Planet Mad

A true story:

In today's learning support lesson we were discussing how to plan and structure an essay. We'd talked through various titles they might get in English, and then one of them asked about writing blue. 'Blue' is the name given to punishment essays here: they are written on special blue paper and have to be a specified number of lines, normally 40. For a severe offence, a pupil might receive 80 or 120; the maximum length is 240, although I've never known of anyone getting that much. The title for the blue is set by the teacher: sometimes it's subject-related; other times it's an abstract title. I rarely use blue, but if I do then usually set "My favourite poem" or "My favourite type of music", although I have asked pupils to write about bagels and a calculator.

One of the teachers here often sets "The sex life of a snow flake" as a title for his blue. One of my learning support group asked how on earth you'd structure *that* essay. We talked about it, trying to decide what a snowflake's ideal partner would be like, and what might happen if they were a minger snowflake who stood no chance of pulling (we decided that they'd use ice-cube porn). I then asked them to use the same essay structure to describe the sex life of a brick.
"Well, Miss, it would get stuck to another brick with cement - that's like marriage."
"Hah, yes, Miss, that's when it gets laid!"

Badum-TISH!