Is Teaching Still Possible?

If this title were a writing prompt I could probably go on for hundreds of pages agruing points for both sides depending on the type of day I had. With trying to balance PSSA's, NCLB, Benchmarks, Administrators demands and endless paperwork sometimes it is quite difficult to teach, but I would like to believe that it is possible. In fact I could probably throw together a pretty good paper stating why teaching is possible, but I know I would have to do several drafts before I had something worth reading.
I fall into the trap of writing down too much information and then having to sift through it and pick out what is necessary and what is not. The quote on page 330 by Berthoff pretty much sums me up. "(No writer ever puts in words which he or she thinks are unnecessary; learning to discover that some are is one of the chief challenges in learning to write.)" Luckily for me and my students I am aware of this fact and knowing is half the battle. On the other hand, trying to break students of this is another problem. Every year I have so many students who can't break away from beginning their writings with "I'm going to tell you a story" or "This story is about..." And ending with "The End" or "And that's the end of my story." Regardless of how many times we come up with alternatives they seem to fall into that comfortable, safe, worn-out 2nd grade story starter trap when it really matters. They love a "THE END" in all capital letters to bring closure to their writings. Any and all suggestions on how to break students of this will be greatly accepted.