Seven young adults between the ages of 12 to 17 shuffle inside the Children Shelter’s classroom. The boys loom large. The girls shift from motherly to sexy and back, like blinking red lights.
I break down some stories to them with a focus on the Beginning 1/4 of the story and ending at The End of the Beginning. I ask them to write the beginning of a story real or imagined that leads to a moment of no return, a moment when life shifts, when good turns bad or bad to worse. I suggest that the character want something that now becomes seemingly impossible to attain.
For a girl with clear brown eyes, her main character wants more time with her dad. The End of the Beginning is when her dad dies. Another girl shows a mom in heaven remembering her beautiful little girls. The End of the Beginning is when the girls go live with an uncle with a belt.
For the Middle of their stories, I asked them to describe the new world the main character is now living. I ask for three bumps that shake the character, stop the character, interfere with his/her dreams and leads to a Crisis. The Crisis is is the dark night of the soul.
Before I release them to their writing, we play charades. The two biggest boys and a girl with incredilbly long eyelashes act out emotion cards. The other kids and volunteers and counselors guess at the emotions. I stress for descriptions of what they see that leads them to know the emotion. I wanted them to “show” the character in the emotion, not “tell” the character.
To demonstrate anger, the biggest boy grabs a chair, swings it over his head and slams it to the floor. The girls reel backwards and scream. Counselors leap to their feet. I ask him to do it again but without the violence. Then we dissect his facial expressions to find the more subtle signs of anger and rage.
After a lunch of pizza and juice, we trudge back inside for the End. The room is stuffy and close, but feels safe and womb-like.
I give examples of characters overcoming tremendous odds at the Climax and being deeply transformed by the experience. We talk about what stories mean overall: a tough time leads to a lifelong belief that people are no damn good? (my father throughout his life) Good triumphs over bad (the girl with the belt). Bad triumphs over good (the boy with the rage).
My hope is that giving the kids an opportunity to get the bad stuff out of their bodies and moving is good. Rather than let it sit and fester, to bring the fear and disappointment out to the light of day is a good thing.
What have you left buried deep inside????
I am in awe. First at their grasp of how strong the end of the beginning has to be and then at the pain that seems to make that grasp almost intuitive.
What a gift you are giving.
Kudos to you Martha. You are such a giving person in so many ways!
I’m a preschool teacher for ages 3 to 5. And for children who are not writing yet or as well, I have them either cut out pictures or draw/color a sequence of pictures to tell a story.
I really never though about it until now but perhaps for this age group, I’ll probably start introducing to them the concept that each story has a beginning, such as “Once Upon A Time”, a Middle, and “Ending”.
Thanks always for the inspiration!!
Liz
your kids make me realize how lucky I’ve been. thanks.
Too much to go into here.
Wow, Martha. You are a great teacher.
Writing about anything in our lives brings clarity and help.
Great work you’re doing
Sounds like a day in which you were as blessed as you were a blessing. -C
You’re right, Carole. I felt very blessed to get to share a day with the kids. Their honesty and openness was a joy to behold. Hungry for love and attention, they glowed in every little bit we had to share with them.
Every time I go, I leave blurry eyed and spinning, but so filled with emotion and love.
Amazing…..
I guess you’re saying write about that?
Thank you for your kind words, Livvy!!
To answer your earlier question:
How does the Aunt in Tom Sawyer’s first chapter embody the theme as you noted on page 89 [of BBP]? You said to leave it blank because there are no “actual thematic” details? If that’s the case, then how do you know that the Aunt embodys the theme at this juncture in the story?
Answer:
The indication is slight = …said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear…”
“Not fiercely” seems to me to imply that she is open to prove the theme: “There is a collective tendency of man to go overboard toward generosity and forgiveness.”
Now that I reread the first scene, my rationale is weak. I must have been using what I know about the aunt later in the story to color what I said about her here, early on.
Question:
I don’t see how the Aunt embodies the theme from the first scene example of Tom Sawyer that you provided in pages 63-65? [of BBP]
Answer:
You’re right. I put perhaps too much significance on that one little descriptor — “not fiercely.”
Sigh…..
Oops! my apologies. My last comment belongs with the next post. Please ignore it here.
Livvy, you can point out to kids that though many “stories” they may be introduced to are a series of events — like The Woman with a Shovel (I think that’s the title), “real” stories are about the character changing because of what happens to them in the story. A prime example is Where the Wild Things Are. Max is transformed at the end……..