"What's another word for sad?"

Approximately 200 fourth-grade students scrunched up their foreheads, looked down at their papers - as if the answer were written down - and put their hands on their head. They didn't want to disappoint the asker of the question.

"Synonyms are words that mean the same thing," the questioner said. "What's another word for sad."

They didn't know. But the Baldwin and Haydon students tried and they tried hard. After all, he was playing their kind of music, singing songs for them, making them laugh and they still seemed to be learning. They weren't used to the noise, the j.okes, the songs and the music in the classroom, but that was the point.

Motivational speaker Erik Cork, creator of a learning program called Rap, Rhythm and Rhyme: Rebuilding the Writing Foundation, walked up and down the aisle of Baldwin Elementary's gym turn make-shift classroom Wednesday with a microphone in his hand, asking students questions about their writing style.

The answer to his question?

The fourth-graders learned about the words melancholy, distraught, despondent and distressed.

They weren't allowed t§ use words like good, bad, sad, a lot or stuff. They had to use larger, more colorful words in order to improve their writing, Cork said.

"I will remember the word torrid," said Kelli Maige, a Baldwin student. "It means hot."

The energized students laughed, squealed answers back and joined in the physical exercises when Cork invited them - jumping up and down on their chairs, repeating words and rapping poems about writing. The 36-year-old dressed in denim held their attention for about six hours, encouraging them to become better writers.

"This will separate them from any other high school or middle school. You, fourth-graders, will be mistaken for middle school and high school students," Cork said.

But the Manassas City School officials weren't thinking about high school and middle school for these students. They had a more immediate purpose for inviting Cork to Manassas.

Next year, the fourth-graders who were listening to Cork will be taking the fifth-grade writing test for the "Standards of Learning," the new rigorous and more demanding state tests. In fact, the fifth-graders of Manassas City Schools completed their writing test as the fourth-graders were having fun learning about paragraph structure with Cork.

Baldwin's principal Jeff Abt said Cork was specifically brought to the Manassas students for preparation for the Standards of Learning writing test.

"The students, without a doubt, loved the creative nature of the day," he said. "Now it's up to the teachers to try to find ways to do the same thing."

Cork gave the teachers a different kind of teaching style to think about and gave the students a new expectation.

"We have great teachers, but the students are going to expect their teachers to be like [Cork]," Abt said.

The teachers, who were also present during the day's session, listening intently and took notes on Corks lesson plan.

"It's good for the students to have different face and a different way of teaching," said Carrie Seivers, fourth grade teacher at Haydon.

Marcella Arp, a Baldwin teacher, said the students were able to focus because they could relate to the music Cork was playing, from hip-hop artist Will Smith to country singer Garth Brooks.

Cork, a resident of Texas, is a former writing instructor for the University of Houston's Mentor Enrichment Seminar in Engineering Training Program.

He was classroom writing instructor with the Writers In The Schools Organization for seven years before he began traveling around and helping other teachers raise their students' test scores and improve their writing ability.

He flies all over the nation including New York, North Carolina, Texas, and California, motivating students to become not good, but awesome writers.

The fourth graders from Dean Elementary received a visit from Cork Tuesday.

All Virginia third-, fifth-, eighth-graders and high school students will take the second portion of the Standards of Learning in May.