My students had a READ-IN this morning, which morphed into a GAME-IN after 30 minutes. They were playing cards and board games. Three students asked if they could meet with me to share the books they are in the process of writing (not for a class assignment). The four of us discussed their works. I told them about foreshadowing and irony because they're ready for such techniques. One of them caught an anachronism in the other's piece. They gave advice to each other and soaked in each new term that I revealed to them. We discussed similar themes in other books we've read and movies we've seen. We recommended titles to each other. This writing conference lasted about 25 minutes. Those were 25 magical minutes.

University of Central Florida has created Knights Write, which will provide support to faculty members in all disciplines to integrate writing into their courses. Their goal is "to help students develop into more effective and versatile writers. UCF's would be only the second writing across the curriculum program at a Florida public university. It could potentially grow into the largest such program in the country" (Heston, 2010). 

We need to encourage this in elementary, junior, and high school: journals, reflections, multi-genre writing. 

"...preservice teachers, at a minimum, should complete at least one course dedicated to process writing and/or writing-to-learn concepts and strategies. Anything less will leave them ill-prepared to incorporate such ideas and methods into their own classrooms (Totten, 2005)."

Heston, G. April 29, 2010. New department a potential 'national model' for writing. UCF Newsroom.

Totten, S. 2005. Writing to learn for preservice teachers. The Quarterly 27(2). 

I hate when people 

pompously pick apart poetry.
I know it's their interpretations,  
but I think what they're really thinking

is quite simple,
and they embellish in a pathetic attempt

to connect to the poet.
If you don't connect to a poem, 
find another one,

write your own.
If these readers could simply, honestly reflect, 
they just might contribute to Poetry.
Poetry is nothing if not real. 

How to Start?

by Livia Blackburne, a graduate student at MIT. She describes her blog as "A Brain Scientist's Take on Creative Writing."

1. Generic beginnings: Stories that opened with the date or the weather didn’t really inspire interest. According to Harmsworth, you are only allowed to start with the weather if you're writing a book about meteorologists. Otherwise, pick something more creative.

2. Slow beginnings: Some manuscripts started with too much pedestrian detail (characters washing dishes, etc) or unnecessary background information.

3. Trying too hard: Sometimes it seemed like a writer was using big words or flowery prose in an attempt to sound more sophisticated. In several cases, the writer used big words incorrectly. Awkward or forced imagery was also a turnoff. At one point, the panelists raised their hands when a character's eyes were described as “little lubricated balls moving back and forth.”

4. TMI (Too Much Information): Overly detailed description of bodily functions or medical examinations had the panelists begging for mercy.
* This reminds me of a story that I wrote and shared with my students. They were not pleased that the protagonist's mother was pregnant. I didn't think it would bother them so much. I asked my class again this year, same result. "That's weird. You shouldn't make her pregnant." I've since stopped impregnating women.
5. Clichés: "The buildings were ramrod straight." "The morning air was raw." "Character X blossomed into Y." "A young woman looks into the mirror and tells us what she sees." Clichés are hard to avoid, but when you revise, go through and try to remove them.

6. Loss of Focus: Some manuscripts didn't have a clear narrative and hopped disjointedly from one theme to the next.

7. Unrealistic internal narrative: Make sure a character's internal narrative—what the character is thinking or feeling—matches up with reality. For example, you wouldn't want a long eloquent narration of what getting strangled feels like—the character would be too busy gasping for breath and passing out. Also, avoid having the character think about things just for the sake of letting the reader know about them.

Not Always, Yeats

Out of the quarrels with others,

words sting, then fester

Out of the vituperative exchanges 

with this person for whom you'd surely die 

When your eyes are squeezed tight

to restrain the bubbling ire, 

Your vexatious and vehement words 

have already been released

That's when Sorrow takes its nascent steps

Out of the quarrels with these others, 

The path becomes inexorably altered

and Poetry opens its sleepy eyes

As for the quarrel with ourselves?

It inhales each fiery syllable

and exhales the sorrowful poetry 

Out of a quarrel with others we make rhetoric, out of a quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.  -Yeats

The first call for a writing conference between student and instructor came in the 1890s in the university setting (Lerner, 2005). Education writers called for differentiated instruction to avoid mass-producing mediocrity. The writing conference is inherently differentiated. In that one-on-one context, a teacher can extrapolate the student's readiness level and interests. In that individualized setting, she can also completely extinguish a child's natural gift for story-telling, squelch his or her zeal to imagine and create. 

My first writing conference came in the 1980s. My third grade teacher accepted my Prince and the Revolution-inspired massacre where everyone bled purple. She also knew me well enough not to fear any psychological aberrations. She understood that I wouldn't, couldn't write about rainbows and ponies. Almost twenty years later, she introduced me to the Greater New Orleans Writing Project. 

Lerner, Neal. (2005). The teacher-student writing conference and the desire for intimacy. College English, 68(2), 186-208.

Art by Nanami Rio

Rain as metaphor 

Again and again

As science 

When arid conditions set in 

Cyclical, seasonal, a reprieve

Rain as meteorology 

The amounts we'll receive

Rain as memory

Each drop that plops

A soul is fed, 

A moment stops

Rain as mischief-maker

Rain as home-taker

The dark sky, 

The fresh scent

From heaven, 

Earth bent

Rain as history

before the rebirth

Rain in abundance

From our dance in the dearth

Again

Mom called again.

She was dying Easter eggs alone again.

Sent her love to Kane again. 

Wished he was little again.

Inquired about Passover again.

"I'll just move there," she suggested again. 

Updated me with her lively anecdotes again. 

Asked when I was coming home again. 

I just found this piece on one of my flash drives. It was selected for the Crescent City Farmers' Market Second Annual Aubergine Monologues. Reading it made me hungry and homesick, so we ordered our dinner tonight from a nearby po-boy shop that actually buys their french bread from N.O. 

-----------------------------------                                                                                                           What's in a Name? by Shannon Blady

Aubergine, Get your butt in here and clean up this mess, girl.

Every time you fry those eggplants, you get breadcrumbs all over the place.

And look at that grease ya let pop all over the floor.

Don’t you know how to put newspaper down?

Good Lord, Auby.  How many eggplants did you buy?

….Eggplant…Why they call it that anyways?

Eggs don’t grow on plants and they sure ain't white like eggs.

Aubergine, what color's that? Purplish black? Sure is pretty.

Looks like a bad bruise, huh? It’s like the hair color of that little

punk rock girl ya go to school with.

Ya put a little salt on ‘em first?

That gets rid of that little bitterness ya taste sometime, ya know.

Ya doubled up the paper towels? Gotta absorb that oil.

Ooh, they sure are hot.

Let me taste just one to make sure ya know what ya doin’.  

Oooweee, Aubergine, girl I taught ya right.

So crispy and they melt in ya mouth.

Now let’s clean up this mess and eat ‘em all before your fat Aunt Ambrosia gets home.