"satan"s evening gown and other stories

Grading is exhausting. Marathon grading (of the sort I did this weekend) is exhausting, but I think that there is a groove you get into with a solid day of grading that I never quite hit if I try to divide it up into daily manageable piles. Of course, in my defense, the previous Monday I had been all caught up--and by Friday I was sixty-four Writer's Workshop binders in the hole.
I love Writer's Workshop--it's an amazing (and amazingly effective!) way to teach the art of writing to a diverse group of students. I am not the most eloquent of people--but if you're interested in learning more you can always look at their website here .
Back to the grading, I was reading through one of my student's "scary" stories, and he had proudly clothed his female lead in only the best fashion. What was it? You guessed it---a "satan" "goochy" evening gown. This was soon topped by the student who set her scary story in the classroom and had the desks turn into portals to "heck"--which turned out to be...her mom's car when her sister was learning to drive.
They've written a piece a week without realizing it; they've not whined too much; it's three weeks till break, and, fair or foul, my grades are in for the first trimester.
What's not to love?