Chocolate Cake

Every few weeks, I have the unique privilege of teaching writing skills to a handful of students during Saturday School. We try to make it as painless as possible because, let's face it...NO ONE (myself included) enjoys spending a Saturday morning reviewing the finer points of grammar, writing, and revision. During my most recent Saturday School session, I gave students the task of writing about their three favorite desserts. We then reviewed the entire writing process. When the kids were finished, we put a few of their essays on the SmartBoard (without their names, of course) and practiced editing together. For those of you who are unfamiliar with a SmartBoard, it is essentially an overpriced interactive white board that we educators use in an attempt to appear as if we are on the cutting edge of technology.

Anyhow, I came across the following sentences nestled strategically in the middle of a paragraph we were editing. I considered sharing the entire essay with you but fought the urge for fear that you might lose any remaining confidence in our education system.

Saturday Student Extraordinaire (an 8th grader) writes:
"And don't even get me started on chocolate cake. I love me some chocolate cake."

I'm assuming "And" is the transition word here.

Seeing as how these were two of her more successful attempts at appropriate sentence structure, I focused on the positive and praised her for her passion. After all, I love me some chocolate cake too!