Sample Beginning Story

The first time that I used this lesson, I was at an advantage.  When I was in the seventh grade, I had attended the school that I was now presenting this lesson in.  In fact, I vividly remembered the classroom.  The following story is the same that I told to the students.  It is a true story, but some dramatic licenses have been taken upon the characters and events to provide more interest and ensure privacy.

             “How’s it going?  My name is Josh Wilson.  I am an English Education student at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia, AR.  I plan to graduate next December.  I graduated from high school, here in Springhill, in 1997.  Therefore, it is safe for you to assume that I once attended this school, which I did.  In fact, I remember this room.  Boy, has it changed!  See how nice these walls look now with their shiny gray paint job?  Well, when I was here, the walls were green.  The top part of the wall was a pukey green.  It looked like a lima bean garden.  The bottom was a dark green.  It looked like a green bean patch.  The walls were not shiny either.  The paint was so old that it had dulled and chipped.  It was rather tacky-looking.  Well, your teacher, Mrs. Q, was not here at the time.  This class was Mrs. X’s Reading class.  You all know Mrs. X.  She is still here, only now, she works downstairs.  Anyways, we used to have these big, heavy, red Reading books.  I mean these books had to have had 1000 pages in them.  Each chapter contained a list of vocabulary words.  Some of the words were familiar, but others were not.  Mrs. X always made us write the definitions to each of these words on a separate sheet of paper.  Well, one day, she assigned this exercise to us for homework, but I didn’t want to do it.  I hadn’t had a good day.  I had totally bombed a math test, I tore a hole in my pants, and I didn’t like what we had for lunch that day.  I was tired and angry, and I did not feel like doing the homework.  I knew that I usually arrived at school about 15 minutes early every morning,  so I devised a plan.  I decided to wait until I got to school the next morning to do my homework.  After all, these assignments usually weren’t but about 10 terms.  This way, it would be done, but not that night.  So I went home, watched some TV, played some Super Mario Bros., and then went to bed.  It was great.  I was very happy to have put the homework off.  However, something went wrong.  The next morning, my mom woke up late.  Therefore, I was late getting to school.  In fact, when I arrived, I had only 5 minutes to finish the vocabulary.  I plopped myself down on a bench under the covered area outside and opened my book to the page that had the vocabulary.  ‘Oh man!  There are over 20 words here!’ I exclaimed.  Then flipping to the glossary, I looked at the first word to see how long the definition was.  It was humongous.  ‘I’ll never get this done.’ I shrieked.  Then, I saw it.  There in front of me was my answer.  Next to each definition was a synonym.  If you don’t know, synonyms are different words that mean the same thing, like seat and chair.  So there it was.  I would write the synonyms in place of the definitions.  A ton of weight lifted from my shoulders, but I wasn’t out of trouble yet.  I proceeded to look up every term to be able to copy the synonym down.  I turned pages so fast that I dropped the temperature around me by 10 degrees.  My hand looked like a seismograph, racing across my paper.  I finished just before the bell rang.  Feeling invincible now, I cockily strolled into Mrs. X’s classroom, and coolly turned in my work.  Well, the next day, Mrs. X began to redistribute our homework.  Usually, I am not the last person to receive my work, but that day, she kept skipping around me.  Finally, she marched to my desk.  ‘Bang’ sounded my desk as she slammed my paper on it.  ‘What do you think you are doing?’ she yelled.   The only sound in the room was my heavy breathing.  I felt like a monkey in a cage because everyone was staring at me.  Mrs. X glared at me through her glasses.  ‘This is not what I asked for,’ Mrs. X protested, angrily.  She then proceeded to gripe to the entire class about people taking the easy way out of things.  Not only did I get a zero on my homework, but I also got the whole class chewed out.  Needless to say, I was not the most popular person for the rest of the day.”