One of my favorite things about teaching junior high is blowing their minds. One of my fave parts of the week is Fridays before the test, when we do Mental Floss. Middle schoolers: they can’t hit the curveball.

Like this:

“When the day after tomorrow is yesterday, this day will be as far from Friday as this day was from Friday when the day before yesterday was tomorrow. What day is it?”

All I asked was, “What day is it?” All the rest is obfuscation. But they always try to figure it out.

“OK, so. Day after tomorrow is Sunday, so yesterday is Thursday…wait…How can it be yesterday?”

And etc.

This class is also the first time some of them contemplate the whole time travel paradox thing.

“So if Stevo here is feeling all sporty,  joyriding in his stolen car back in the past, and accidentally runs over his mom before she’s his mom…”

“Ewww. Why would he do that?”

“He didn’t know it was her. And speed kills. Anyway, now what would happen? If she never had him…”

“He’d just disappear!” Most triumphant.

“So how did he travel back in time to hit her? If he was never born in the first place, how did he travel back and do it?”

“Wait. What? Wait…” And the eyes glaze over.

We do lots of paradoxes during “A Sound of Thunder.” The “I am lying” one gets ‘em every time.

This week’s torture came in the form of a writing exercise.

“How many of you have started to realize that if your essay is a little different or a little livelier or more unusual than the average duck’s essay, you tend to get a higher grade?”

Almost all the hands go up. But that doesn’t mean a thing. Most of the hands would have gone up if I had asked how of them had been to the moon. I just use that as a way of telling them to JAZZ THINGS UP A BIT!

“You do realize that if I’m reading 150 of these things, and I’m on number 97, and everybody is pretty much sounding the same, and then I come across yours, and your  new angle on things makes me think, “Hey, this guy is thinking,” of course the grade is going to be nudged higher…not exactly on purpose always, but that’s just how it is in reality. You know what I mean?”

So we work a lot on sentence variety and varied intros and some showboat techniques that their high school AP teachers will probably grind out of them, but make their writing a whole lot more fun to read. And it makes them more inclined to write.

I used to use this exercise very early in the year, sometimes on the first or second day. But some of them, in their noob naiveté, thought that I intended for them to write ALL their essays this way, and got really frustrated.

Sigh.

I haven’t used this one in a while since then.

One of the biggest issues in their writing is often their repeated use of boring, non-action verbs. I refer to these as verbs you can’t draw a picture of.

“What does is-ing look like? Go? What does go look like?”

They all start pantomiming walking and running and flying and etc.

“That ain’t going. That’s flying or running or whatever it is that Barney is doing with his fingers over there. That’s my point; verbs like that don’t add any action to your essay. You don’t go to the store. You slither or walk or ride or strut or cruise. So I’m going to take those boring verbs away from you, and force you to think outside the box, as they say.”

“I’m going to grade this assignment on only three criteria.
One: Did you write about one topic? I do not care what that topic is–cheese, your mom, the economy–as long as you stick to one topic.
Two: Did you get to the bottom of the piece of paper? This part is the old grade-by-ruler approach. If you fill the page, you get full credit (assuming you meet the third criterion ), you write half a pag, you get half credit and etc.
Three: This is the hard part. Did you use any of the following words?
any form of the word be (am, is are, was, were),
any form of the word go (went, gone, going),
any form of the word have (has, had, having),
any form of the word get (got, getting, gotten),
any form of the word do (did, done, etc.).

I will subtract one point for each of those words I find.”

OMG. I swear I could see the gears turning and the eyes bulging.

“Butbutbutbut…what’s left?”

“My brain hurts just thinking about it.”

Soon: The Aftermath.

(Reposted from Teaching the Outsiders.)

(Follow the link for the poem and discussion questions, then come back for the poetry-writing part.)

I stole/mutated this from a presentation I attended at my first English teacher conference. (CATE 1994 – I only went to one more conference like that, the next year, and then the money ran out for conferences, and so forth…I really should go again sometime on my own dime.)

Anyway, it’s a fairly painless and very cool way to show that what you cut is just as important as what you add.

FROM PROSE TO POETRY

Prose is the usual form of writing.  It has complete
sentences, paragraphs, capital letters, and punctuation.  When we
write poetry, we can often ignore those conventions to produce a special
effect.  We are going to take your rough draft essay and turn it into
a poem using the revision  strategies of cutting, adding, changing,
and rearranging.

What you need:

1. Your rough draft essay.
2. A pencil (so you can erase).
3. At least one or two extra sheets of paper.

What to do:

1. Count the words in your essay by counting the number of words
   in one line, counting the number of lines and then multiplying.
2. Using a pencil, cross out at least half of the words in
   your essay. Try to remove all the dull, utilitarian words and leave
   the colorful, descriptive language.  Remember the elements of good
   writing and keep them:  surprise, comparison, vivid verbs, nouns,
   sense details, maybe even dialogue.
3. Make sure the story can still be followed,
   but don’t worry too much about complete sentences…
4. Now make changes in line length and punctuation.  Rewrite
   the piece as a poem arranging it on the page as you wish.  Think about
   pauses and the effect you want to make as you add your own punctuation.
5. Remember that poems LOOK different
   than essays:
   The lines don’t go
   All the way to the end;
   Sometimes there might be
   Only
   One
   Or two
   Words on a line
   (for a special effect).
   The lines should  have a sort of a rhythm.
6. Rearrange the words if you want.  Also, you may add
   a  few words here and there if you need to complete a thought.
7. Copy your final poem on to a separate sheet of paper.
8. Capitalize the first word of each line.
9. It should be 1/2 the number of words of your original essay.
10. Final Draft due Friday.

A Sample

PROSE:
from
Summer of My German Soldier, Bette Green

If there were not mirrors or mothers, I probably
never would  know how ugly I am.  But it was all there, plain
as my reflection in the glass.  Skinny bones, skinny face, feet too
big, nose too long. In the mirror I could also see my mother’s profile:
a high cool forehead and a slender nose that stopped where a nice nose
ought  to.  A lot like Sharon’s.  And there were lofty cheekbones
that gave my mother’s face form, symmetry, and on occasion great beauty.
Sometimes I think God lavished so much beauty on her outsides that when
he got around to her insides there just wasn’t much of anything left over.

(112 words)

POETRY:

Mirrors

It was all there

plain as my reflection in the glass.

Skinny bones,

skinny face,

feet too big, nose too long.

Mother’s profile:

high cool forehead,

slender nose,

lofty cheekbones,

form, symmetry,

on occasion great beauty.
God lavished so much beauty on her outsides,

there wasn’t much of anything inside.

(50 words)

“Hi, my name is mrC, and I’m an English teacher who doesn’t especially like very much poetry…”

There, I admitted it.

I don’t do a “poetry unit.” I don’t assign the kids to write poems (shiver), except as an option on novel final projects, and then I make them meet with me first and run ideas and rough drafts by me.

I do admire good poets’ ability to cram a whole lot of meaning into a few words, and there are some poems that just complement our reading so well, so we do read and discuss some poetry: e e cummings (check out this one), some Robert Frost (obviously), and my personal fave: Langston Hughes.

I read somewhere that Langston Hughes was one of the first black men in America to make his living entirely from his writing. He didn’t just write poetry; he wrote short stories and plays and essays too. His work is accessible, yet has depth, and oh how I love his use of slang and dialect. A part of the Harlem Renaissance, he was tuned in to the rhythms and the banter of the jazz dudes too.

Some years I do a whole web-quest sort of thing on the Harlem Renaissance, and we explore LH’s life and other poets from the time, like Countee Cullen and check out Bessie Smith’s life and music, and groove on some of the slang from the era — “salty dog” anyone? But even if I don’t do the whole HR thing, I always do “Theme for English B.”

The instructor said,

Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you—
Then, it will be true.

The rest of the poem is ostensibly the page he writes for his instructor.

I wonder if it’s that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and then I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down and write this page:

We talk about how in 1951, North Carolina would still have had “whites only” facilities, and Harlem was an all black neighborhood, with the all-white NY City College in the middle. He lives at the YMCA. (Most of them are actually so into this that they don’t even start with the Village People.) We talk about why the walk home is so central to his truth; he’s not just walking home, he’s moving from one world to another.

It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me—we two—you, me, talk on this page.

“Is he right? Are you made up of what you feel and see and hear?”

“?”

“Well, let’s see. What if I take “Dale” here (I pick the most straight-laced, still looks/acts like a 6th grader kid in the class), and send him to South-Central Smell A, in the heart of  ”da hood” to live for a year? Would we get the same sweet Dale back?”

“No way!” A chorus.

“Well then.”

(I hear New York, too.) Me—who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.

“Is there anyone who doesn’t like those things?”

“No!”

I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records — Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.

“What? Is he saying that he’s turning in his essay on black paper?”

It doesn’t take long for them to get that if he’s being “true,”  his life experiences will have to come out in his writing.

“No, the teacher won’t go, ‘Ha! Black guy!’ as he reads the essay.”

But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white—
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—
although you’re older—and white—
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.

By the time we finished working our way through it today, they actually applauded when I read the last line. They really seem to connect.

Then I hit them with…

“You have the same assignment Langston Hughes had. But you have until Friday.”

“Wha?

(to be continued)

(Here’s a link to the whole poem and some questions/activities.)