We're All Just Misunderstood

In a moment of
"What the hell are we going to do tonight, with the first day of the 2nd quarter on a Tuesday?"
combined with
"It's a shortened week with no school this Friday."
and "It's almost Halloween!"
I pulled this concept out of my patooty--Misunderstood Monsters.

I had students brainstorm ways that they are misunderstood when they came to class. For some reason, they struggled with it. Aren't they teenagers? Whatever, though.

Afterward I read a poem from the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, I asked students to brainstorm a "bad guy" or monster that they could write a different perspective for--and from that monster's point of view. (I can't remember the poem, and now I can't find it, but it wasn't as sweet and cute as The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, which I have used before for point of view.)

Originally, I was pushing for them to come up with a monster, but there are times I can get a lot more by being flexible, so some students are taking on the misunderstood personas of comic villains and horror movie "bad guys." My returning freaky kid who only writes dark stuff wanted to write about how the Devil is misunderstood. My student with the thickest accent is taking on La Chupracabra, and a sweet girl is taking on Grim Reaper.

The coolest one, though, that I can't wait to hear more about is Seven. Marcus asked if we could just call him 7 for short, and I thought that was okay.

Of course, I think Mister Teacher will totally understand why Seven is a bad guy who has been misunderstood. For some reason I instantly thought of him when Marcus suggested his topic.

Remember?

Six is afraid of Seven because Seven ate Nine.

Scandalous, I know!

Marcus is emphatic that Seven is completely misunderstood. "Miss! It's all a misunderstanding! Nine is fiiiiinnnnne! There's nothing wrong with Nine!" I can't wait to hear what's up with that whole situation. I want to say there's some homophobia going on, but we'll just have to wait to see what's the story is, won't we?