Reading for Comprehension

One of the things I like best about teaching is the quickness and intelligence of some of my students. Another thing I love is the lack of the above. It's really amusing when you give an eighth-grade student a seemingly simple task, such as writing a sentence about a story she's just read, and she stares at you as if you'd just spoken Portuguese.

"What am I s'posed to do again?" she asks, looking perplexed and asleep at the same time.

"A sentence," I say patiently. "Write a sentence that tells what the story is about."

"What story?"

"The story we just finished reading. The one about the man who fell overboard... and swam to the island...?"

"Oh. That one. What should I write?"

Since I have just told her the gist of the story in sentence form, I wonder what drugs she has had for breakfast and repeat,"Write a sentence about what the story was about. Any sentence at all."
She stares at me blankly and responds, "I can't remember what it's about."

Teaching is such wonderful amusement.