Choose your own adventure: in action

One of my language groups is working on mentor authors, but the other is trying the choose your own adventure story.

I started with a short, four paragraph, seed story, written in the first person with a bit of generic foreshadowing and the requisite melodrama. The setting was modern. I did consider writing the seed story with the students as a group, but I’ve not had good luck doing writing assignments by committee. Indeed, the students did have the chance to discuss the character of the protagonist but found it really hard to get past physical descriptions (which they still could not agree on) and get the personality.

We read through the seed story and then, at the end of the page, created links for the different choices the protagonist could make. Each student came up with their own choice of what to do next.

They were assigned, for the next day, to write three paragraphs advancing the story and ending with another decision point. I had to reiterate that the choice had to be something the protagonist does, not just what’s going to happen next in the plot: “You rush out of the house without even changing clothes,” would be acceptable.

The students really got into it. They really piled into the writing. According to one student, “I think this is the best thing I’ve even written.”

We read the story drafts the next day. There was a little confusion about how to end with a decision point.

Everyone had become so invested in their own stories they did not want to, as I had planned, have someone else take over at the new decision tree. In response, I’ve offered to let them continue their stories as one of the decision options, but they each also have to add to one of their peers’ story.

I’m quite excited about how this is turning out. The students are enthused and motivated and actually writing. I can also see a million ways to vary the assignment so I’ll write this one up as a success thus far.

Good editing: Whittling to the bare essentials

I’d like to try this idea for writing assignments:

Every assignment would be delivered in five versions: A three page version, a one page version, a three paragraph version, a one paragraph version, and a one sentence version.

I don’t care about the topic. I care about the editing. I care about the constant refinement and compression. I care about taking three pages and turning it one page. Then from one page into three paragraphs. Then from three paragraphs into one paragraph. And finally, from one paragraph into one perfectly distilled sentence.

Along the way you’d trade detail for brevity. Hopefully adding clarity at each point. This is important because I believe editing is an essential skill that is often overlooked and under appreciated. The future belongs to the best editors.

Each step requires asking “What’s really important?” That’s the most important question you can ask yourself about anything. The class would really be about answering that very question at each step of the way. Whittling it all down until all that’s left is the point.

— Jason F. (2010) in Signal vs. Noise: The class I’d like to teach.

Saudade

Saudade:
Pronunciation: (from Forvo)
Definition: Portuguese – One of the most beautiful of all words, translatable or not, this word “refers to the feeling of longing for something or someone that you love and which is lost.” Fado music, a type of mournful singing, relates to saudade. (from Jason Wire at MatadorNetwork)

The beauty of the words in Jason Wire’s list, “20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words from Around the World” is that they express somewhat complex emotional concepts.

Last week I had to explain the English word, nostalgia. Its meaning was a little difficult to convey because, when you think about it, to feel nostalgic you need to have had a certain amount of self-reflection. Self-reflection is typically not a strong point of early adolescence, which is why we have Personal World every day.

Then I came across Jason Wire’s list, and there are some wonderful words on there, but the one that resonates right now is the Portuguese “saudade”. I like how it is subtly different from nostalgia, but I also like that there is an entire genre of music, fado, that embodies the word.

NPR has a great review of fado artist, Ana Moura:

Also, in looking up the pronunciation of the word I came across the Forvo website. It has recordings of people saying words from around the world, so you can hear the sounds of words from native speakers. I chose the one in this post, a female Portuguese voice (), because it seems to capture the poignant emotion of the word quite well.

Why write persuasive essays?

Clarity of thought and the ability to persuade are important life skills that develop as the parts of the brain responsible for analytical thinking develop during adolescence. The persuasive essay is the most common form used to assess these abilities. During this cycle we will work on writing persuasive essays, but it is useful to remember that the pattern of these essays, with their beginning thesis statement, well organized persuasive paragraphs, and concluding statement, can also be used in many other types of presentation.

We can start by considering brain development, because during adolescence the prefrontal cortex matures. Located just above and behind the eyes, the prefrontal cortex is responsible for higher thinking: things like abstract analysis, controlling moods and planning. Not only does this part of the brain get bigger but the way the brain cells, called neurons, are connected also get substantially reorganized. New neural pathways develop as adolescents discover new and more sophisticated ways of thinking about themselves and the world around them.

However, just because the brain develops does not instantly mean we become instantly able to think abstractly. Practice tunes the brain. Repetition is what establishes new neural pathways and makes them bigger and wider.

Yet once we develop these skills, how do we show them to the world? This is where the power of the persuasive essay comes in: arguments require reasoning, logic and deft writing to convince. A good persuasive essay is a tour-de-force demonstration of these higher-level thinking skills. The ability to articulate a clear, straightforward thesis illustrates the ability to integrate disparate ideas. The sequencing of ideas in the paragraphs demands a strict adherence to logic. A beautiful turn of phrase or a description that paints a vivid picture brings the essay to life and captures the reader’s interest and imagination. Beauty appeals to the heart. Logic commands the brain. In combination, the persuasive essay appeals to the key attributes that make us human.

There are, of course, other methods for showing our prefrontal abilities, such as film, dance and oral argument, but these others lack the ease of distribution and the consideration of the audience offered to the reader of the persuasive essay. A simple missive, short and sweet, can be mailed, emailed or hand delivered quickly and efficiently. Furthermore, it places less stress on the reader. A good persuasive essay is necessarily concise; it says only what it has to to make its point. It also offers the reader great flexibility in how to take it in. By skimming the introduction and topic sentences the reader should be able to get the gist of the writer’s argument. Then the reader can choose to be drawn more deeply into the text, or even just an interesting paragraph, by the seduction of elegant prose. The reader can get an essay in myriad ways and can easily plunge into and out of it at will, wallowing in the language or skimming across the tips of the paragraphs.

So while a picture is worth a thousand words, the persuasive essay can convey, not just the ostensible argument on the page or even the message hidden in the subtexts, but the clarity of thought, the abstract thinking skills, and the logical control of the writer herself. A good essay tells as much, or more, about the writer than it does about the topic.

Writing good paragraphs and essays

WritingDEN‘s Tips-O-Matic is a great site on writing great paragraphs and essays. The pages are very simple and well organized, without all the distracting noise of ads and extraneous information.

The language curriculum focuses, in general, on developing good writing style and craft, but some of my students need to work on the basics of essays a bit more, particularly with high-school entrance essays coming up.

What’s the difference between humans and animals?

In the field of cognition, the march towards continuity between human and animal has been inexorable — one misconduct case won’t make a difference. True, humanity never runs out of claims of what sets it apart, but it is a rare uniqueness claim that holds up for over a decade. This is why we don’t hear anymore that only humans make tools, imitate, think ahead, have culture, are self-aware, or adopt another’s point of view. – Frans De Waal (2010).

My students studied the question, what is life, last cycle, and through their readings and Socratic dialogue I’ve been trying to approach the question of what is sentience and what distinguishes humanity from other organisms (or robots for that matter).

We’ve found that the lines between us and them are very hard to draw.

Pushing the discussion into questions of morality, primatologist Frans De Waal has a wonderful post on where it comes from, and if there is any clear distinction between humans and other animals. He argues that morality is innate, a product of evolution, and there aren’t clear distinctions.

The full article is a worthy read, with good writing and well constructed arguments. It’s a bit too long for a Socratic Dialogue but might be of interest to the more advanced student, particularly those going through religious, coming-of-age, rites of passage, like preparations for confirmations and Bar Mitzvahs. While De Waal’s evolutionary reasoning has been used to argue against religion, he takes a much more subtle approach:

Our societies are steeped in it: everything we have accomplished over the centuries, even science, developed either hand in hand with or in opposition to religion, but never separately. It is impossible to know what morality would look like without religion. It would require a visit to a human culture that is not now and never was religious. That such cultures do not exist should give us pause. – Frans De Waal (2010).

Memories in the fire

1

I decided that we would read our memoirs, the ones my students had been working on for the last five weeks, on our immersion trip down to Mississippi. The idea of sitting around the fire, sharing memories was just too enticing to pass up.

I was a little surprised that no one objected, or even hesitated, when I made the suggestion the week before. We’d just come in from soccer and I was trying to figure out how we’d fit the projects, the tests and the presentations into the time we had left. There was a precedent. They’d read their first stories, the ones from the orientation cycle, on our first immersion and that had worked out well because it had given us an entire afternoon to have a great discussion. They seem actually to look forward to, what’s come to be called, “Teatime with Doctor.”

“What if,” I asked, a little quietly to one of the 8th graders, who’d been on the challenge course immersion the year before and happened to be walking by, “you read your memoirs around the campfire on immersion?”

“Yes.” Declarative and succinct. I raised an eyebrow, but he just continued on his way. I was a little surprised he did not have more to say. I’m always surprised when my students don’t have more to say. My students can be quite loquacious given any opportunity, and this one in particular tended to have strong opinions that he was usually more that willing to share.

The discussion with the rest of the class took barely longer. The larger the group, the more likely you are to have people who need to think out loud, but there were unanimous thumbs up in less than two minutes.

I think that there’s some primal need that gets stirred up by even the thought of sitting around a fire and sharing stories. Of course this plan of action also fulfilled that other fundamental need of the adolescent, the need to procrastinate.

II

We get to Camp H., have lunch, and an afternoon of community building games. Lamplighter’s been working with the camp leader here for years and Ms. A’s impressed by how well this group works together. No surreptitious sabotage, no subtle denigration, no stubborn unwillingness to participate.

We talk about the group, she and I, as we walk back to the cabin, red gravel crunching under our feet, oak leaves turning color overhead, and myself getting slightly out of breath on the last climb. I’m perhaps a little more impressed than she is because I can see the conflict in those by now familiar faces; glimpses of of baser instincts being overruled by the prefrontal cortex. It is a sight that is ambrosia to the middle school teacher.

I get back to our cabin and I find V., one of the two students I’d promised they could get the campfire going.

“Are you guys getting the fire started?” I ask.

“We’re just going to play football for a little while, then start on the fire,” he replies. V’s been our main supervisor for Student Run Business this cycle and it shows. He’s been breaking out his calm, clear, confident, supervisor voice on the challenges all afternoon.

“We have half an hour until dinner and it will probably be dark afterward,” I say.

He just nods, seething competence.

It’s 5:45 and they’re still playing football. I look at my watch more and more frequently. I’m not going to remind them of what they have to do. We’re Montessori after all.

Two of the girls start working on the fire pit. Aha, I think to myself, this is going to get interesting. I saunter outside and my path nonchalantly takes me down to the fire pit. I suggest more kindling, they never get enough kindling. The boys realize other people are working on “their” fire.

Dissension in the ranks. Conflict. I tell them they should work together. Harsh words are spoken. A covenant broken. The poignant cry of impassioned idealism, “injustice”. Things fall apart; the center does not hold; Bethlehem is apparently somewhere on the other side of the playing field.

Ten minutes later it’s time to go to dinner, but first it’s time to rebuild, time to remind them of the covenant they came up with that very afternoon, time to have a short, quiet talk about the use of language.

Over dinner the laughter starts up again. I’m at the other table with Ms. A and her family, all of whom work at the camp in some degree or the other. After the last fifteen minutes I’m extra impressed by the calmness of her teenagers.

When we get back to the fire pit the laughter is perhaps a bit too loud, but the group seems back together again. The fire is started without recrimination (eventually because they did not have enough kindling).

We sit around the fire, reading stories, finding issues, being helpful writing partners, and learning how important it is to be critical, brutal even, to our own work. There are some really good writers in the group, and there’s nothing better than learning from your peers.

“Can we put our memoirs in the fire when we’re done?”

“Sure,” I say. Sharing our writing is supposed to be a celebration. Something strikes me as just about right about liberating these memories in flame, letting them take on a new, ethereal life. Burning pages in dancing flame, marking the putting away of cherished, childhood things; an adolescent rite of passage.

As the last few stragglers work on putting out the fire I sit there, on a cool fall night, thinking about cycles and the seasons. I wish I was on the beach, watching the tide come in, small waves advancing and retreating, bigger waves pushing them farther from time to time, every time a little closer to where they need to be.