Man vs. Nature

For those that don’t know, I teach English I to 9^th graders. In class one day, we were reviewing literary elements for a big test. I divided the class into groups and each group received a literary element to which it had to act out. Meanwhile, the class had to guess the element being portrayed.

There was one group that I will never forget. It was three males. One male was standing tall, arms out like tree branches, head cocked to the side. So I figured he was a tree. One of the other group members walked up to the “tree” and went through the motions of unzipping his pants. I’m thinking, “What in the world is he doing? Should I stop this? What if he pulls his pants down?” Everything was just happening so fast, I couldn’t even speak. So the male student continued. He stood with his legs spread apart and began to urinate on the “tree”. Then the third group member walked onto to scene with an “axe” and chopped down the “tree”. The tree fell lifeless to the ground. Everyone in the class began to laugh. People started shouting out guesses.

“Setting!”

“Plot!”

“Imagery!”

The three boys shook their heads and the tree said, “Nope. Man vs. Nature.”

I almost died laughing.