Days when I love my job

I've been doing a unit on literature with my high school students, and today I had them do an activity to prepare for watching the award-winning animated short "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore." I showed them some stills from the film and had them write their own stories and make predictions about what the movie would be about. These are the pictures I gave them: 

The fantastic flying books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Kieran Donaghy

Here is a response that came from one group of kids in my senior class:

During World War II, there was a man who was hopeless and was going to commit suicide. He was on the 5th floor balcony, about to jump off when he saw a girl flying by with many books. The girl said, "I can give you a book which can take you far away." The book could speak, and one day, it took him to an isolated library. There were lots of books like that book there, and they could walk and speak. And the book said, "there is your home," and the man felt shocked. He went out and found a desolate world where it was very cold and still in ruins. He was really nervous. He remembered that whenever wars happened his grandma would tell him "if you have hope everywhere is paradise, but if you are hopeless everywhere is war." Finally the man realized that these books meant hope, and that books can save hopeless people.

So yeah, I corrected some of the spelling and grammar, and there are still some weird lexical choices, but there are some truly beautiful things in this passage! It makes me appreciate the extent to which meaningful things can still be conveyed despite language barriers. Even more, hearing my kids' stories today filled me with such joy for my students and the creativity they bring to my classes. I realize that my style of teaching sometimes pushes my kids past their comfort zones in terms of using their imagination and formulating original ideas, so I am filled with joy as I see them adapting and improving daily in these areas. Although introducing this new style of teaching has been tough in the beginning I know it is worth sticking to, because if I can make their English learning memorable and meaningful, it will not only be more fun but it will help them to better retain the material. If any of you have 15 minutes and are interested in checking out the film, here is a link! It's a good one! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxrYDaj0dbs