A Kid Named A.

by Michael Copperman

A., a tall, thin kid from North Portland, A. of the backward cap and the swaggering slouch, was so confused about his thesis in class that he sat tapping his pencil and shifting in his seat all class long. He needed to identify the reason he felt speech regulations on college campuses should be banned. He wanted to say “freedom of speech” was the reason, and I asked him why freedom of speech was useful to students on college campuses, and he frowned, furrowed his brow, shrugged and then stared down at what he had written as if the words might appear on the page through sheer intensity of stare. 

After class, he lingered at the front of the classroom and asked again, “What should I say?” “What you think is right and makes sense,” I told him, and despite his persistence, I would not give him “the answer.” That attitude of “just tell me” is common among even the better students who make it to college out of our overcrowded and under-resourced public schools: they care about doing well, but have rarely been asked to figure things out themselves, let alone had their own opinions valued and evaluated on clarity and merit. We went in circles, and finally he stood with his hands at his sides in despair. 

I left him in the classroom and walked back across campus through a light rain, the yellowing and browning leaves of November waving against the white sky, and I felt tired, drained by the sense I have sometimes that I am doing nothing and accomplishing nothing, wasting my days teaching writing at a mid-tier public university in a provincial little town. I wondered if perhaps I should have thrown him a bone and given him choices of possible positions, and decided I’d email him so he didn’t feel abandoned. 

Out in front of the building that houses my office, I stopped to adjust my bag on my shoulder, heard the sound of soles slapping pavement behind me, and turned to see A. loping across the lawn. He was breathing hard, and when he reached me he put his hands to his knees and caught his breath and said, “Mr. Mike, could I say that they—the speech codes—prevent honest communication between people trying to learn?” 

I swear, his earnest face, the clarity of the statement and the fact he’d come to it himself, made all the entire gray winter irrelevant. 

“That sounds exactly right,” I said, and as he grinned and took out his phone and began to write his thesis on the mobile device, I clapped him on the shoulder and waited for him to finish. Then I walked on, past my office toward the library because that seemed the direction he was going, A. walking a little ahead and talking faster as he caught his breath, telling me how he’d come up with it, and what examples he had about how in the real world nobody is going to save you from the offensive things that were out there that people thought, the hate some have in their hearts, how you have to confront racists head on, and more than that, how we have to actually talk about things as they are, to say what we mean even when that isn’t easy, and how he had an example of his friend D.  from back home at Jefferson High, and could he use it, would it work, did I think? 

I told him yes, I did think. But really, I was glad that he’d thought.

I believe most lesson plans can be tweaked to fit writers at all levels. This idea came to me a decade ago while getting an MFA in Creative Writing.

During a workshop, Honor Moore, author of The Bishop’s Daughter, gave us a writing prompt and quickly added: “Don’t forget to use descriptive detail. Appeal to all five senses.” 

I found her words humbling, because hours earlier I’d conveyed them to twelfth graders. Yet the message can’t be repeated often enough as many writers, young and not so young, often share only what they see, omitting the other senses.

Fast forward to today, and I just finished teaching the use of sensory details to second- through fifth-graders whose skills vary depending on their age and placement in general education or a gifted and talented program.

The challenge: How to adapt one lesson plan to fit many needs?

With younger students (say first- through third-graders), I suggest spending a lot of time brainstorming, followed by creating a group description of their classroom.

As inspiration, I offer passages from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, and Eudora Welty’s One Writer’s Beginnings.

I then ask students to write a description of a place they know well.

“Your goal is to be specific,” I explain. “Don’t just say the cafeteria is noisy. Who makes the racket? What exactly do you hear?”

Here’s a second-grader describing Jamaica:

“I hear the birds chirping nice and loud and sometimes the rustling between coconut trees. Also, I hear the nice orange rooster crowing in the early morning when the sun starts to come out.”

Younger students may need a second session to polish their portraits of a place. It’s an opportunity to encourage them to include details they left out.

With older students (fourth grade and above), I go deeper, using their descriptions as a jumping off point. Writers compose descriptions of places for a reason—to create a setting that will frame, if not drive, a story. Isn’t the Hogwarts School in the Harry Potter series the perfect setting for learning wizardry? 

During this second session, I ask students to use their descriptions as the setting of a story, whether true or make believe. 

I use an excerpt from James Baldwin’s short story “The Rockpile” to show how a hill of rocks evolved into a story about a boy forbidden to play there.

Here’s a fifth-grader describing her tomato garden: “I can hear the bugs eating a spoiled tomato as they buzz by racing to it. Starvation in their eyes.  Thanks to some magic water, one stalk grew sky high.”

A fourth-grader transports readers to a basketball court: “You can hear sneakers squeaking from running on a silk floor. You also hear basketballs dribbling up and down the court….One day, a boy shot a ball and it grew arms….”

I encourage students to take a closer look at their world, sharing its sparkle and bumps, rhythm and scents, and whatever they feel.

-Linda Morel

Linda Morel is a nonfiction writer and T&W teaching artist.  You can read more about Linda here.

For a two-part lesson plan that guides students through sensory description of place, go here; for how to utilize the descriptions to develop a story setting, go here. 

For a sample of student writing that came out of this exercise, go here.  Continue to check out our tumblr page at teachersandwriters.tumblr.com for more student writing from Linda’s residency, as well as other student writing from other T&W writers’ residencies, too!