Mark's Writing

I get blown away by my son's writing. He wrote a 140-page book (handwritten) when he was 10, and he just is very creative in his work, with a wonderful "voice." Sometimes he comes out with lines that just stun me. (Then, lots of times he is incredibly lazy in Language Arts and does the bare--and dull--minimum for an assignment, which is very frustrating.)

This year (seventh grade) they are keeping journals where they do their book responses, D.O.L.'s (Daily Oral Language--they write out a sentence, then have to correct it for punctuation, grammar, etc), and what is called a "Free Write," where they have about five minutes to write whatever. I read Mark's Free Write for today; he decided to write a poem. Here it is:

Once upon a summer's day
A farmer came along the bay
With many corn cobs in a sack
And wonderful stories in his pack.
He told of fairies, big and small,
He told of giants, short and tall,
He told of pirates who sailed the bay
Once upon a summer's day.

Five minutes. He wrote this in five minutes. I love it. mk