Three fourth grade girls and I sit at a little round table for forty minutes once a week and devote ourselves to writing. These young authors have what it takes, and my job is to challenge them, pushing them to new heights of creativity. Their little stories are so stinking cute. Right now, they are all writing mermaid stories. I love their descriptions and can picture myself in the underwater worlds they’ve created. Their little heroines have pluck, and their minor characters are all well-fleshed out too. There is only one thing missing and I’ve got to address the manatee in the room.
“Here is the problem we writers have. We love our characters. We’ve given them everything they need, and we’ve nurtured them and made them perfect and happy. We’ve put them in amazing settings and everything is just beautiful. But here’s the thing: to be interesting, a story needs to give the character a little pain. We’re tiptoeing around afraid to hurt their feelings.” Maddie is looking intently at my face. I’m getting through here; she is really soaking this in. I can just see the lightbulb shining brightly over her head as she internalizes what I’m saying. My brain throws high-fives at my heart as my teacher ego bounces with excitement, celebrating this great teaching moment.
“Okay writers, let’s brainstorm some problems we can throw at the current characters we’re working on. Open your Writer’s Notebook and find the next clean page. Put the date on top and a heading that says, ‘Problems for____________’ and fill in the blank with your character’s name.” I set a kitchen timer for five minutes for this brainstorm. “It’s writing time, and what do writers do?”
“Writers Write!” More music for my teacher ears as Maddie and the two others repeat our mantra.
I use my five minutes to think of every problem I can throw at my little fourth grade character in the chapter book I work on as a model. “Nikole could be stuck unable to learn her times tables, she could flunk a spelling test, she could have a fight with her best friend Joey, she could make clay monsters for an art project that keep losing their limbs. . .”
"Brrrrrrring." I look up as our timer goes off. “It’s time to share.” Maddie is still looking at me with the same intensity. “Do you want to go first today?” I direct my gaze back at her.
“I didn’t get many problems down, but I just have to share something else.” She leans in closer, ready to reveal the profound thoughts I read on her face. She speaks slowly and with wonder in her voice, “You have tiny little cracks all over your face, Mrs. Cutts.”
Oh heavens! My eyes roll back, my heart does an epic crash, my brain blows my face a raspberry.
Then I can’t help but guffaw at this impishly wonderful kid! “Yes, Maddie. Those are called wrinkles. Someday you’ll see they can be quite a problem for many characters.”
Your turn: What surprisingly honest revelations have come to you, “out of the mouths of babes”?
Comentários