Home schooling isn’t always easy. Sometimes I look at Michael’s assignment and wonder why he is doing university work in grade 8. I am sure my assignments were no where near as difficult as his are.

This week the battle was with poetry. He has an assignment to read a poem about a windstorm and then write his own poem in a similar form. The poem he had to read was packed with descriptions about the wind and how it sounded, felt, looked and even tasted to the poet.

Michael had to write a poem about a weather condition using interesting descriptive language.

We sat down and I dragged him every step of the way. I had to prompt him with questions:

Me: What weather condition interests you? Answer: A thunderstorm

Me: What does a thunderstorm remind you of? Answer: I don’t know

Me: That’s not helpful. Think about the…