Wasn’t even planning to scrutinise the fourth graders’ compos today, but I came across one that piqued my curiosity. Not only did he write “fear surged through him”, but he also garnished his writing with “He was paralysed with fear”. That’s like building up a characterization on a character’s state of fear.

Supremely motivated, I scanned through every single compo and began to realise that much of my teaching had sunk into their semi-permeable brains. “Surged” was by far the most entrenched word in their memories, with some of them even replacing fear with other emotions, such as excitement and guilt. “Bellowed” and “apologised profusely” were employed adeptly by three students each. I didn’t even recall teaching this class “bellowed”. What’s particularly encouraging was that the replication of good phrases came from a broad spread of students, ranging from the established writers to their weakest counterparts. Some phrases were only used by one particular student, but this also meant that my teaching hit the bull’s eye for that student. It’s hard not to get my ego bloated by this unexpected heartwarming stirring of pride and jubilation.

One student was particularly teachable. I wrote “disastrous consequences” once on her compo — and she expertly dished it out for her exam. I have been teaching for many years and have long been resigned to the fact that students don’t take my feedback to heart, so it was nice to witness the reverse happen for once.

Anyway, this lesson, I levelled up their writing by pairing “bellowed” with “at the top of her lungs”. Only this time, I was confident that some — not all — would remember this phrase for life. And that’s enough for a teacher fighting hard in the trenches.