【推荐3】Early in my teaching career, I heard countless excuses for why students didn’t have their homework. As time passed, I became_____________of hearing “I don’t have my homework because…” So I_____________accepting any excuse.

When I moved to another school, I _____________ my students “No excuses!”. I collected homework each class. When a student didn’t have it, I never asked why._____________, I sighed loudly, shook my head and recorded a zero in the _____________ book.

Then, one afternoon, Anthony _____________me. “Could I talk to you a minute?” he asked _____________, not taking his eyes off the _____________ . “I know you said it doesn’t matter _____________we don’t have our lessons done, but I don’t want you to think I’m ____________ because I come to school without mine so often.”

Anthony ______________up at me for the first time. “It’s just that… well, my dad moved out, and my mom waits tables at night, so I have to ______________ my little brothers. Sometimes they cry a lot, and it makes it hard to______________”

“Why are you just now telling me…?” I stopped in mid-sentence. I knew why. So I ______________the question. “Would it help if you stayed here in my______________ after school and worked on it before you go home?” He swallowed hard and ____________.

The things I learned that year weren’t taught in the classes I’d taken in college. I discovered that not all kids come from homes that are safe and ______________. Not all kids have a ______________bedroom with a desk and study light. Some don’t have a home where a parent is even around. And some kids do go to bed ______________.

Most importantly, I learned that “I’ll listen”______________much better than “No excuses!”

【推荐1】My brother Ken was born with a brain disease. Though Mama was extremely ________, she never babied Ken. She ________ him to do whatever we did.

I remember once we got a slide in our backyard. Ken was ________ at first sight. But unable to ________ the steps with the braces(支架)on his legs, Ken could only looking ________ at the rest of us from the ground.

One day, Mama put Ken in the backyard, this time without his braces, and watched him move with great       _____ right over to the slide. For the next three hours, Ken climbed the ladder and fell, climbed the ladder and fell,       _____. He skinned his knees, and his head was ________.

Our neighbor ________ at Mama, “What kind of woman are you? Look at the blood. Get that boy off that       _____!” Mama told her kindly that if it ________ her, she would have to close her curtains. Ken had ________ to go down the slide, and down the slide he would go. It took a couple of days of ________ before he could go up the ladder and down the slide as well as the rest of us, and another week before he could do it with his braces on.

Ken was not supposed to ________ it to his tenth birthday but he has lived with his disease and is now a 42-year-old man who lives ________ and even holds down a job. He ________ everything the way he did that slide so many years ago. What a(n) ________ Mama gave him that day by expecting him to be the ________ he could be.

Though I often feel I fall short when I compare my ________ to hers, it gives me great comfort to know that her spirit is ________ me, somewhere-preparing me to make “mothering magic” of my own.

【推荐2】I was going to see my grandma Ruthy.

Approaching her apartment, I was suddenly seized with the_______ that I was going to die one day. I walked in to see my grandmother sitting on the sofa,_______ and pale. Once she would have ______ me in her huge bear hug, but now it seemed like the sofa was going to have her ______ alive.

I knew I was supposed to hug her but I wanted to ______. I didn’t want to even make eye contact with this woman that I had loved so_______ , because if I did, maybe death would ________ from over her shoulder and touch me too.

My grandmother, dying of cancer, ________ pulled herself to the edge of the sofa and ______ herself up and said, “So where are we going for dinner?” I turned to my mom _______ I didn’t know what food went with dying.

The next minute, we ended up ________ her off the sofa, down the steps, into the car, and driving to the closest ________. She hadn’t managed solid food in weeks, and could ______ do a sip of water due to the pain. But she ordered a large cup of beer. We ate and she drank. ________ , there was no death. There was no cancer. There was a moment like that in every________ .

Then we said _______. I was waiting for the icy cold hand of ______ on my heart. But I didn’t feel it, because she had _______a shield（防护物）around me-the meal.

The last ______ my grandma Ruthy taught me is that one day, I’m supposed to look over my shoulder and say, “Hello, Death. Before we go, I’m going to have one more ______ .”

【推荐3】There are an interesting story. My mother used to ask me what is the most important _________of the body. Through the years I would guess what I thought was the _________answer. When I was younger, I thought _________was very important to us, so I said, “My ears, Mommy.” She said, “No, many people are ___________. But you _________thinking about it and I will ask you again soon.”

Several years _________before she asked me again. This time I told her, “Mommy, sight is very important to everybody, so it must be our _________.” She looked at me and told me, “You are learning fast, but the answer _________ is not correct because there are many people who are blind.”

Over the years, mother asked me a couple more_________and always her answer was, “No, but you are getting____________every year, my child.”

Then last year, my grandpa died. Everybody was ____________. My mom looked at me when it was our turn to say our ____________good-bye to grandpa. She asked me, “Do you know the most important body part yet, my dear?” I was ____________ when she asked me that time. She saw the ____________ on my face and said, “My dear, the most important body part is your shoulder.”

I asked, “Is it because it ____________your head?” She replied, “No, it is ____________it can hold the head of a friend or ____________one when they cry. Everybody needs a shoulder to cry ____________sometimes in life, my dear. I only hope that you have ____________love and friends that you will have a shoulder to cry on when you ____________ it.”