UFC

Every time my secondary English students have a class, I require them to read one chapter from a novel, then write on their blogs a summary of that chapter.

It is a derivative of my student-centred philosophy that the students are allowed to choose their reading material, as opposed to having me assign a single novel for everybody.  I think it important for students to enjoy the experience of reading and writing, and not feel like it is an onerous task.

One of my students asked if he could write a reaction to a magazine article.  I hesitantly agreed.  I would like to share his summary of the article, or rather, as he states, the articles.  It concerns the topic of UFC wrestling.

UFC 103 took place at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. It was headlined by the main event bout between Rich ''Ace'' Franklin, and Vitor ''The Phenom'' Belfort. I didn't get the chance to watch UFC 103, so I read many articles describing it. I was impressed by some of the fight outcomes. First of all, I thought that Rich Franklin would of made short work of Vitor Belfort due to his high level, and continuous training compared to Vitor. But one variable which I didn't consider was that Vitor has changed training camps, and has restarted training seriously, with some of the top martial artists in the world. You see, when Vitor was only 19 years old, he concurred the light heavyweight division with ease, but due to many misshapennings in his personal life and career, he fell into depression and stopped training like he should of been thinking he had it all under his belt. For many years, his career just went downhill, and the young strong and lightning handed Vitor we used to know faded away. Unfortunately for “Ace”, the Vitor that showed up in the octagon that night appeared to be the young and feisty 19year old whom literally destroyed some of the most deadliest fighters in MMA history.

It brought a little smile to my face to read this student’s blog entry.  Personally, I do not know anything about UFC wrestling, and truthfully, it does not interest me; but you can tell from the tone of his essay that this student is passionate about UFC.  If I didn’t know any better, I would almost believe that he enjoyed writing and sharing his opinions.  I would wager, he enjoyed writing about UFC more than he would have enjoyed writing about they symbolism of the conch in “Lord of the Flies.”

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