Some Kids Just Don't Get My Brilliance

Last week I was teaching my students the importance of beginning their college essay with an engaging opening, and I decided to illustrate this with a contrary example; I began my class with an elaborately planned weak opening: I drew an inscrutable diagram on the board, gave vague advice, asked nebulous questions, ignored students when they answered, sorted a folder, took an awkwardly long drink of water, asked a student for an example and then while they read it I rummaged through my cabinet looking for a non-existent hand-out, complained about how late the Giants game went, asked the class if anyone had gum, took a piece of aforementioned gum that a student proffered and took my time unwrapping and chewing it, sat down in my chair and took my glasses off and rubbed my face, stuck my finger in my ear and then looked at the wax while a kid was trying to talk to me, and then-- finally-- started laughing and told them what I had been doing and had them connect the way they felt during my weak opening to how a reader might feel when reading the start of their narratives (they were especially cluttered, vague and weak) and I was quite proud of my brilliance and my convincing acting skills until one girl said, "I really didn't notice anything different than normal."