Good Times with the Young'uns

Today was one of those times when I really appreciate 8th graders. These times are increasingly rare as the school year marches on toward Thursday. Since I only had 1 class period left today with one of the 8th grade classes, I decided to have them do extemporaneous speeches, mostly for fun. They wrote topics, put them into a basket, and then picked one out to speak on.

Here are my favorite topics from today:
1. Delicatessan Meats
2. Cheeses
3. Trees
4. Anime

I know they're probably supposed to be on current events, but these were hilarious. The poor girl who got delicatessan meats didn't know what a delicatessan was, but she did a fine job of singing the praises of bologna. I told them they could make stuff up if they didn't know it, as long as they spoke with confidence. She make up "risercha" meat, after she saw the word "research" written on the board. One boy tried to incite the class to rise up against anime, calling it clown cartoons and people with disproportionately large heads. The girl who got the topic of trees talked about how she wouldn't want to be a tree, and how she'd hate squirrels living in her. She started to talk about how she wouldn't want squirrels running up her....and then stopped, realizing that we were leaving the G rated arena.

Anyway, I'm glad there are still fun times, even though everyone has been made crazy by the end of the year.