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Nov. 1st, 2006 05:06 pmYesterday and today are migraine days. Unlike 2 months ago I've managed to work through it, including teaching. The various suggestions everyone gave me two months ago haven't got rid of the aches, but they have reduced them to a level I can deal with.
My class today was *so* worth teaching. I gave them an exercise for homework and they all took it up a notch to something very exciting.
Last week we saw a man dancing on water. He wore an orange jacket and was on the green strip that reaches into Lake Tuggeranong. "Drabbit," I said to myself, "The universe is telling me something." I switched from my lesson plan to introducing the concept of genrewriting and from talking about genre to talking about magic. I pointed out the window at the man dancing and explained how reality can shift and slide. They wrote stories about dragons and about the man dancing on water. The homework was to write stories that included that reality shift and showed what magic could be.
Today they read their homework aloud. One student pinpointed the exact moment when he would change the past and the exact sequence of problems it would prevent. he knew where his life had gone wrong and saw magic as giving him a chance to escape its confines. Another used magic as a kind of cargo-cult word, to explain the mysteries of complicated surgery. A third took one of her personal demons into the wide world and gave a speech on it, using the notion of a dark magician to explain what it all meant. Can you see why I'm excited? This was way past what we had been discussing in class and explored notions and the personal consequences of magic to the limit. Very potent stuff.
They're working on the same stories this week. One student has to retell the same experience as an explanation to an eight year old (he rubbed his hands with glee as he told me "This will be hard."). Another has to look for the telling detail that will make it rock the reader's understanding of personal freedom.
These students are awesome. They understood the truth of writing about magic without me having to say. They took their own lives and experiences and used the magic as a bridge between dark truths and the reader. In class they had talked about dragons and new worlds, but when it came down to it they wanted to tell realities and found that magic was far more useful than dragons for safely telling such truths.
And the man in the orange jacket came back today and danced outside our window. We've decided he might be our class mascot.
My class today was *so* worth teaching. I gave them an exercise for homework and they all took it up a notch to something very exciting.
Last week we saw a man dancing on water. He wore an orange jacket and was on the green strip that reaches into Lake Tuggeranong. "Drabbit," I said to myself, "The universe is telling me something." I switched from my lesson plan to introducing the concept of genrewriting and from talking about genre to talking about magic. I pointed out the window at the man dancing and explained how reality can shift and slide. They wrote stories about dragons and about the man dancing on water. The homework was to write stories that included that reality shift and showed what magic could be.
Today they read their homework aloud. One student pinpointed the exact moment when he would change the past and the exact sequence of problems it would prevent. he knew where his life had gone wrong and saw magic as giving him a chance to escape its confines. Another used magic as a kind of cargo-cult word, to explain the mysteries of complicated surgery. A third took one of her personal demons into the wide world and gave a speech on it, using the notion of a dark magician to explain what it all meant. Can you see why I'm excited? This was way past what we had been discussing in class and explored notions and the personal consequences of magic to the limit. Very potent stuff.
They're working on the same stories this week. One student has to retell the same experience as an explanation to an eight year old (he rubbed his hands with glee as he told me "This will be hard."). Another has to look for the telling detail that will make it rock the reader's understanding of personal freedom.
These students are awesome. They understood the truth of writing about magic without me having to say. They took their own lives and experiences and used the magic as a bridge between dark truths and the reader. In class they had talked about dragons and new worlds, but when it came down to it they wanted to tell realities and found that magic was far more useful than dragons for safely telling such truths.
And the man in the orange jacket came back today and danced outside our window. We've decided he might be our class mascot.