How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Our first writing assignment of the year was to write an essay entitled, "How I Spent My Summer Vacation."  Now before you start thinking, "How original, Mrs. Magner," this assignment had a twist.

 I read the class the book "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" by Mark Teague.  In the book, the boy exaggerates a bit as he shares his summer adventures.  He is captured by cowboys and saves a town from a wild cow stampede (or something like that).  In their writing, my students had to lie.  Nothing in the essays could be true.

We had adventures including aliens, being captured by Mickey Mouse and/or pirates, encounters with famous people, and giant fish being caught on Hill Lake.  These kids sure love to write and I had a blast reading their tall tales.