the old it was a dark and stormy night line

at the newspaper meeting last friday (before halloween), dressed in costumes, i had the kids use their stormy creativity on the old "it was a dark and stormy night..." line, taking it places it had never been... 


DO something with it, i told them, like, something, different, from a noise scratching at the window etc... i knew they were capable (and frankly, they knew it too.)


the next hour and a half that followed was full of poems, dark 'n stormy stories, haiku, photo shoots, and an abundance of pleading moments: can i pleeeeaaaase read you what i just wrote?? can i read this out loud? can i share just one more?!!! 


... somehow, a few quiet gems were left unseen, tucked in the stack of pages to photocopy. it wasn't until later when i was making copies that i found this one amongst the others in the stack, written by my dearest abby. and standing there in the bright and empty copy room... i read abby's dark 'n stormy adaptation.

It was a dark and Stormy night .........

a young couple danced 

under the dim light of the moon as 

it was snowing. 

The Christmas Spirit 

was just around the corner, 

but not one Christmas tree was up.

10/29/10 by abby

all alone with a huge grin, i shook my head at the page saying, ABBY! abby abby abby you got it-- this is-- that's it abby, i knew, you knew... exactly. abby!! this is why, this is exactly, kind of-- the thing i'd-- 

dark 'n stormy barbie 

(writing talent sold separately) 

•••

photos and content by chantal (and abby) 

from the cover of the big BURSTING issue....

just another comic from the 12-page newspaper the kids and i published yesterday... wow this one took a long time to put together by hand, i was up for days, but totally worth it. more on this later... as we're now in the midst of a special edition for this thursday..... let's just say it's a hilarious work of pure newspaper fiction, and we wrote the entire thing in three hours yesterday, i've never seen anything like it, it was the most hard-working, entertaining and dedicated group of 9, 10, 11 year old newspaperists (and abby of course) that i could have ever asked for. now it's up to me to get the madness in order for thursday. 

comical stuff to come. x c

[photo by me, of course, of the front cover]

WOW! x6

i had the kids write magnetic six words again yesterday at the newspaper meeting. this is one of them written by a fifth-grade boy. ten years old and they write things like this.... that's why i keep going back.

i'll post more of them soon. have a nice weekend... x c

BAM! x 5

yesterday one of my beloved writing students abby brought poetry homework (oooh, a struggle for us) to our session. her assignment was to write cinquain poems, so we persuaded her 4th-grade sister pyper that if she learned this poetic art form now, then she could easily pass 7th grade, and we started counting syllables into a new and different (for us haiku natives) formation. according to abby cinquain poems are 5 lines (cinq) built with: 2 syllables, then 4, 6, 8, then 2. i didn't get a chance to copy her poems down before she ran off to music lessons.

pyper, hesitant at first about counting so many syllables, ended up staying with me an extra hour and we had a fantastic time breaking the nature rules (oh ya, also according to abby these poems are supposed to be about nature... **unless you're an action-packed little girl named pyper) so pyper and i broke the rules of nature creating action haiku, uh, sorry i'm so accustomed to typing that word, i mean, action cinquain, which included such elements as a sequance of the word BAM! "exactly 5 times" and even an extra syllable at the end, breaking the rules one BAM! at a time.

BAM!
  

BAM!BAM!

   
BAM!    BAM!
her action cinquain will be featured in our 3rd issue of the newspaper that i've created for the school. issue 3 is based around FLASH! stories, poetry and comics. and somewhere in there, in the middle of pyper's whether report (yes, spelled whether) she will suddenly break into it with, "--FLASH!-- insert poem here" and there you will find the action cinquain. i will consider posting it here before we get the next newspaper issue out. because, well, i do realize that this blog and that newspaper have entirely different audiences... ;)

now that i've totally made it impossible for anyone, especially myself, to follow with a cinquain even half as exciting as miss pyper's action-packed-5-BAM!er, here's one i wrote at breakfast today.... and now that abby's taught us about this new pile-up of syllables i think we'll be seeing more of them in the future, though i can't promise we'll be sticking to the rules, naturally, so i'll throw in a BAM! at the end just to wake you up.


window
closed to outside
garden only think we
know what breeze trapped in metal screens
whispers



BAM! (as promised)

 

x c

more photos on my flickr

[photos : by c]

can only give them the seeds...

next time i'll share some of the magnetic six words from the kids... you know, the words they were busy writing while i was throwing these seeds at them :)

x c



ps more photos of the kids on my (not-so-updated) flickr

pieces

i had the kids writing six word stories with magnetic poetry at friday's newspaper meeting... but of course i was right in there writing with them! more to come...

News in (big) print

So now that I’ve got my age-appropriate glasses on (wink wink from behind the drugstore reading glasses that I tried on here and here and in the blurry process found out that 30 wasn’t exactly the right moment— at least for my eyes and this accessory— though they seemed so happy together) nevertheless it’s time to be serious and get down to business. And ok, I’m not sure if this counts as serious or business but you know how I have a writing program for kids (if you didn’t know that, check out their blog : writing from the rooftops) well now I will be starting a school newspaper with them! It’s already become a lot of work and yesterday we had our first official ‘meeting’ and— wow—

—but I mean, it’s going to be great, I just have to really get it organized. The cool thing is that, not only are the kids exceptional at writing, but the ones who I’ve already been working with (that you know and love : Abby, Pyper, Olivia ..perhaps.. if we can tear her away from the junior high saga I got her to start writing which documents life at her new middle school, and Raquel who you’ve yet to read much about, but will—) are now assisting me with the newspaper operations. And that’s pretty cool. They helped me run the first meeting and explain the elements of the newspaper to the interested students who came to find out what the newspaper was all about.

The girls were really enthusiastic and there to make sure everyone understood what was going on...a prime example of this came when were sitting in front of the rest of the kids and some of their parents at this initial introduction newspaper meeting, these talented, enthusiastic, helpful aforementioned girls decided to impersonate ‘Chantal’ for the crowd just so they could get to know me (this hadn't really come up before when we'd discussed what we'd do in the meeting...), so Abby took my big dark sunglasses off my head and wore them on her little face and crossed her legs under the table and made a face that I'm almost certain I never make and Pyper started writing like crazy in my notebook and Raquel reached for the multitude of bracelets on my arm that she told the rest of the group I aaaaaallllways wear... and the meeting kind of progressed like that..... so I just said something like, wow guys it sounds like you all have a lot of newspaper ideas to talk about, so why don’t you just do that now and I'll walk around and get to know you, now that you know me—

—but they are full of personality and energy and ideas and passion on and off the paper. After the meeting and before we locked up the classroom I captured some of it as I was watching Pyper dance in front of the fan...talk about charisma, just look on my flickr, none of these photographs were posed, that’s how full of life these girls are. And they really bring something into mine. So perhaps this newspaper is going to be a lot more work than I signed up for, but the potential words (and photo ops with my new cute little blue camera the Algerian gave me that’s way better than reading glasses from the drugstore as a gift at 30) are too good to miss. And so, it might take a while, but we’ll be there— to get those moments in print (...and I just might need those reading glasses by the time we’re done!)

x c

classic.

somehow opened up to this article in the paper (no kidding, the real newspaper) the other day. the san francisco chronicle features classic articles from years (and years and years) past... i thought this one from june 3, 1963 by stanton delaplane was really great.

Chronicle Classic :
Delaplane flying high

The new TWA polar flight is nonstop from the U.S. West Coast to Paris, France. 

It takes 10 hours and 5 minutes and is crammed with so much passenger activity that everybody must work hard and seriously to accomplish his task before the wheels touch down. 

Each passenger is expected to eat a five-course luncheon and a six-course dinner. Between these he must view a full-length feature movie. He should - TWA expects every man to do his duty - precede each meal with an appropriate martini. 

The airline surveyed martini drinkers recently. It found West Coast lushes were ordering the bottled Heublein's martinis. Then they would order a straight gin. They were spiking their martinis. 

Therefore, TWA ordered West Coast martinis mixed at new odds of 16-to-1 - gin versus vermouth. Two of these and the stewardess resets your controls to automatic. You are no longer considered fit to fly yourself. 

On the west-to-east crossing, the movie is a late, late show. The jets simply eat up time. So you go to the movie in the afternoon and you get out in the middle of the night. 

Coming back the situation is reversed. 

You start lunch at midday. And when you finish it is still noon. 

This is very confusing and TWA is justly proud of it. It is not only on its toes with competing airlines. It is way ahead of the passenger.

(article continued-- full version-- and other classics : here)