Hickory Smoked Turkey

I'm currently teaching two English classes and what I've learned so far about myself and my students has little to do with commas or sentence fragments.  In many ways, I am driven to teach more than writing skills, I am interested in showing my students a sliver of topics or ideas that they may not have been exposed to yet. Last Friday I gave my students 5 minutes to respond to a writing prompt.  I asked my students what they were afraid of and their answers varied greatly.  When they turned their papers in I couldn't help but read them right away.  At the start of the semester I was frustrated by their lack of motivation, their refusal to speak in class and their blank faces.  But, after  getting to know them a bit, I realize that their silence isn't always due to lack of preparation.  Sometimes my students are silent because they have much scarier and stressful things going on in their lives besides my English class. I have one student who is ext...