A Favorite Lesson To Share: Memorable Words About Memorable Words

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Seventh-grader Syon read aloud, to his lesson partner and me, his description of a boy character who had just finished grueling football tryouts and was “feeling like he was on Cloud Nine.” I pointed out that the simile added nothing to the reader’s experience because it was a cliché without imagery and without power. His lesson partner—also a good friend now—nodded in agreement. I suggested that he come up with his own fresh words, as a soccer player himself, to describe this moment, “when a young athlete is sweaty, tired, aching, but deliriously happy for having given his all—you know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

While he was thinking of a new simile, his lesson partner, Daniel, offered, “What about: ‘he felt a rush of dopamine’?” Immediately, with flashing dimples, he giggled and waved his hand dismissively as we all burst into laughter.

“Not exactly multisensory imagery there, Daniel,” I joked, “except maybe for a scientist who understands dopamine!”

“See, you are from another planet!” exclaimed Syon. (Syon often teases Daniel that he is from another planet because of his extensive vocabulary and uncommonly sophisticated diction.) “That simile completely sums up how you think!”

“That simile and the dimples,” I added. “Erudite and adorable, simultaneously.”

“What does erudite mean?” asked Syon.

I looked at Daniel whom I could see was about to answer with a definition. “Daniel?”

He, of course, answered, “Erudite means knowledgeable, scholarly….”

And Syon replied, “Of course it does.”

When the next round of laughter subsided, Syon’s eyes lit up and he announced, “I just came up with a simile: ‘feeling like a dog who had finally caught his own tail.’”

“Wonderful!” I exclaimed. Daniel nodded. “What a perfect way to show that after the boy almost exhausts himself with a seemingly impossible task, he finally succeeded. What a great simile!”

And what a great lesson day!

Kids Prompting Kids with Healthy Competition Through Emulation

          Young writing students find a special kind of inspiration and motivation in high-quality works written by their peers. They also learn a lot about critiquing and editing from reading words by other kids. That is why I especially like to teach pairs or small groups of students, and facilitate their shared feedback and collaboration. And that is also why I like to use works by young authors as writing prompts. Whether I'm sharing a poignant piece written by another of my students, or a published work by a kid author featured in a children's magazine, I find that my students react with a healthy sense of competition to such prompts, driven to write words as memorable as the ones written by someone close to their age. "If a kid my age can write something that good, so can I," they tell themselves.

          Using a short memoir by another young author, "My Gygy," by Joseph Sicurezza, published in Creative Kids (Fall 2007), I asked 9-year-old Nakita to write a similar piece--full of vivid, multi-sensory imagery--about a treasured possession from her early childhood.  I explained the meaning of retrospective narration, "looking back at the past, from the present, like a storyteller does, and then reflecting on that object from the past." Her first draft offered what sounded like an outline for this final version; it lacked details and relied on "telling" not "showing" kinds of words. I read the piece aloud to her, and then asked pointed questions about what it felt LIKE  to wear those slippers, and what she used to do while wearing them. Her answers resulted in more vivid imagery, as well as some figurative descriptions, which ended up in this final draft of "My Slippers."

My Slippers

by Nakita, age 9

    I received my pair of bunny slippers when I was about 6 months old. When I was younger, I played and played and played with my bunny slippers. I remember when I wore my favorite slippers, and they glided me across the wooden floor like ice skates. My feet dug into my soft and cozy slippers when I crawled on the carpet . My slippers still smell like sweet mango from the juice dripping on them from snack time. Shh! went my slippers when I went across the wooden floor.

    Then I remember the day when I lost one of my bunny slippers. I cried so hard that my face turned red. I saw the remaining slipper by me, and I saw the tiny stuffed bear I always lost when I slept with it. I GOT AN IDEA! I quickly grabbed my slipper and my bear. I put the bear into the hollow area of the slipper where my foot went. My slipper was now a placeholder for my bear!

    From that day, I have kept my bunny slipper on my nightstand. Whenever I come into my room, I remember the memories of the slipper and how it made a wonderful home for my tiny, stuffed bear.

Aim To Change the Way Your Reader Sees the World

Do you want a goal for laboring over word choices, to justify the time it takes to come up with that perfect description? How about aiming to change the way your reader sees the world in some small way? Now that may sound like a lofty goal, maybe even overdramatic to you; however, I achieved that goal during a private lesson the other day, according to my 8th-grade student, B.

I opened my lesson by explaining to B that "literal language says just what it means, nothing more; whereas figurative language means more than what it says." She smiled and replied, "Huh...I never thought of it that way, but you're right."

Then I presented some examples of figurative imagery. First I asked her to read this sentence aloud:


The sand is like crumbled mountains, dissolved by lapping waves.


I asked, "If you read that sentence without the simile, you have a literal description of sand being lapped by waves, right?" She read it softly to herself and nodded. "And if you substitute the simile 'like coarse brown sugar' for the crumbled mountains simile, how would the sentence change?"

She wrinkled her brow. "Hmm. Well, it would describe what the sand looked like. But it's not as good as the first simile."

"Why not? It's a sweeter image, right?"

She chuckled. "Yes. But it's not as descriptive as 'crumbled mountains.' It only says what the sand looks like, but not what it's...what it's LIKE."

I prompted her further: "Okay, elaborate on that. What else, besides how the sand looks, does the image of crumbled mountains suggest to you?"

Her eyes lit up. "Time passing! It takes a long time for mountains to crumble." I was still nodding happily as she added, "Erosion!"

"Yes, yes! So it makes you think of sand a-a-as..." I led her with my rising tone.

"As pieces of mountains, not just...sand."

"Yes!" I then gave her a short metaphorical poem I wrote as an expansion of the same image. "Here. Now read this poem, please. 'The Sands of Time.'"

She read it aloud:


SANDS OF TIME

Former mountain fortresses,
eroded by the sea:
the children now rebuild your grains
into tiny castles,
still threatened by the tides of change.


"Ooh, I like that," she murmured.

"From fortresses to tiny castles, eh?" I asked, smiling.

"Yeah. I never would have thought of that. That's really cool."

I was beaming, I'm sure. "Thank you. I'm glad you like it. Okay, so how does figurative language affect a reader's perception of a scene?"

She explained, "It makes me see a new perspective, something I might not see it on my own." She paused. "Like, I'll never look at the sand at the beach the same way after reading your poem."

"You've just summed up the very reason I write, B! So that I can change the way people see the world, even in a small way!"

Now she was beaming, too.

Handing her a selection of gorgeous landscape photos torn out of an old calendar, I asked her to write her own unique perspective on one of the scenes, focusing not on how it looks, but on what it looks LIKE. "Write your own metaphorical poem." She selected a photo of rolling green hills and wrote a first draft about Mother Nature covered by her thick green blanket, slowly shifting under the grassy fabric over time--a peaceful napping earth. I will remember her metaphor when I go hiking over the green hills near my home tomorrow morning!