Talon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
talonkarrde) wrote2010-07-25 05:18 pm
talonkarrde) wrote2010-07-25 05:18 pm
The Five Best Entries
“Teach, what’s the point of all this? I don’t see any point in readin’ this shit, you know? It’s just dead people that went on and on about their chairs and bullshit. None of it is real, teach. Why we readin’ it?”
I look at him and push my glasses up. He’s right, a part of me mutters, you never finished Great Expectations either. But I push it away.
“Look, Charles, these are classics. They represent the pinnacles of human literature, in expression and form, and—”
“Yeah, but they borin’. There’s nothin’ that applies to today, and our lives, out here. This is the past, man.”
There is that other group of writings, that part of me says again. Those are relevant, and—
And the school board would absolutely murder me if they found out if I recommended them, I finish, quashing the thought.
Yeah, but which do you care about more? Getting Charles to read, or what the school board thinks?
“Okay, Charles. I’ll give the class five short stories to read, and we can discuss them, and you can tell me what you think, okay?”
I thought for a moment over the ten, the fifteen that I had in mind. To winnow them down to five, to select among all of them who were brilliant each in their own ways...but five it would be.
“Aight, teach. But they better be good.”
The first story is this one; it pays, I figure, to start out with a bang. And this is, out of everything in the competition, the most explicit, in-your-face slam there is. When I print it out for them and watch as the class reads it, I can tell who’s done by the ‘what the hell did you just have us read’ expression on their faces as they look up.
After everyone looks up, I say, deliberately slowly, “Any reactions?”
“Holy shit,” Charles says. “That was disgusting.”
“It was, wasn’t it? But why was it disgusting?” I ask, looking down at the piece.
“Because it was so...real. So visceral,” someone else says, trying out the word and seeing if it fits. It does, of course.
“Exactly. It’s writing that really draws you in, and it’s not afraid to confront subject matter that we ordinarily shy away from it. Now let’s discuss the diction, and the imagery, and the characterizations.”
As they filter out, I realize I’ve made a gamble. What if they tell their parents that their teacher had them read incest-smut? More importantly, what if they don’t want to continue? But it’s a gamble worth making, I tell myself; students need to see what literature can do, what it can say.
The next piece I have them read is this and, as expected, it brings a lot of surprise. About half the kids just read the comic, while the rest take their time to read through the prose as well. Charles’ voice rings out, while some are still reading. He’s the impatient type.
“This is just pictures, and words. Why is this important?”
In response, I draw a octagon on the board, and write the word STOP in the block letters inside. “Why is this important?” I ask him.
“Come on, teach. That’s something that tells drivers not to kill each other. This doesn’t do anything that important.”
“Oh?” I ask, eyebrow raised. “What about airline safety brochures? They don’t have any words at all.”
“Yeah, but that’s because anyone in any language can understand them!” He’s a smart kid, which makes me want to do right by him.
“Right. Now, have you read Watchmen?” I give the lead-in, wondering if Alan Moore even exists to these students.
“No, but I saw the movie. Cool shit. Superheroes that weren’t superheroes, saving some people. Hurting others. Way cooler than the Superman movie.” A perfect response.
“Watchmen, Charles, was a comic first.” The students mutter amongst themselves; some already knew, others look surprised. Charles looks engaged, which I take as a good sign. "Comics have power and meaning, and they address issues that are serious and affect all of us. It's not just superheroes in tights anymore."
I head over to the school’s computer, and press play, and the familiar tune comes over the speakers. Crappy, but audible.
It was a dark desert highway, cool wind in her hair...
“The Eagles,” one of the girls, Sydney, says. “The author says it in the words, but, well, my parents really loved them, I heard the tune in my head as soon as I saw the picture!”
“Yes, and this is the second lesson about this piece. It works wonderfully because it does a great job of assimilating many separate references, references that enrich the work if you get them. The references aren’t necessary for the content, but they certainly make it more enjoyable, and this is a feast of horror and thriller references. And great writing usually builds on other great pieces, either subverting or supporting them, and so the more you learn, the more you enjoy it.”
I show the class with a copy of Watchmen — actually, I bought copies for every kid in the room, and tell them that they are to read it and tell me if it would’ve worked as well as a novel. Charles stays after class, asking me about what other references there were in that piece.
My third story for them is one that was written not too long ago. This one leaves the students not with disgust or confusion, but with sadness, and I see more than a few tears that are hastily brushed away; and not only from the girls. I give them a moment of quiet, of reflection, and then I start.
“Thoughts?”
“It was sad,” Charles says, and the rest of the class nods agreement. I almost speak, but he looks like he might say something more, so I wait.
“My mom...was involved in something...” he slowly, haltingly says, and I nod, taking the conversation from him before he has to say too much.
“That,” I comment, making sure all eyes are back on me, “is the power of this piece, and this writer, you see. She has a way of writing so that you connect to her, instinctively; she draws you into her world, and her pain, and—” I add, “her happiness.”
“It doesn’t always end that well,” Sydney comments, and I’m surprised to hear such a thing from her, who’s been fairly quiet and fairly happy, as far as I’ve seen. But she has a point that needs to be addressed.
“No, it doesn’t, but that’s another lesson of the power of writing. We can use it to change our moods; when we’re feeling down, reading the piece of an excellent writer can lift our spirits. When we’re angry, it can calm us down.
“This week,” I say, “Your assignment is to write something about a part of you, just as this story was about a very important part of the writer.”
By the time I give them the fourth entry to read, the class has accepted that there will be some deviations from what they expect as the norm. I see Charles and Sydney and everyone else read through the poem once, and some of them even try reading it twice, to gleam any new meaning out of it that they didn’t get the first time around. This time, I start the discussion.
“Poetry,” I say, “is something that I personally find extraordinarily difficult. It requires a knowledge of meter and momentum and an excellent vocabulary and knowledge of what words to use — verbiage and diction. Let’s get the main point out of the way first. This doesn’t rhyme, unlike the works that we’ve studied before. Does that make it not poetry?”
“No,” Sydney says quietly, wrapping her hair around a finger. “It sounds...right. It doesn’t have to rhyme. In fact, if someone tried to make it rhyme, it would be...”
“Unnatural, perhaps?” I offer for her.
“Weird,” she responds, and I smile.
“Poetry is special because it fits meaning into fewer words than you normally have. It means that you need to make every word count and conjure up evocative images while still obeying rules of meter and cadence.”
“Yeah, but if it doesn’t rhyme, why can’t you just make breaks wherever you want?” Charles asks. Not a fan of poetry, apparently.
“Try it,” I respond. “Take this poem, and make random breaks, and tell me, does it flow better, or worse?”
I see him look down at the poetry, and mumble under his breath. He looks back up at me, and I grin, accepting the victory he offers.
“I’ve given you four examples so far,” I start out, holding the last piece in my hands. “I’ve taught you, I hope, something of what literature is, and what it can be, and the forms it can take, and the effects that it can have. There is one more thing that I want to teach you, and that’s that it’s amazingly varied, versatile. It’s like a fire—”
And Charles cuts me off. “We’ve heard this one before, you know. You talk about how it can entertain but also how it can educate, how some writers write to escape and others to draw attention to certain topics. That whole metaphor with fire and sizes and smoke and whatnot.”
I’d taught him well, evidently.
“Okay, okay. Writing, I think, is at its best when you can use it to inspire, when it gives you hope, even if it makes you cry.”
I look at him and push my glasses up. He’s right, a part of me mutters, you never finished Great Expectations either. But I push it away.
“Look, Charles, these are classics. They represent the pinnacles of human literature, in expression and form, and—”
“Yeah, but they borin’. There’s nothin’ that applies to today, and our lives, out here. This is the past, man.”
There is that other group of writings, that part of me says again. Those are relevant, and—
And the school board would absolutely murder me if they found out if I recommended them, I finish, quashing the thought.
Yeah, but which do you care about more? Getting Charles to read, or what the school board thinks?
“Okay, Charles. I’ll give the class five short stories to read, and we can discuss them, and you can tell me what you think, okay?”
I thought for a moment over the ten, the fifteen that I had in mind. To winnow them down to five, to select among all of them who were brilliant each in their own ways...but five it would be.
“Aight, teach. But they better be good.”
#
The first story is this one; it pays, I figure, to start out with a bang. And this is, out of everything in the competition, the most explicit, in-your-face slam there is. When I print it out for them and watch as the class reads it, I can tell who’s done by the ‘what the hell did you just have us read’ expression on their faces as they look up.
After everyone looks up, I say, deliberately slowly, “Any reactions?”
“Holy shit,” Charles says. “That was disgusting.”
“It was, wasn’t it? But why was it disgusting?” I ask, looking down at the piece.
“Because it was so...real. So visceral,” someone else says, trying out the word and seeing if it fits. It does, of course.
“Exactly. It’s writing that really draws you in, and it’s not afraid to confront subject matter that we ordinarily shy away from it. Now let’s discuss the diction, and the imagery, and the characterizations.”
As they filter out, I realize I’ve made a gamble. What if they tell their parents that their teacher had them read incest-smut? More importantly, what if they don’t want to continue? But it’s a gamble worth making, I tell myself; students need to see what literature can do, what it can say.
#
The next piece I have them read is this and, as expected, it brings a lot of surprise. About half the kids just read the comic, while the rest take their time to read through the prose as well. Charles’ voice rings out, while some are still reading. He’s the impatient type.
“This is just pictures, and words. Why is this important?”
In response, I draw a octagon on the board, and write the word STOP in the block letters inside. “Why is this important?” I ask him.
“Come on, teach. That’s something that tells drivers not to kill each other. This doesn’t do anything that important.”
“Oh?” I ask, eyebrow raised. “What about airline safety brochures? They don’t have any words at all.”
“Yeah, but that’s because anyone in any language can understand them!” He’s a smart kid, which makes me want to do right by him.
“Right. Now, have you read Watchmen?” I give the lead-in, wondering if Alan Moore even exists to these students.
“No, but I saw the movie. Cool shit. Superheroes that weren’t superheroes, saving some people. Hurting others. Way cooler than the Superman movie.” A perfect response.
“Watchmen, Charles, was a comic first.” The students mutter amongst themselves; some already knew, others look surprised. Charles looks engaged, which I take as a good sign. "Comics have power and meaning, and they address issues that are serious and affect all of us. It's not just superheroes in tights anymore."
I head over to the school’s computer, and press play, and the familiar tune comes over the speakers. Crappy, but audible.
It was a dark desert highway, cool wind in her hair...
“The Eagles,” one of the girls, Sydney, says. “The author says it in the words, but, well, my parents really loved them, I heard the tune in my head as soon as I saw the picture!”
“Yes, and this is the second lesson about this piece. It works wonderfully because it does a great job of assimilating many separate references, references that enrich the work if you get them. The references aren’t necessary for the content, but they certainly make it more enjoyable, and this is a feast of horror and thriller references. And great writing usually builds on other great pieces, either subverting or supporting them, and so the more you learn, the more you enjoy it.”
I show the class with a copy of Watchmen — actually, I bought copies for every kid in the room, and tell them that they are to read it and tell me if it would’ve worked as well as a novel. Charles stays after class, asking me about what other references there were in that piece.
#
My third story for them is one that was written not too long ago. This one leaves the students not with disgust or confusion, but with sadness, and I see more than a few tears that are hastily brushed away; and not only from the girls. I give them a moment of quiet, of reflection, and then I start.
“Thoughts?”
“It was sad,” Charles says, and the rest of the class nods agreement. I almost speak, but he looks like he might say something more, so I wait.
“My mom...was involved in something...” he slowly, haltingly says, and I nod, taking the conversation from him before he has to say too much.
“That,” I comment, making sure all eyes are back on me, “is the power of this piece, and this writer, you see. She has a way of writing so that you connect to her, instinctively; she draws you into her world, and her pain, and—” I add, “her happiness.”
“It doesn’t always end that well,” Sydney comments, and I’m surprised to hear such a thing from her, who’s been fairly quiet and fairly happy, as far as I’ve seen. But she has a point that needs to be addressed.
“No, it doesn’t, but that’s another lesson of the power of writing. We can use it to change our moods; when we’re feeling down, reading the piece of an excellent writer can lift our spirits. When we’re angry, it can calm us down.
“This week,” I say, “Your assignment is to write something about a part of you, just as this story was about a very important part of the writer.”
#
By the time I give them the fourth entry to read, the class has accepted that there will be some deviations from what they expect as the norm. I see Charles and Sydney and everyone else read through the poem once, and some of them even try reading it twice, to gleam any new meaning out of it that they didn’t get the first time around. This time, I start the discussion.
“Poetry,” I say, “is something that I personally find extraordinarily difficult. It requires a knowledge of meter and momentum and an excellent vocabulary and knowledge of what words to use — verbiage and diction. Let’s get the main point out of the way first. This doesn’t rhyme, unlike the works that we’ve studied before. Does that make it not poetry?”
“No,” Sydney says quietly, wrapping her hair around a finger. “It sounds...right. It doesn’t have to rhyme. In fact, if someone tried to make it rhyme, it would be...”
“Unnatural, perhaps?” I offer for her.
“Weird,” she responds, and I smile.
“Poetry is special because it fits meaning into fewer words than you normally have. It means that you need to make every word count and conjure up evocative images while still obeying rules of meter and cadence.”
“Yeah, but if it doesn’t rhyme, why can’t you just make breaks wherever you want?” Charles asks. Not a fan of poetry, apparently.
“Try it,” I respond. “Take this poem, and make random breaks, and tell me, does it flow better, or worse?”
I see him look down at the poetry, and mumble under his breath. He looks back up at me, and I grin, accepting the victory he offers.
#
“I’ve given you four examples so far,” I start out, holding the last piece in my hands. “I’ve taught you, I hope, something of what literature is, and what it can be, and the forms it can take, and the effects that it can have. There is one more thing that I want to teach you, and that’s that it’s amazingly varied, versatile. It’s like a fire—”
And Charles cuts me off. “We’ve heard this one before, you know. You talk about how it can entertain but also how it can educate, how some writers write to escape and others to draw attention to certain topics. That whole metaphor with fire and sizes and smoke and whatnot.”
I’d taught him well, evidently.
“Okay, okay. Writing, I think, is at its best when you can use it to inspire, when it gives you hope, even if it makes you cry.”
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