The Catholic grade school I went to used a set of books for its English classes that were called "language arts". They did not concentrate solely on the mechanical, but also taught us the use of words, and emphasized how to tell stories with them.

I remember in grade 8 one of the expressions on the list of that week's study words were "face off". I chose that for my story, which we were all meant to read aloud the next week. It never even occurred to me that it was in regards to hockey - I wrote a story about taking one's face off (though all I can recall at the moment is something about unscrewing the ears).