Writing Across the Curriculum - Language is Everywhere!

Study of the English language is woven throughout the curriculum at Mountain Laurel Montessori Farm School.  Students read and write in every aspect of their studies.  Here is an example of creative writing as part of a Geometry exam. This story was written by an 8th year student.

The Story of the Points

Once upon a time there was a point named Will.  He occupied no space and had no dimension.  He was very lonely and set out on a journey to find a family  He came to the line family.  He joined the line family which had an infinite amount of points.  This line extended infinitely in opposite directions, but had no length or depth.  All of the line family points were mean so he went to find another family. 

The family he came to was called the plane family.  The plane family was made up of a flat expanse of points extending in every direction.  The plane family, like the line family, had length and no depth, but unlike the line family it had width. Will thought that the plane familty was very nice, and he loved that it had width, so he joined the family.

One morning, Will woke up to see that the plane family was playing collinear / noncolinear.  Collinear / noncollinear is a game like musical chairs.  A point will call out a name such as collinear which means that the points must form a single straight line.  Whomever is the last to get in the collinear line will have to sit out. It is the same for non-collinear.  When the point calls out noncollinear, you must make sure that you are not lining up with any other points, and whoever is lining up will have to sit out. 

During the game, the points got ino a big fight.  Half of the poinst thought that Will was out of the game, and the other half thought he was in.  All of the points were so mad that they split up into different planes: one called Plane 1 and the other called Plane Elephant.  Points would refer to Plane 1 and Plane Elephant as the noncoplaner crazys. 

One day, Plane Elephant wanted to spy on Plane 1.  They sent 5 of their points out in an infinite straight line in the direction where they thought Plane 1 was.  They called this mission (which failed) Mission Ray.  Points were sad that this mission failed, so they sent 5 more points out infinitely in the opposite direction. They called this Mission Opposite Ray. 

The Opposite Ray mission succeeded and they saw that Plane 1 was soing horribly.  There were angles everywhere.  Angles are hated by points.  Young teen points put them up kind of like graffiti.  They are like a bad version of rays, because like rays, they share an end point and extended infintely in opposite directions.  But, unlike rays, they are not straight (plane family points like to be straight). 

The Mission Opposite Ray points came back to Plane Elephant and reported the horror they found.  They sent the 5 points back to talk to Plane 1 about becoming one plane family again.  Plane 1 agreed to come back and they vowed never to leave again, extend infinitely, and to always be straight, creating a line segment. 

The End