Friday's Top Five: The Secret Room

Our students are encouraged to journal every day in Language Arts.

Their work helps Miss Luchterhand track their growth in writing skills over the course of the semester. When they share their assignments with me, their journal entries also become a great way for you to get to know the students! Today, you'll experience their fun, creative, whimsical side.

For a recent assignment, the students wrote their responses to “If I found a secret room…”

 

1.       “If I found a secret room, I would have a party in the room playing video games. I wish that because I love video games. One of my favorite is Sonic DX and Shadow the Hog. I would love to stay up all night because I got used to not sleeping when I was working in the Kroger store. I would bring all the friends – I mean a lot of them – that I could in this room.”  ~ David

 

2.       “In my secret room, there would be a lot of glittery posters on the walls. My brother’s band would be playing a song and singing for the Lord Above on this day. Some of my cousins would be there too. Anne Hathaway would also be in attendance as well. She is a really great actor that I have liked for a long time now, and it would be loads of fun if I could meet her in person someday. I’d always have a key to get into the room, one with a lock on it of course. This is a faithful narrative of what would be in my secret room.”  ~ Audrey

3.       “If I found a secret room, I would want to explore it. I would take out my flashlight and creep in cautiously. I would enter in this manner because I would not know what to expect. I imagine that there would be a lot of cobwebs in it, and it would be dusty. After I got my nerve up, I would start to poke around in the room, but I would still be careful. After a few weeks of cleaning up the room, I would use this room as a secret place where I could escape and think if I needed to.”  ~Krista

 

4.       “The closet that I went into was magical. I went into Narnia, and it was very unusual. They asked me how I got there and I said, ‘I came by magic.’ I meet Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, and they were really enjoyable. I loved it. I have friends that I have met in Narnia. I have met the half man, half horse and he asked me if I wanted a ride and I said yes. After I saw the Beavers, I wanted to go see Aslan. I had a very nice time with all of my Narnian friends, and I hope to see them again. I hope that I could have had a longer journey in Narnia, but I couldn’t because I had to go back to the real world.”  ~ Kathryn

5.       “The secret room I found was a bedroom. It was so fancy that a rich person could own it. I found that the room was so fancy that it was way better than the house. The house looked like it was run down on the outside, but the bedroom was so nice that I had to go look around. The bedroom was so clean that I could not find anything out of place. The secret bedroom was as clean as a whistle. I wanted to look at everything – a walk-in closet, a gigantic bed, and huge windows. The walk-in closet was so big that twenty grown adults could walk right in and fit without being cramped. You could fit six full grown adults on the bed without having them fall off. The windows were five feet tall. You could have the biggest pillow fight in this secret bedroom and still have the space to have games going on at the same time. The gigantic space was for a couple, but one of them died after they finished it so the other person could not live there anymore. The person left and never finished the house. Secret bedrooms are best because then you can see what other people want to have in their own houses and you could see that not everyone has the taste in the same things.  The more secret rooms that you have, the more interesting things get because everyone has different perspectives.”  ~ Nikki

 


Shepherds College - Guiding Your Transition to Appropriate Independence. Please visit us at www.shepherdscollege.edu.

Friday's Top Five: Three Wishes

Miss Luchterhand

The students love Miss Luchterhand. She’s funny, she’s loud and she’s an excellent teacher. When they walk into her Language Arts classroom, they know that they are going to learn and the process will be creative and effective. 

Miss Luchterhand doesn’t believe that a minute of class time should be wasted. When the students arrive, they know to pull out their Language Arts binder and start a Pre-class Worksheet (PC WS). The worksheets serve multiple purposes for Miss Luchterhand. The front page is a review of the topics that the students covered during the year, such as parts of speech, alphabetizing and finding information.

The back is a journal question that changes every day. This exercise gives the students a chance to use their imagination, and it shows Miss Luchterhand how the students have grown in their writing skills over the course of the semester.  The students are required to self-proof their own journal entries before turning them in, thus the checklist on the top of the journal page.

This week, the students answered the journal question, “If you could have three wishes granted, what would you wish for?

When I heard this I thought, “Their answers would make a fun blog for Friday’s Top Five! I’ll pick the five most popular wishes and write about them.” Well wouldn’t you know, outside of the desire to become a famous rapping basketball player who lived in a tree house, there were no common wishes between the students. 

After staring at their answers for longer than I should have, I began to see common threads. I grouped them accordingly and did a little happy dance in my chair – there were five “themes” of wishes!

Here’s how the students answered:

1.       How I Would Like to Earn a Living –

a.       Win the Lottery

b.      Become a world martial arts expert

c.       Own a business

d.      Become one of the best basketball players in the whole world so nobody could stop me

e.      Sell lots of records and albums as a notorious rapper who everyone loves

f.        Be a producer who is the boss of everything and makes music that people could always enjoy

g.       Become a Pokémon trainer

h.      Work at Jurassic Park

i.         Become the President of the United States because I really think I would be able to run the country without falling into great debt with different countries around the world

2.       What I Would Like to Own with all the Money I Make –

a.       A horse range

b.      Jewelry, because I can wear it and it makes me feel good about myself

c.       Clothes, hair products and shoes

d.      A Hummer to drive everywhere

e.      A secret room

f.        An iPad

g.       A dragon

3.       People I Hope to Meet - 

a.       My friend who I haven’t seen in 9 years

b.      A famous singer so I can sing with her and get her autograph

c.       A basketball player so he can talk to me and encourage me

d.      Miley Cyrus

4.       Places I Would Like to Travel To or Live In –

a.       A tree house

b.      Hollywood where the movies and shows take place

c.       New York City

d.      To the clouds on a magic carpet

e.      To the 24^th century to the world of Star Trek so I can become a Starfleet Captain

5.       Wishes that Would Bless Others and/or Myself -

a.       I want to be a healthy eater

b.      I want a Starbucks in my hometown so I don’t have to travel back to Mt. Pleasant for coffee

c.       I would like less drama and stress in the world so that people would not have to worry about anything or get angry

d.      I would like peace in the world because it would mean no wars and everyone would get along

e.      I want to be married someday and have kids of my own

f.        I wish to be a good storyteller because I love to read stories to little children

g.       I want to help unfortunate people find homes for themselves and their families because I don’t want anyone on the streets without a home

h.      I wish to bring all the troops home from the Middle East. Their families miss them and if any of my family members were out there, I would want them home too

 

I remember answering the “3 Wishes” question in my distant past. I wrote a paper about it in 7^th grade. I wanted to become a semi-truck driver who traveled all over the country with a little monkey riding by my side. The semi had to be purple. And to be completely candid, I wanted to meet Greg Evigan somewhere along the road and marry him. Those were my three wishes – semi, monkey, Mr. and Mrs. Evigan.

I’m greatly relieved to say that none of these wishes came true.

Will the wishes of the students’ come true? 

Some wishes will linger in the hearts of the students and cause wistful smiles at their memories – like magic carpets, pet dragons and time travel. Who doesn’t secretly still wish for those?

Some will be forgotten as time goes on, and some will change as the student matures.

And some wishes will come true, just as each student’s dream to go to college came true. As skills are learned, as abilities are discovered, as character grows, as God wills, the students will see their wishes turn into realities on the road to Appropriate Independence.

Shepherds College - Guiding Your Transition to Appropriate Independence. Please visit us at www.shepherdscollege.edu.