Gift

It's hard to believe that, after all these years, I still have it.   A white two pocket portfolio proclaiming, "Welcome to the World of Strawberry Shortcake" and "Have a strawberry day!" 

There's  a piece of yellowed tape still clinging to the top middle with "STORIES" written in green magic marker, in all capital letters.   In the upper right hand corner, where all American children who pay attention in school know to put their names, is my maiden name.

I open the portfolio, or folder as any kid would call it.  On the left side, a much younger Jennifer had written the title "Plays and Other Stories."  On the right side, "Mysteries."   I am greeted by pages and pages of notebook paper, some stapled and some loose, filled with handwriting that is both familiar and unfamiliar to me.  Ink and pencil.   Cursive and manuscript.  Some of it is chicken scratch.  Did I really once make a cursive J like that?

There is a compilation of stories and poems stapled together, complete with a table of contents and a glossary.  These are from second grade.  I can't resist checking the glossary.  I see that the word "all" is defined as:  "Got every one of something." 

There are seven other short stories on the left side, as well as a copy of a play I remember writing while at a friend's house.   Scene 1.  Melanie walks in singing "Merry Christmas."   I remember three of us working together to write the script, practicing our lines, and performing our play for our parents who had just finished a game of Rummy.  I can still smell the Doritos we used to eat during those playdates, which were not called playdates then.  It was just what we did.

On the right side, there are more stories.  These are from fourth and fifth grades.  I remember some of them: "Nothing Means Something," "Nancy and the Mistaken Slippers," and "The Case of the Missing Keys."  I see a very long story, "Goodbye Forever," with a teacher's handwritten note on the first page:  "Be sure to send me an autographed copy of your first novel." 

There is another play, which I remember co-writing with one of my closest childhood friends Julie.  My lines in the play are highlighted in yellow.  The pages are wrinkled, probably from me carrying them around while we practiced.  This play is longer, so we probably worked on it over many sleepovers in between playing Barbies and solving mysteries in the backyard.

There is a booklet with a very nice cover on which I had written in calligraphy,  "All About My Dad."  It is dated Father's Day, age 8, 1983.
 

These pages are not just stories some kid wrote in the 1980s.  These are pages from my childhood.  They are penned by my hands before I knew how to type, before I worried about what others would think, before I wore lipstick.  They allow me to see and hold what I was thinking, feeling, and observing so many years ago.  What a gift to have given my grown-up self!

           

Inspired by Story Buckets #2

This next collection of writing comes from the younger kids in June's creative writing "sampler" workshops.  These kids, mostly rising 2nd graders, did an amazing job of coming up with stories from the random items in their story buckets.  

Story Bucket Items:
figurine of a lady
kitchen sponge
slice of pizza
mirror
fancy purse

7 year old B. wrote this story inspired by her items.  I edited the spelling only. Note how this story has both a plot and a moral lesson--very cool for this age group.  During later revisions, we will work together to strengthen the plot and further develop the moral lesson B. has in mind.

The Rich Old Lady and the Poor Old Lady

     Once there lived a rich old lady and a poor old lady.  They both had houses.  Poor old lady had a sponge and a rotten pizza.  The rich old lady had a purse and a mirror.  But the one thing that the rich and poor old lady (ies) didn't have.  A heart.  The rich old lady and the poor old lady were very cruel.  They had very dangerous creatures hunting their forests around them so to scare people nearby.  One night the creatures snuck up on the houses of the old ladies.  They attacked them and ate them!  The end!

Story Bucket Items:
glow wand
flashlight
boot
fancy glove
manatee key chain
toy horse

7 year old L. wrote this story.  I edited for spelling only.  I love how one item--the fancy glove--inspired a wedding that connected the different bucket items into a single plot.  My next step will be to work with L. on punctuation.  I encourage the group to write, write, write without regard to rules during our brainstorming time.  Revision can and should follow later.  This process also keeps budding writers from becoming too attached to their first drafts.

The Animals at the Wedding

      Once there was a woman and a man they were going to get married at the exact same time two animals were assigned to write invitations for the wedding.  One animals was a boy horse the other was a manatee.  The horse had a flashlight the manatee had a glow wand as a lamp.  After the invitations were handed out the animals got in their places at the end of the aisle when the wedding was over the woman and the man lived happily ever after.  The horse and the manatee were very happy too.  The end.

Story Bucket Items:
coil of wire
ball
necklace
snake
empty medicine bottle
action figure

6 year A. was the youngest in our group.  She was eager to start writing but wasn't sure how to connect her items in a story.  So I told her to list her items and then describe each of them.  She did a great job and I could see her starting to think about that wire and its role in the story.  Later, we developed a story idea by way of a question and answer session.  What does the snake have to do with the medicine bottle?  Does it matter that the bottle is empty?  Why would you need that wire? 

     I got a ball in my green bucket.  It has a lot of colors red, white, and blue.  I do not like boy's stuff.  I got a green necklace.  I like girl's stuff.  I got a yellow and black snake.  It is long and skinny.  Another thing I got is not a toy.  It is an empty medicine bottle.  I also got another toy.  It is an Iron Man toy.  The last thing I found a gray wire thing.  You can bend it.

Story Bucket Items:
caterpillar
glasses
birthday candles
gold chocolate coin
red apple
necklace

7 year old E. wrote this story.  Again, I edited her spelling only and we will work on punctuation revisions later.  I love that you can really get a sense of E.'s voice as a writer coming through in even this short piece.  Don't you want to read more?

      Once there was a caterpillar he had a home and a red ball and some glasses and a necklace a toy too  he never has a bad day but oh no he had a bad day  he could not find his candles for his birthday  he was turning 7 who has a bad day on their 7th birthday 
      But he just found them Yay so he sent the invitations and he stuck them in his chocolate coin   The End

Not only are these kids thinking and writing on their feet, they are also developing confidence and poise in presenting their stories aloud!  What a great group of smart, creative kids!  

“ Creativity now is as important in education as literacy.

And we should treat it with the same status.”

~Dr. Ken Robinson, creativity expert and author of 

The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything