It can be tough to impress a seasoned teacher. They’ve read hundreds, thousands of papers and stories and essays over the course of their careers, and since they teach similar course materials every semester, a lot of those works are bound to be similar.

These 12 students really broke the mold, though, and their teachers still remember these amazing plot twists years later.

12. And he still remembers it.

Not a teacher but a student. We were set a challenge in English lit at high school to rewrite the ending to Of Mice and Men.

Can’t remember all the details, but my ending change was that George shoots Lennie, then turns the gun on himself out of guilt. I then detailed a final scene, where a small mouse scurries along the floor, and settles in Lennie’s hand.

I was made to read out the 2-3 page ending to the class, and it got used as an example for the next few years in other classes. I think my teacher was surprised that I wrote something with so much thought and detail, and actually read the book. I wasn’t known for my soft side, I was a bit of a class joker.

My only ever A* work at school.

11. A laugh from dad means a lot!

Not a teacher, but in high school, we had this creative writing assignment, where we were given different the choice of 3 different pictures to base our stories on. I chose one where you could see a man cleaning a room, and you could see that he had swept things under the carpet because there was a big lump on it.

I wrote this whole thing about the guy panic cleaning before his guests would arrive, and him desperately trying to flatten the lump. In the end, it turned out that the lump was a body, and his guests were the police. Pretty tame, I know but the way I wrote it, I purposefully made spelling and grammar mistakes through the text, except that when you read the twist, you would realize that they weren`t actual mistakes and everything was grammatically correct. My teacher had even noted all of my mistakes with a red pen, but wrote a note basically saying “Never mind, just read the ending.”

I showed it to my dad after I got it back, and he burst out laughing when he read it through.

10. From the mouths of babes.

A kindergartner I taught in Korea last year wrote this awesome story about a dragon who terrorized all the forest animals. They all worked together to defeat him and had a big party to celebrate. In a true show of forgiveness, the animals even invited the dragon to the party since he apologized for hurting them. But they didn’t invite one animal (can’t remember which one) because he was Japanese.

At the time, there waz a huge political movement in Korea to boycott Japan because of tensions over their refusal to acknowledge the use of Korean comfort women (read: the forced prostitution of colonized people) before and during WWII. I just didn’t expect that out of the blue and from a 5-year-old!

9. Such a proud moment.

I had a student write an amazing argumentative essay. He was a shy kid, and we had been working on building his confidence and taking risks in his writing. I get to the end of the paper and he notes: *I always wanted to include this argument, but I just wasn’t sure.

He leaves a citation. I go to his works cited and see a proper citation along with a hyper link. I click it. Rick Astley begins to sing. I wipe away a tear. Well done, kid. Well done.

8. Not the best job.

My teacher marked exams for the whole country and she was just responsible for what they only called “the pit.” AKA ones that had been flagged for social services.

She had all sorts from abuse (one student had written about her sister’s court case) to religious fanatics. She had one that was entirely “Allah Akbar.”

7. That awkward moment when.

I had a student write that she flew to California to see Post Malone because he’s “so hot”.

She got a henna tattoo on her chest of him before the concert.

Unfortunately, it turned out she’s allergic to henna and it turned into a terrible rash.

She still has the scar.

Plot twist, it turned out to be a permanent tattoo.

6. Unexpected in different ways.

The story itself was fine but I really didn’t expect the giant penis drawing at the end…which turned out to be a picture of 3 grassy mountains (that were not once mentioned in the story)

Also did a story circle with a kindly kid that told a very usual story of her going to get ice cream with mummy & daddy etc which suddenly ended in “and then I TOOK ALL MY FINGERS OFF AND THREW THEM IN THE AIR!!”

5. Ah, the mind of a child.

I once had an elementary student write a story where John Cena randomly busted in to the house about 3/4 of the way in to the story.

4. The mind of a writer.

I was working in a pre-k classroom while the teacher was reading some stories the kids had dictated to her based on a collection of drawings. One child had a story called “Empire State Building” that she was about to read while I was organizing the refrigerator.

The story went: “There’s a tornado; all of the people are dead.” I had to keep my head buried in the fridge as I was red in the face from trying not to howl with laughter at the most amazing story hook a 4 year old ever wrote.

I took pictures but really wish I had kept that story!

3. What is wrong with kids??

Embedded into a student’s analysis one day was the phrase “I like to suck c*ck”.

I simply wrote, “Please proof read before next submission”, the poor kid went bright red when they saw the comment. I knew it was a friend of their’s who had made a sneaky edit, so no punishment. But we all had a good laugh.

2. He really saw it.

While writing about The Magic Treehouse Tonight on the Titanic, one of my students was writing about the people once they got into the water and wrote “The people in the water looked up and saw an incredible sight.” and I was expecting it to proceed with how the boat was sitting out of the water at a steep angle, or how the propellers were visible as the book describes — nope.

“The band was still playing!” was what followed.

I don’t get many big twists since I teach little ones but that’s the one I still like to think about sometimes because it would have been an incredible sight, for sure.

1. I hope he passed.

Not me but my dad. He teaches engineering and he was talking to his students about the meaning of different lights in the car. He said that if the check engine light lights up you are probably f*cked.

Flash forward to the exam.

A student had to recognize the check engine light.

He wrote next to its picture: you are probably f*cked.

I hope I can be as good a writer as some of these kids one day.

If you’re a teacher and have a story to add, our comments are open!