Writing Suspense

Come model a lesson on how to write a suspenseful story. We've read The Cask of Amontillado and The Masque of the Red Death. In English I, students will have a focus on general figurative language and English II will expand on that by adding rich imagery. The day before you come, we'll read Lamb to the Slaughter. 

Uhhh.

"Hey Siri, set a timer for three Minutes." She responds, "The suspense is killing me!"

Suspense.

We're supposed to write a suspenseful story today, but I have no idea how to begin. I mean...I got nothing. I'm not even sure how writers do that suspense thing. I know it when I feel it...but I don't know how to craft it.

I can just imagine the stares. "I don't have a suspenseful story." and "I don't know what to write." Some would probably make up crazy convoluted stuff that really didn't have a basis in logic, craft, or sense. I mean, how do you come up with something in your brain, birthed like Athena from Zeus's head, fully formed and coherent?

It made me ask: How do authors create suspense? I sat down at Abuelo's with a group of friends and copious amounts of hot sauce and chips to explore the question. We talked about word choice, details given and withheld, foreshadowing, delay of revelation, and point of view. I pulled out stapled copies of Lamb to the Slaughter and markers for everyone. Doesn't everyone use short stories as place-mats before the entree arrives?  What we realized is that we had a way of reading that helped us figure this out. Using the Freitag pyramid, we plotted out the main points of the story.

The structure of the essay itself is one piece of the magic in Roald Dahl's approach to this text. Fortunately, Gretchen Bernabei taught us all about this in her kernel essay structure.  We could use her idea as a TOOL to help us figure out how to write a suspenseful story!

Here's what we figured out: Dahl has TWO plots - dual rising actions going on here. And he ends each one with a particular kind of sentence to end them. "All right, she told herself. So I've killed him." and "And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to giggle." 

Students can't really write good stuff about things they don't know. And I didn't really want to encourage horror and murder, even though they'd probably seen lots of movies about that. I wanted them to connect to their own experiences. I remembered the blueprinting activity we had students complete earlier in the year. I asked them to look at that page in their journals and to remember a time they (or someone else in that house) did something naughty and tried to hide it. Here's the gist of the lesson: 

We created a quicklist about several experiences. Here's mine. 

I jotted down ideas and thought aloud from my experiences: the time I drew a giant smiley face on the wall, when I hid my black cat in the closet, the time I spilled red nail polish on the new carpet, when I stole the silk flower centers at the Hobby House...I know, naughty. 

Next, I read aloud from my sample essay. I wanted students to be clear about what they would be creating. "I'm going to show you something that I wrote using the skill I'm about to teach you. You'll be able to write something similar!" 

Crayon Smiles

We must have just moved in. I don’t remember much furniture. Nothing on the white, bare walls. I’m not sure where mom was. But there I was, in my room, coloring.

I found myself in the hallway across from the bathrooms and between mom’s bedroom and mine...with the stub of a peeled black Crayola pinched between the fingers of my left hand.

I reached up as tall as 2 year old arms could reach and began the slow arc of a circle on the flat paint of the sheetrock. As the crayon met the texture, the wax Morse-coded long and short dotted lines in a huge circle on the wall. I scribbled two large eyes at the top and finished with a four foot grin at the bottom.

All right, I told myself. I drew a giant smiley face on the wall. (Smiley faces were big in the 70’s. It might have been the first meme.)

Thinking nothing of it, I took the crayon back to my room and continued coloring.

But then, mom came into the back of the house. I had forgotten about the new masterpiece.

She called me to the drawing scrawled into the paint. I knew something was wrong, but wasn’t really sure what it was.

Mom was mad. “Who drew this smiley face on the wall? And with a black crayon?”

Gulp. “My brother,” I lied.

Mom’s frown spread to her eyebrows and forehead. “Come here. I’m going to give your brother a spanking.”

And between the swats, I realized: I am an only child.

They laughed a little. I had the students talk about their experiences and then do the same. Once that was complete, we selected an idea to work through the kernels. 

I modeled each one, using my topic as the guide, stopping briefly to let students discuss and jot their thoughts. 

Students then met in feedback groups to read over their kernels. The listeners were to describe the parts they felt the most suspense and the part where they wanted to ask more questions to the writer. In every case, the students identified the climax in their own stories! And in each instance, students found ideas they could explore more deeply in their writing. 

But my favorite part of the lesson came next. "Do you realize that you just wrote like a famous suspense author? Remember this?" And I placed a copy of Lamb to the Slaughter under the document camera. "How does he begin? And then what does he tell you?" Step by step, the students remembered the plot, naming each function and summarizing the story. I was no longer in control as the students turned to each other to continue the discussion at their own tables. We switched then to drafting: students began scribbling madly on the blank walls of their notebook paper. Because they had something to say, and a way to do so. Tomorrow, they'd be ready to layer in imagery and figurative language - again, using the master, Roald Dahl, as the mentor - using their own purpose and meaning to locate where such language and craft was needed. 

I believe _____ because of a teacher

I believe _____ because of a teacher.

Today we  (Texas Region Service Center ELAR Specialists) watched this video and had some time to write:

I believe in _____ because of a teacher. My methods teacher for lower strings, Edward Tillery, asked me to leave the room. But I had done nothing wrong.  I stood outside the closed door until he called out that I could re-enter the room. He'd be posed with his cello, doing something ridiculous with the bow pose, fingering, posture, the stand donut, and so on. I was supposed to identify and correct the flaw immediately. After several iterations, I opened the door and busted out laughing.

Everything he was doing was correct - the bow position, his posture, his bow hold and fingering. Except for one thing: it was all wrong. 

Tillery laughed with me, explaining that most students couldn't figure out what he was doing wrong. They looked so closely at the details that they missed the whole. 

As I think about teaching, this story makes even more sense to me about what my cello teacher helped me learn about the teaching act. We can be technically correct. We can look at data points and rubrics. And we can still be wrong. And kids can still fail. To reach the moral imperative in achieving educational excellence for learners, we must have a way of thinking that situates our work in the ultimate outcomes. Our theoretical  perspective, the framework that drives our efforts, must reveal and consider how the learner uses, and perceives, and engages with the teaching act, content, and processes. 

Because of Tillery, I believe that teaching is not about us. It's about how the students use what we empower them to do. An uncompromising pursuit to surpass our educational lineage and future contributions must begin with how our work changes students. Let's get this part right. Teaching is about them. 

Editing and Revising with Youtube Transcripts

     I’m working on transcripts for a discussion PD2Teach filmed with teachers discussing the new TEKS. At first, I played the video from the raw feed, stopping every few moments to type out all the words. Then, I accidentally turned on the closed caption function. The words were already there. I youtubed to find out how to download the transcript into Word and came up with a transcript. I realized that the transcription service had some flaws:

• 1.    It didn’t distinguish between speakers. The text reads more like a constant flow of oration rather than the discussion it really represented.
• 2.    There were no divisions between sentences, no punctuation, and all the wonky stuff we do when we talk…I wasn’t sure how to even punctuate that stuff.
• 3.    Sometimes, the text was correct, but didn’t represent the intonation and interruptions and restarts that we could follow with the audio/visual, but were impossible to interpret without punctuation or further exposition of what was left unsaid. The words couldn’t carry all the intended meaning. There were gaps.
• 4.    Even when I did have the sentences put into order and punctuated in some semblance of sense, the text still broke the rules. There were still areas that needed explanation or refinement to meet grammatical and genre and audience standards.

But here’s the kicker. It is THE most authentic experience I have had in editing a text for clarity. It is THE most authentic experience in revising a text to make sure the message is clear. It strikes me that THIS is the experience we need kids to have. See what you can make of the transcript, compare it with the audio feed (when I figure out how to load that), and compare it with my edits and revisions.

I’m wondering: what if we have kids have a conversation or speak what they are about to write? We video that and upload it to youtube and have the technology transcribe the conversation. Then the kids can go back and make the edits – because they’ll see immediately where meaning must be clarified with punctuation. Then we have the kids talk and evaluate whether or not the words need clarification, elaboration, or refinement.  

The transcript is long, so you'll probably just want to skip or skim that. But hang in there with me to the end. I think you'll see something powerful for helping your students. 

Context – Kelly Tumy of Harris County Department of Education is speaking about the Response Strand for the New ELAR TEKS. She’s pointing out a contrast to how we have been teaching to what the new standards promote. What she said made total sense based on what was before and the verbal and nonverbal cues as she spoke. The transcript...not so much sense going on there. Check it out: 

Transcript from youtube:

so I look at

30:12

this strand and my goal as a teacher was

30:16

always to raise good thinkers and I

30:20

wanted you to walk out of my classroom

30:22

yes being a good reader in a good writer

30:24

but overall I wanted you to be able to

30:26

make your own decisions and the response

30:30

skill strand I wrote down as everybody

30:33

was talking it's it's not English

30:35

language arts it's academic discourse

30:37

it's anything anybody puts in front of

30:40

you whether it's a dance move whether

30:44

it's a song whether it's a poem whether

30:47

it's an advertisement that I can talk

30:50

about that and I can look at claims and

30:52

I can look at warrants and I can look at

30:53

bias or I can look at the colors and I

30:56

can talk about what I see and how it

30:59

makes me feel and in really gone are the

31:03

days of of silo teaching of here is pick

31:09

on Romeo and Juliet but here's Romeo and

31:12

Juliet and this is what I've done but

31:14

instead what is in the news today about

31:18

difficult relationships there are

31:20

different difficult relationships and

31:22

politics there are difficult

31:23

relationships in business and if you can

31:26

hold a conversation about that you know

31:29

that we no longer have college and

31:32

career readiness standards we have

31:34

college career and military readiness

31:36

standards so those standards have now

31:38

changed in the state of Texas and look

31:41

at this strand what kind of skills are

31:45

we asking kids to develop that meet

31:48

industry standards if I'm going to work

31:51

for a chemical company is there

31:53

something here that I'm going to have to

31:55

do to be successful at a chemical

31:57

company is there something here that is

32:00

going to make me a successful realtor is

32:02

there something here that's going to

32:03

make me a success 'full my challenge is

32:07

yes that these are not language arts

32:10

skills but they're this academic

32:12

Discourse

Your Edits: Try it out. Don’t look at mine yet. See where you make the divisions and why.

My Edits:

30:11: Kelly: So I look at this strand, and my goal as a teacher was to always raise good thinkers. And I wanted you to walk out of my classroom -yes being a good reader and a good writer - but overall, I wanted you to be able to make your own decisions. And the response skill strand - I wrote down as everybody was talking -  it's it's not English Language Arts.  It's academic discourse. It's anything anybody puts in front of you whether it's a dance move, whether it's a song, whether it's a poem, whether it's an advertisement, that I can talk about that. And I can look at claims. And I can look at warrants, and I can look at bias, or I can look at the colors. And I can talk about what I see and how it makes me feel.

And really, gone are the days of of silo teaching of here is... - I don’t want to pick on Romeo and Juliet -  but here's Romeo and Juliet. And this is what I've done. But instead: what is in the news today about difficult relationships? There are different difficult relationships and politics. There are difficult relationships in business. And if you can hold a conversation about that...

You know that we no longer have college and career readiness standards? We have college, career, and military readiness standards. So those standards have now changed in the state of Texas. And look at this strand. What kind of skills are we asking kids to develop that meet industry standards? If I'm going to work for a chemical company, is there something here that I'm going to have to do to be successful at a chemical company? Is there something here that is going to make me a successful realtor?  Is there something here that's going to make me a successful... my challenge is: yes! That these are not language arts skills but they're this academic discourse.

Your Revisions: What’s not clear? What needs work? Highlight areas where you are confused or unclear about what we are talking about here.

Shona’s Revisions:

30:11: Kelly: I look at this strand, and I think about my goal as a teacher. I wanted raise good thinkers. I wanted students to walk out of my classroom as good readers and good writers. But most important, I wanted students to be able to make thier own decisions. As I look at the Response strand and the student expectation, I realize that the focus is not English Language Arts:  It's academic discourse. The focus is about developing critical discernment to analyze and interpret anything anybody asks me to consider: whether it's a dance move, whether it's a song, whether it's a poem, whether it's an advertisement. After exposure and time to think, can I have an intelligent conversation about that topic? I can look at claims, and I can look at warrants; and I can look at bias, or I can look at the colors. And I can talk about what I see and how it makes me feel.

Gone are the days of silo teaching where we focused on the content of specific texts. I don’t want to pick on Romeo and Juliet - but here's Romeo and Juliet and how we have traditionally taught this text. Instead, the Response Strand asks us to examine something deeper: what is in the news today about difficult relationships? There are different difficult relationships and politics. There are difficult relationships in business. And if you can hold a conversation about how you can use Romeo and Juliet as a model or example for your thinking and communicate that to others in classes other than Language Arts? That kind of response with academic discourse empowers learners.

Some might be surprised, but we no longer have college and career readiness standards. We have college, career, and military readiness standards. These standards have now changed in the state of Texas. Look at this strand and how it asks us to reconsider the Language Arts classroom. What kind of skills are we asking kids to develop that meet industry standards? If I'm going to work for a chemical company, is there something in Romeo and Juliet and how we approach the text that informs and empowers success at a chemical company? Is there something about the way we do our work in the English Language Arts classroom that is relevant to success as a realtor?  Is there something here that's going to lead to success regardless of what path the student takes?  My challenge to teachers is: Yes! And we must. Our standards are not simply language arts skills. The Response Strand represents and leads to useful and relevant academic discourse.

Pulling Weeds after a Rain

Grasping it by the stem, firmly, at the base
pinching at the knot of it just above the dirt
Slowly pulling, intuitively, matching the force needed
to the sense the roots dislodging but not breaking
from the soil beneath.
Feeling the runners unthread themselves
From the nearby grass.
Surprised at how far they'd reached
pulling upward and sideways to unfetter
the tangles that choked green and growth.
Sending light and air and aerated loam
to the starving cool carpet of emerald hairs.
Ants and crickets, beetles and cutworms, creatures of decay
scurry from their floating home and scramble
between the cracks in the sidewalk back to hell.
Cupping the torn carcass in my palm, like an umbrella from seeds like hail
cautiously placing the remains into a black bag,
covering the bald spot with mulch, a bandage for the earth
to smother the tare seeds and stall further assault.
Reaching for another and another until:
Surprised at the extent of scars left behind, confident the panhandle
summer heat and Bermuda runners will stretch over and heal
the abused land until you'd never know the battle I'd just fought.

The Writing Process Wheel: It's not a Wheel

Have you seen this book? 

I used to teach the writing process like this: 

Sure. I tell people it's a recursive process, but...in practice, this means that writing is more like how Doctor Who defines time: "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint – it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly...time-y wimey...stuff." Writing is not a strict progression of one thing to another. It's recursive, messy, and quite complex.

I was playing around with this idea on a poster. Writing and the teaching of writing is NOT a linear process. And I also think that we are not fleshing out what prewriting really means in terms of classroom practice and how people actually write.

The other big struggle I'm wrestling with is Prewriting. I think we need to tease out some nuances in how prewriting differs across time, genre, and place in the writing process (drafting, revising, etc.) and how it is directed by the writer's purpose. For most of us, prewriting has absolutely nothing to do with a web, a graphic organizer, or anything really. For most of us, prewriting begins with a purpose. A reason.

Prewriting actually begins with COLLECTING. This is where you find a place to keep your ideas that could turn into something later. It's like a trigger for your memory. A storage chest or pantry. A bookmark. A treasure chest. A google drive of memories and ideas.

I'm a dumpster diver. (I know you think that I've lost my mind and that this sentence doesn't belong. Stick with me. ) I find stuff that I can combine with other pieces, things I can repair, and so on. Besides the trash, there are some pretty interesting plants in the alleys too. About this time of year, things in the alley are putting on seeds. I figure that if something has pretty flowers and can grow in the alley during a Panhandle summer, I probably can't kill it. So I reach out and strip some of those seeds into my dirty, sweaty palm and put them in my pocket. If I forget about them, they end up making a mess in the washer and dryer. Sometimes, I just cast the seeds randomly into my flower beds and wonder what might come up in the spring. Other times, I put those suckers in an envelope from the junk mail and leave it in the garage on the shelf with the Miracle Grow until spring.

That's what we should be doing with writing. We need structures and strategies (and notebooks and digital portfolios) where kids can keep this kind of stuff so it doesn't end up wasted and in the lint catcher or trash of the mind. Students need to realize that they DO have things to say. These ideas become their OWN prompts - ones they CAN and CARE to write about. These ideas are seeds they can use to help develop writing for prompts that come from someone else. Students can return to these ideas over and over to activate their schema, trigger memories, add experiences and ideas.

Like the envelopes in my garage, I've started a collection of strategies that help student collect their own seeds for writing that could sprout into something interesting on a piece of paper later. I suggest starting out with Introductions, Blueprinting, Quicklists, Writing Pocket, Heart Maps, and Reading/Writing connections. Try to do 3-4 of these at the beginning of the year to get kids empowered that they really do have a richness of living and knowing that is valued and worth exploring in your class.

Once a student has some seed ideas, there's another element of prewriting that we never talk about: PRIORITIZING and SELECTING. Honestly, I'm not sure how we missed pointing out this intensely human element of writing. How do you decide what to write about? That's actually guided by some pretty important considerations that we should make explicitly clear to our students.

• Interest: Looking over the seed idea activity, have students consider: What ideas "call" to you? These could be new ideas, something recent, something you really dig, something relevant and timely for you right now. What ideas seem boring right now? Maybe you've written about this before and you're sick of it. Maybe it just doesn't float your boat right now.
• Mood: Let's be honest. Sometimes, we are just not in the mood to write about some things. Sometimes, the stuff is too emotional or just makes you say, "meh." Give yourself permission to notice and go with what you are in the mood to tackle.
• Energy: Some ideas and topics take more energy. Do you have enough for that today? If you do, then be patient with yourself as you draft and organize. What ideas on the seed idea activities seem to energize you and motivate you to tackle them with ease?
• Audience: Seriously. Who wants and needs to hear what you have to say? Write for them. And if you have a specific audience, what do they need and like to hear? Which ideas on your seed ideas would resonate with them?
• Time Available: How much time do you have or not have? When's it due? How much of it can be done in class? How busy are you right now after school?
• Level of Knowledge: What do you know about this topic? Are you going to need to do some thinking and research, or can you just start writing?
• Requirements of the Assignment: Look at your seed ideas. What seems to fit? How can you shift the ideas to meet the requirements?
• Safety: Sometimes, kids are not comfortable in sharing their ideas with just everyone in the class. They need to think about who will be reading it and what that might cost them socially. This is why the community in the classroom is so important. We can help them with that.
• Purpose: Why are you writing this? What do you want to say? What are you going to do with it? Most of the time, we probably don't know that when we are beginning...but it's a good idea to have the purpose working in the back of our minds as we shape our thinking and begin the draft.

All of these ideas are used by the thinking writer to select what they are going to write about. I usually have kids scan the seed prewriting activity and ask a few of these questions to get them thinking about what they would like to write about. I have them star three or four ideas. I show them how I decide with mine and think aloud about my decisions. Then I have them number the ideas from 1-3, prioritizing which ones seem to work for what we are learning and doing at the time. I tell them who will be reading it and how much time we will have. I show them how I am making those same decisions by numbering my ideas on the page and thinking aloud about why I made those choices. I pick the idea I want to start with, knowing that if that isn't working for me during writing time, that I have 2 or 3 other ideas that I can mess with too.

Then, we're ready for the magic. I put up my writing under the doc camera and start a freewrite. Sacred writing time and all. "I'm writing," I say, "won't you join me?"

Once we have a draft, we've planted a seed. Now it's time to let it grow. Put it in the greenhouse and water it. More on that next time. The writing process is definitely not a wheel. Or a box. It's a garden.

My department head wants me to teach...

Dear New Teacher,

I am SO impressed with the wisdom inherent in your question. "What books should I use? My department head wants me to teach To Kill a Mockingbird, but I don't like that book."

It is wise to reject a classic text because it does not resonate with you. You do not have to teach TKM. You are wise to make decisions about your own engagement and interest instead of relying on tradition. If you are excited about a text, your students will know. As a matter of fact, one of my practicing literary heroes, Kelly Gallagher, has stated that he will probably never teach TKM again. He reasons that  are so many other texts that achieve the same goals and appeal more widely today's readers and thinkers.

You are also wise because our work is not really about a book. When our questions and discussion become centered around comprehension and making inferences regarding TKM, then we are no longer teaching our standards. We are no longer teaching English Language Arts. We are teaching the book as a piece of content to be understood and to regurgitate the plot as a summary.

Instead, our work in the Arts of English is about teaching students to read, think, discuss the any text. Our work is about using those texts as vehicles for understanding life and guiding what we are inspired to do because of that understanding.

When you are selecting books for your classroom, here are some guidelines.

1. First, pick a sophisticated, rich text to share with students as a read aloud. Use that text as a place to model your thinking and application of your English Language Arts standards.

2. Curate a set of texts for students to read in small, collaborative groups. Allow them to choose the texts that resonate with them.

3. Allow students the freedom to choose books to read independently because they want to and not because the books match some arbitrary "level."

All three texts provide rich opportunities for students to provide you with authentic evidence of their ongoing mastery of the standards for your course. These texts provide multiple avenues of evidence that your students are learning a transferable skill rather than answers to questions about a single text. The conversation and evidence become more about using the answers to make decisions about their own lives and thinking resources. These texts become mentors and models for communication and creation that can transform their lives and the lives of others.

Your question inspires me and encourages me about what you will accomplish next. I'd be honored to support you along the way. I'll await your invitation.

Sincerely,

Shona Rose