**Now that the school year is done, and I have more time to write, I hope to share some stories from my teaching experiences. Most likely, I will not post these stories in the order that they occurred. Thanks for reading my scattered stories.

During class one Friday, I introduced my 9th-grade English students to their final writing assignment: a personal narrative.  I challenged the students to think of stories from their own lives that elicit strong emotions: fear, excitement, anguish, joy, disgust, hope, or any other feeling that they can convey in words.

As students brainstormed ideas, one student asked, “Miss Shoaf, what if I don’t have anything interesting to write about?”  

I probed a little deeper, “Nothing?  I am sure in your fourteen years of life, there has been something interesting.”

Hearing our conversation, several classmates offered suggestions, but at the end of class, this student still had no ideas.

I thought about this problem for the rest of the morning, and after lunch, I asked two of his classmates, “Do you think that we could create an experience for him before Monday?”

They pondered a few ideas and remarked, “I think we could do something during biology class!”  

A little while later, I saw the biology teacher and mentioned the problem to him as well.  This student is unflappable, so we were all skeptical that he could be impressed by anything developed in a short time, but (kudos to the biology teacher) the student was surprised and intrigued!

The biology teacher quickly created a scavenger hunt for the student, and the student did not suspect that a teacher was behind the mysterious clues that he received. Meanwhile, classmates distracted the student so that he would not see the teacher hiding clues.

The following Monday, the student said to me, “Miss Shoaf, I know exactly what I will write about,” and he drafted a detailed story about a series of clues that led him to a bag of Jolly Ranchers. 

Teaching at an international Christian school has taught me a lot, but one of the most significant things I’ve observed is the way that the staff works together to accomplish any task.  I’ve seen my coworkers serve selflessly, knowing that we all strive to achieve the same goal. 

The biology teacher and my other students did not have to create an experience for this student to write about, but they did so willingly. It takes a team to run a school, and sometimes it takes a village to write a personal narrative.