Last night's class went very well. Despite our tiny size (10 students, if the latest, a high school student about to take the assessment test, is permitted to stay), we are a mighty bunch, with enthusiasm and interest in the materials under discussion. I feel very pleased with the way students cooperate, in general, and think that the ones left will most likely stay to the end of the semester. Of course, not all of them are equal in ability, but they are willing to listen and cooperative, and that is all I can ask.
The students loved the description exercises, Lou! They still need to work on this skill, and I will certainly come back to it in one form or another, possibly this upcoming week when we discuss creating characters. Any suggestions for that one?
2 comments:
Your report of enthusiasm among your students is terrific news!
I always found it odd that students who claim to long to write poems have such a hard time seeing images and finding the words to name them.
Here's another exercise I've used with creative writing students to get them past the BIG WORDS that they mistakenly think belong in their poems.
I start with a little lecture on the big screen inside our heads, and I suggest to them that the BIG WORDS play on our head screens in pictures (and other senses). For example, I tell them, the word LOVE can flash an arrow-shot heart on the screen. Because we exist in a media-driven world, our first images are often the cliché of our culture, and we have to move past them to find OUR OWN images.
Then, I move into the exercise. I lower the lights in the room, and instruct them that I am going to ask that they close their eyes; then, I will say a word, one of the BIG WORDS. They will keep their eyes closed as they search their head screens for the personal experience that is attached to the big words. When I give the signal, they will open their eyes and begin writing (freewriting) in order to describe in vivid terms the image they have seen. They will not use the BIG WORD.
Big words that I recall using are abstractions like MERCY, JOY, HATE, words like that.
Sometimes, I have done the exercise with them, writing on a transparency that I can then show them on the overhead. Here's the kind of thing I might expect from, say, JOY:
Afternoon, upstairs, baby curled in the center of the crib, tiny pink lambs bounce across the crib sheet. Light falls in long slanted blades through the half-closed blinds. On her cheek, the light becomes a kiss.
You can keep on this exercise by asking students to read over what they written and to circle the concrete words. Those words become the impulse for a poem.
I remember finding that too many students who wanted to write poems were not people who loved words, played with words, or thought in image. Training them like this seemed to be fun and useful for them.
Thanks Lou. I had planned such an exercise for when we begin talking about poems, though of course, it's relevant to fiction too. But individual words are that much more crucial in a poem, because it generally has fewer words than fiction.
I will remember that exercise for the time in a few weeks when we start on poetry.
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