It's a blustery Thursday afternoon in May, and a Tornado Watch has been issued for the greater Washington, DC area. Rumors are that school will let out early. The lights in the classroom flicker as I arrive. I think, It's always something.

The kids can't sit still, they keep jumping up to look at the sky darkening outside. The energy from the storm and their anticipation infuses the room with a weird, unsettling electricity. The teacher looks exhausted, and I soon see why. In 8th grade, anything can be a distraction—but the mention of an early dismissal ranks highest of all.

We turn the lights off and listen to a CD of Black Star singing a rap music "poem." It momentarily captures their attention. When it's time to read another poem aloud, though, they talk over each other. One student races over to the window to look out, others pinch each other, a few just sit at their desks and talk aloud to no one in particular.

For the first time in the months I've been teaching, I find myself looking at my watch and thinking, twenty more minutes, just get through it. I've given up trying to reach them or make it fun. I want to go home as badly as they do.

The Uglies
I'll admit up front that I'm the luckiest teacher I know. I teach creative writing just one day a week and host a weekly after-school writing club. I work through DC WritersCorps, a program that puts writers into middle school classrooms. But despite my easy schedule, I'm exhausted at the end of the day. About half the time, I leave thinking, "This is not how it's supposed to be." Before I started, I imagined it all so differently—that it would feel important. Rewarding.

But I'm finding middle school chaotic and the students hard to decipher. They aren't like high schoolers, who can hear an assignment and go where it takes them. Their affected maturity is deceptive; they can't handle themselves when there's too little structure. But they're not like elementary school students, either; they're over wanting to please you. And they're definitely not cute.

Let's face it, puberty is an ugly, confusing time. There are braces and acne and changing bodies. Hair in weird places. Growth spurts are merciless and unpredictable. Half of my students look and act almost like adults; the other half like children. When someone makes a slightly suggestive remark—and we read a lot of poetry, so it happens—half the class giggles and blushes, the other half looks around blankly, wondering what joke they're missing.

In these terrible 'tween years, it doesn't take an impending natural disaster to make your lesson plans go awry. A bra strap revealed or a crush uncovered can do it.

Appearance Versus Reality
Of course, the worst thing about teaching in middle school is also the best, from a creative standpoint. The 8th grade angst and tension fuels some powerful creative work. They respond well to structured writing exercises, and their sometimes downright surprising stories or poems make all the chatter, energy and chaos worth it.

Nearly all of the kids have had at least one "breakthrough" moment of insight or honesty about the world.

Take Jonathan, the class comedian, who makes us all laugh with his dead-on mimicry of adults. When he's reading a poem or story and someone talks over him, he says, "Excuse me" in a stern, grandmotherly voice that is as surprisingly effective as it is hilarious. He writes with nearly all his senses, adding smells and sounds to his poems.

Last week, on our writing fieldtrip to the U.S. Botanic Gardens, Jonathan compared himself to a plant called the Flaming Glory Bower. He wrote, "The name does not go with the appearance. I may be silly most of the time, but that does not mean I can't be serious. Don't judge a book by its cover, or branches by the way they grow."

I've noticed that the girls posture more than the boys, playing tough and indifferent, all hard edges and attitude. Which makes the sudden intimacy in their work surprising. When we did "love poems to myself," Rebecca, among the toughest girls, with a fantastic lip-smack, eye roll and look of indifference—who walks into a room like she needs nothing, no one, to give her the right to be there—wrote this poem:

I'm loved by people,
By my mom and Dad,
But I'm not loved by myself
I mean nothing to myself
I believe that is why I fail
I fail because there is nothing
Nothing that can stand by me and tell me to do right
My parents tell me but that's not enough
I need every day, every hour, every minute and every second somebody
Someone who will always be there.

On the day she read that, everyone was quiet for a minute, thinking about what it meant to hear someone like Rebecca open up in this way. Some of the kids applauded. It was a weighty moment.

Oh, but so short-lived. Within minutes, I was back to competing with fart jokes, note passing and blazing looks of boredom.

The Child-Adult Divide
I try not to take it personally. I know their chaotic energy is due to their—how shall I put this?—effervescence and not disrespect. But still, I often feel grumpy, maternal. I try manipulation ("this next exercise is going to be really fun"), direct threats ("we won't do this if you can't handle it, we'll just sit quietly with our heads down on our desks"), but stop before I get to outright pleading.

It helps that Ms. Jacob, their English teacher, is in the classroom with me when I teach. She's young and energetic, and has worked in elementary and high schools. This year was her first experience with middle school. She seems to have figured out an approach that works for her, and I watch her for clues.

It seems that just as the kids straddle the child-adult divide, Ms. Jacob walks the fine line between friend and authority figure. Just be a friend, and the class devolves into chaos. Just hand down rules, and testing limits takes over from learning. Because puberty is a time of testing your own power, these kids aren't afraid to say no if they suspect you're demanding something just for the sake of asserting your authority.

"It's taken me the whole year to learn how to teach middle school," Ms. Jacob tells me that rainy afternoon, as both an apology and a pep talk. "They can't handle freedom like high schoolers, and they hate to be treated like kids, but that's what they are in a lot of ways. They want you to befriend them, but they need tons of structure and supervision."

So she talks to them about the upcoming dance, asks them about the music they like. She wants to know them, but she also keeps her distance.

Despite her ability to reach and teach these kids, Ms. Jacob says she's headed back to high school next year. As for me, I don't know whether I'll sign up for another stint in a middle school classroom.

Why? Perhaps I was betrayed by my own expectations. Younger children look at a teacher as the source of all knowledge and wisdom. The relationship between an interested high school student and a talented teacher can be complex and satisfying. But with middle schoolers, not much gets reflected back. They are self-absorbed, struggling to define themselves and understand all that's swirling around in their heads and hearts. At times, their teachers barely register as more than annoying adult background noise. At the same time, their need for consistent adult relationships is almost scary in its intensity: "I need every day, every hour, every minute and every second somebody/Someone who will always be there."

I'm ending the school year unsure whether WritersCorp should have done more to get me ready for the realities of teaching adolescents, and whether I'll look back on this as a success, failure, or an interesting experiment—but with a sheaf of papers that tells me at least sometimes, for some of them, my class offered these students the tools and the time to say what they needed to say. I just don't know if that's enough.

Photos by Althea Izawa-Hayden.