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This Is Just to Say.

unless you're living under a rock, you've probably heard reference to William Carlos Williams' apology poem (or IS IT. Reread that last stanza).

So let me tell you a funny store (hang on to the end, that's where the funny is!)

Every year, I use that poem as a template with my students to write their own sorry / not-sorry poems. After we examine the poem's structure, and some previously written student examples, we usually write one together as a class to get started. My morning class wanted to write to our principal. For reference: Nobel bucks are reward dollars we give out for being respectful, responsible or safe (and students can redeem them for actual items at our school store).

Here's what we wrote:

"Dear Mr. A.,
This is just to say
We have stolen
the Nobel bucks
that were piled on your desk

which
you were probably
saving
for good kids.

Forgive us,
it was worth
all the toys
that we got."

NOW HERE'S THE BEST PART: I emailed it to our administrators "Here's a poem 208 wrote for you" and in the body of the email I wrote "based on William Carlos WIlliams." Well, our principal didn't read that part, he just clicked on the image.

Our assistant principal told us that all of a sudden he was scrambling around his desk saying "WAIT A MINUTE WHERE ARE MY NOBEL BUCKS!!!!"

Hahahahahahaha.

Best prank ever especially considering we didn't even intend to prank. The kids are going to FREAK tomorrow when they hear about his reaction! ;)

It's the little things, peeps.

Posted by Duff at January 29, 2015 08:02 PM

Comments

That's brilliant!! Have you seen the Twitter bot that churns out mad-libs versions of that poem every hour? https://twitter.com/JustToSayBot

Posted by: Peter at January 29, 2015 10:11 PM

This is a great story!

Posted by: claudia at February 10, 2015 08:47 AM

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