Raging Hormones

When an English assignments brings an otherwise healthy, normal fifteen year old boy to tears, there can be but one explanation: raging hormones. No amount of consoling, comforting, or reassurance could convince my student fifth hour today that he was fully capable of completing the task assigned. We are reading To Kill a Mockingbird, and my students were asked to write a short essay summarizing the discussion had by Tom Robinson's jury during their four hour deliberation from the point of view of one of the jurors. I thought this would offer them an interesting point of view from which to examine the text, especially since we had spent the class period before delving into the Jim Crow laws that plagued the American South. I felt my students were well prepared for the assignment and that a chance to experiment with creative writing would be met with titillation not tears. Raging hormones got the best of my class today, but from here on out I will try not to be taken off guard by the tears or the drama that dictate the teenage existence. I will not let raging hormones reign!