The creative writing unit

I'm getting some good responses, although there's still plenty of chaos and envelope-pushing in class. Yesterday I did a 10-minute free write with the kids. Mrs. D. made it work by offering everyone 25 extra points for just putting their heads down and writing, and as soon as that happened you could have heard a pin drop.

They got very invested in their free writes, and to my surprise a lot of them wanted to share with the whole group. I had them commenting on the details that really stood out, and they all stayed constructive. No one really ran anyone else down, at least not in terms of the writing, although there were plenty of sartorial comments, as usual. ("Get them undies back in your pants, boy!")

One mistake I made was to pass around copies of a "Contract of Responsibility" that I had already signed and then collect them. I should have collected the contracts after the students had signed them, countersigned them myself, and then handed them back to the students so they could be reminded that they had promised to do their best work and to be respectful. I also didn't do a very good job of explaining the differences between the class assignment, which is to do a 450-word short story including three drafts, and the writing competition assignment, which requires a minimum of 700 words. But by the end of the period all of them got the idea.

Today a lot of the class was absent, so things went relatively well even though Mrs. D was out for the day and there was a substitute. Even a few of the worst behavior cases were getting into their stories. I printed out a 300-word competition finalist story from Figment.com and read it to them. They didn't see all the spelling and grammatical errors, but they could still tell it wasn't much better than what they themselves had written the day before. I also printed a screen shot of the author's page - she's a "regular teenager" who lived in L.A. and has recently moved to the East Coast - and passed it around. (What a boon a Smart Board would be!!) I have a feeling one of the guys in the class fell a little in love with her, because he held onto the handout for five minutes before passing it to someone else and then wanted it back later. Her picture is very appealing.

Once again, a lot of people were excited to share what they had written. Many of the stories were about rape, murder and abuse. The sub and I both wondered to what extent these were eyewitness accounts, or even experienced by the writers themselves.

The principal, Mr. S, dropped by a couple of times. Towards the end, when we had finished workshopping a bunch of beginnings and first drafts, most of the kids were sort of hanging out although several said they wanted to work more on their stories. Mr. S came in and I didn't even notice at first. The sound level in the room did not go down, the kids still were wandering around, and Mr. S was chatting with them as well. It didn't seem to bother him that there wasn't on-task instruction going on, so I certainly wasn't going to let it bother me.

He came over to me and said, "If there were two closed-circuit cameras in every classroom, recording everything that went on here, there would be a serious change in attitude. A serious change."

I ventured, "I don't know how the teachers' union would feel about that."

"They'd be wise to go for it," he replied. Mr. S is probably about 20 years younger than me. He has a soft face, usually with some scraggly auburn beard growth, and wears very nice suits. I've heard that public school principals make six figures; I don't know if that's still true, or if it was ever true in this district, but the difference in salary between Mrs. D and Mr. S is very obvious in their wardrobe.

"It would help with the parents," he explained earnestly. "'You want to know why your kid is getting a D? You want to know why your kid is failing? Here. I'll show you a video of him sleeping in class for 40 minutes. And I'll show you the same thing the next day.'"

I would bet money that none of the parents whose kids are sleeping through English class are going to come to the principal's office and demand to know why Junior is flunking out. But it's none of my business. I hope I never have to work in a school that treats its students even more like prison inmates than this one does.

Introduction/Seduction

Yesterday I introduced my creative writing unit - subtly. Mrs. D always has a writing prompt on the board when the students come into the class; I've taken over the prompts, although neither of us made that clear to them in advance.

The prompt was: "I'm usually a nice person, but one thing ticks me off. Let me tell you about it." Mrs. D gave them all instructions to begin their paragraph with these two sentences, and most of them followed the direction. I was gratified to hear one student say, "Oh man, this is going to be a good journal!"

At first, their paragraphs were disappointing. One complained about bad breath. Two complained about people who think they are funny, but aren't. One complained about people who call her "little." (She's about five foot three.) But then one girl said she hated it when her mother tells her to get something out of the kitchen, when she is standing right there and could get it herself in a second. Suddenly people who had already shared their paragraphs were raising their hands and saying they wanted to share some more.

When everyone was done sharing, I went right into the center of the empty space in the middle of the classroom and announced that this was the first writing prompt in a series that was going to help them write a 700-word story for a contest - and the first prize was $100 gift card from VISA.

I shouldn't have mentioned the word count. There was consternation at that, although several of the boys kept shushing everyone else: "Hey, she's talking real money here. I wanna know what she has to say about it."

So I told them that they did not have to submit their stories to the contest if they didn't want to. Someone asked what the deadline was, and I told them it was December 31, and that they could get feedback from me up until the deadline if they wanted. I also said they'd be working with partners, and we took a vote about whether the partners should be assigned by Mrs. D or pulled out of a hat. There was quite a bit of shouting back and forth over that, but eventually a clear majority voted for Mrs. D's judgment.

I did a draft of the list based on what she had told me about students who need a lot of help with grammar and spelling, pairing them with those who didn't have much trouble with that. The other major factor was attendance; I paired regular absentees with each other. She made a few changes, and we'll present the list tomorrow. I'm sure there will be plenty of groaning, but maybe a few people will be happy with their partners.

Today I wasn't there, but I had sent in a prompt to Mrs. D via text. She changed it slightly. I had asked, "Do you believe in Heaven and/or Hell? Why or why not?" She told me over the phone tonight that she had written: "Do you believe in an afterlife? For example: Reincarnation, Heaven, Hell, etc." She said that several people hadn't known what an afterlife was and had asked about it. Most of them wrote that they believed in Heaven and Hell because it was their religion, but some mentioned reincarnation.

Tomorrow the prompt is: "Whether you believe in Hell or not, imagine you are there. What do you see? Hear? Smell? Feel (temperature, etc.)? Who is there with you? Why? Why are you there?"

Before they share, I'll tell them we'll do things a little differently. I'll ask the class whether or not they got a real sense of what the writer thinks about Hell from the paragraph, and if so, what was in the paragraph that carried the idea? Then I'll put them into pairs, and tell them to answer the same questions for each other only more specifically. I have to ask Mrs. D. if we can change their seating arrangement for the duration of the unit.

They were so incredibly uncooperative yesterday, talking so loudly it was almost impossible to get a word in edgewise, I have pretty low expectations for my success with this. I wonder if any of them will actually finish a whole story, or even work at it in a sustained way. I wonder if any of the partner conversations will be on task. I guess I'll find out soon enough . . .