Introduction

The school year has been back in session for a full nine weeks term now which means I’ve been back to teaching writing. I always find it one of the most difficult things to teach but certainly the most rewarding as a Reading and Writing teacher.

It has taken me a while to post this. Much longer than I would have wanted, but to say these nine weeks have been filled with in-school and out-of-school events would be an understatement.

With this particular lesson, I taught it in a different style. I was introducing my students to our way of writing in 8th grade. Over a few days, I went over introduction paragraphs, using ACE to compose their body paragraphs, and how to write a good conclusion.

The results of this method of teaching ended with a jigsaw puzzle of an essay. What do I mean by that? I mean we wrote the essays on different days with students giving input each day.

By the end, four different students had contributed to the essay as a whole, and since my primary focus at this moment of the school year was format and content, I cleaned a few of the grammatical mistakes for this student response post.

Writing Task

You have read “The Right to the Streets of Memphis,” a short story about the relationship between a mother and her son.  Write an essay describing a characteristic of the boy and how it is developed in the story.  Be sure to use specific evidence to support your response.

Student Response

Most can remember a situation where they showed courageousness, whether it be the first to help someone being bullied or even as small as confronting a spider in a bathroom. We’ve all done something risky for the greater good. The short story “The Right to the Streets of Memphis” is an example of this where a young boy named Richard is given the task to go get groceries, but before he could, he is confronted by a gang of kids who beat him. This leads to the boy running home, but his mother encourages him to fight back. Against his better judgment, he faces his fear and overcomes the gang of kids, showing that he is a true example of courage.

Although he was scared early in the story, Richard shows development in his character by making the decision to overcome his fears. His mother orders, “Go to the store and buy those groceries. If those boys bother you, then fight” (Wright 1). His mother used this choice of words to make her intentions clear to her son. Those words influenced his decision to become brave and stand up to the gang. His mother’s encouragement likely impacted many future decisions helping him to be determined even in the toughest situations.

Later in the story, Richard is revealed as proud and courageous. As the gang of boys began to surround Richard again, he responds with, “‘I’ll kill you!’ I threatened. They closed in. In blind fear, I let the stick fly, feeling it crack against a boy’s skull. I swung again, lamming another skull, then another. Realizing that they would retaliate if I let up for but a second, I fought to lay them low, to knock them cold, to kill them so that they could not strike back at me” (Wright 2). After Richard’s mom gives him a stick to defend himself, he gains the courage to stand up for himself and fight the gang. When the boys’ parents come out and start yelling at him, he threatens to do the same to them if they do not leave him alone. Richard picks up his money and grocery list and goes to get his groceries with a new sense of courage and pride. If his mother would not have forced him to overcome his fear, Richard would have likely decided that it is better to back down when things get tough instead of doing what must be done. 

When one considers Richard getting an ultimatum from his mother and then beating the gang of boys, it’s clear that a main characteristic of Richard is courage. Children need to mature, by experiencing fear. You can’t keep them in a little safety bubble forever. They’ll get hurt, cry, and be scared, but that’s just growing up. B.J. Neblett once said, “We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be tomorrow.”

Writing Details

Although an unconventional method to write an essay, it seemed to be a student response that the class was proud to call their own which is always a great feeling and helped to set a positive tone for our future writing sessions.

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