Happy Teacher Moment...Yes there IS such a thing

I'm in the process of grading over 100 pretty crappy essays (a big part crappy because this is the first typed draft I'm grading, which means I'm being gentle). One of the pieces of literature they are writing about is: "The Interesting Life Narrative of Olaudah Equiano", the autobiography of a man who was captured at 11 and was brought to America as a slave. My happy moment? Many of my students have been using vocabulary that I taught them.  For example:

In "the Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano" by Olaudah Equiano, he illustrates how the white men treated the slaves as if they were chattel.

"Life as a slave is a very painful and arduous one"

WHOOPIE....it's small, but every baby step counts!