More student work

Today we had a 2 hour delay, which annoyingly meant that we just skipped our 1st block class. The day before there was no school because of tropical storm Ida, and the day before was veteran's day holiday. So this week has pretty much been a wash, and now my roommies and I are stressing over lost instructional time. Since it would be a planning nightmare to have 2 classes ahead of another, I needed to make up something very quickly for my kids to do today, without making copies of anything, cause I couldn't print from any of the computers today. Lovely. Anyway, I had my students write letters to a romance columnist, imagining they were Romeo, in the beginning of the play when he's obsessed with Rosaline. Here is one of my favorite results:

Dear Lil Wayne (they were allowed to choose who they were writing to),

I am sunk deep below the ocean waves of heartache and sadness. My heart burns to know that I can't lust unless I marry her. Why must she be so vile that she won't give me the time to show her my compassionate side? How do I cope with her beauty knowing that I can't have nor touch. How can I make my feelings blatant to her so she might think about coping with me. Lil Wayne please tell me how must I live knowing that she might be cping with another man. Please help me.

Yours truly,
Romeo

I love this for so many reasons. 1, they used "blatant," one of our SAT words. 2, they clearly had fun trying to make it dramatic. 3, they clearly don't have a firm grasp on the definitions of "lust" and "cope." I asked when they read it aloud if they meant coupling, and they assured me it was cope. Since these types of informal assignments are to get the students thinking creatively and not about grammar and such things, I let it go. I <3 my students.