half out of the outlet. But we couldn’t go behind and plug it in, because our way was blocked on one end by the bookshelves, and on the other end by the filing cabinets.
About this time the teacher came and asked what we were doing. We told him our problem. He had a solution.
Walking to the other end of the room, the teacher fetched Bryant, a spry first grade boy. He lifted Bryant over the back of the desks, where Bryant proceeded to plug the offending plug back into its outlet. The lights came back on, we pushed the desks back in, and Bryant was squished. Just kidding! Actually, the teacher lifted Bryant back out first. And the lights have never blinked out since.