I, I, I…

We just had Cindy Lynn on speaker phone so that she could help us understand the paragraph structure of an essay better.  When I read one of the kids’ paragraphs she pointed out that a personal essay should never say “in my opinion,” and that it should never use the words “I” or “my.”  She went on to explain that since it was a personal essay, the “I” or “my” were implied and shouldn’t be used.

Later I was working on a paragraph with Jared.  I realized that despite Cindy Lynn’s explanation, we are not at a place that we can banish the use of the word “I.”  I told him he could go ahead and keep it in his paragraph.  Nevertheless, this is the paragraph he handed me a few minutes later.

Imagined the people in the battle room were able to move a lot easier.  They moved so slowly that the battles weren’t that interesting.  Also didn’t think there were that many windows in the battle room.  Liked ideas about the battle room better than the movie.

I told him, “You need to put some “I’s” in your paragraph.  He responded, “but Cindy Lynn told us not to!!”

I said, partly in fun but with a little frustration too, “I, I, I, put in some ‘I’s’ or I’ll poke you in yours!!”

Whereupon he looked at the girls and squealed,

“You heard it!  Mom’s trying to hurt me!!”