Sometimes They Still Surprise Me

I know most of my students pretty well. I work really hard at knowing them. I learn about boyfriends/girlfriends, out of school activities, jobs, sports, music, family, books. You name it, I really try to find out about it. But, once in awhile, one of them surprises me. Today was one of those surprises. It started with a phone call... "Sorry to bother you in the middle of class. H has some questions about some poetry you are doing in creative writing. Can he come down or are you in the middle of a lecture?" Lecture? Me? "Send him down. My students are recording today. I've got the time to visit with him." Now, you should know that this is the same young man I wrote about last week . We're getting to the meat of his story, but it still has a ways to go. He saunters in. I really expect to tell him that he doesn't have to write poetry. I just want him to try a draft of it. "So," he begins, "last night, when I got home from