summer employment opportunity

There are five 8th graders sitting in a classroom and they all need a job. They've scoured the classified sections of the local newspapers, but every job seemed too specific, too technical, too much. So I gave them the following 'classified' (with inspiration from a higher power):

Wanted: Summer employees. Candidates must be in 8th grade. Interested? Please send four-slide PowerPoint highlighting your skill set. Pending our interest in your slides, contact for interview will follow. Be honest. Be prepared to defend your qualities.

So far, five 8th graders have submitted their PowerPoint slides. In truth, there are only five applicants, and they are all in the same class.

Here's one slide from Eddie's PowerPoint:


And here's a slide from Jeff:

Turns out, Alex has a quality that a potential employee would like:


But Gabby believes that this quality is in short-supply nowadays:


And then there's Melissa. Melissa figured out that the job description was way too vague, so no matter what the task, she wanted the employer to know that she's one heck of a:


And when they shared their slides at the end of the period, they realized that maybe, just maybe, they had done more than share their skills - they had acquired a totally new skill.

As Melissa said at 10:17AM this morning:

This is really making me think.