Kids grow up

Today was the last day of the Smoky Hill River Festival in Salina, KS. I had a great time this year, though it was HOT today. I kept reminding myself that two years ago it was even hotter. Also, we missed the horrendous rain and hail that hit Salina and the tornado that smashed the nearby town of Chapman last week. I had shows on the Children's Stage and the Bravo Salina Stage (I seem to be an honorary Salinan), and I roved around the festival with puppets.

I was reminded of the passage of time by a few events at this festival:

I saw my friend Sandy's son Karl, whom I met when he was in third grade. He's going into his sophomore year of college now. He's all grown up.
I also saw Dianna Waite's daughter Bailey for about a second. In third grade, she and Karl were good friends. I didn't get a chance to find out what she's doing, as it was in the peculiar craziness that happens just after a show as parents are trying to buy CDs, kids are trying to shake Trixie's hand, and I'm trying to keep track of everything.

A mother bought one of my CDs for her daughter, who used to have the cassette. The daughter is now 18.

Yesterday a young fellow came up to me and said, "Hey! You came to my school when I was in kindergarten...I'm going into seventh grade."

Can I really have been doing this for so long? I know some of the kids who heard me tell stories in my first audiences in 1988 are parents now!

Writing with kids

I'm back in Salina, KS this week, making up for the two snow days of December. As I write this, it's snowing and very cold. I hope school is on tomorrow.

Today was fun. I was at Sunset Elementary School. Today was a writing day with fifth graders. In the first session, I had all four classes (10 year olds, more or less) together for a storytelling performance. Because most of the kids at this school have heard me tell stories through the years, they know me. One teacher said that when she wrote my name on her whiteboard as "Miss Howe," the kids asked "Is that Priscilla?"

We had a good time in the storytelling session. Trixie and the baby puppet came out briefly, and the kids asked if I had other puppets. I promised to bring them out briefly in the writing sessions.

I did three writing sessions (one was with two classes at once). I began with a quick show-and-tell of three more puppets (the Gunniwolf, Mavis the monkey and Trixie's little sister Roxie). Then on to the writing. I read aloud a folktale, written in a slightly archaic way, and then told it. The difference in the kids' attention was startling. We talked about the two versions, what makes a good story, about the importance of imagination in writing and telling stories. In the storytelling session, I had given them an idea of one story structure, so now I gave them another. Then I introduced the idea of writing practice, and gave them an abbreviated set of rules for writing practice from Natalie Goldberg's book Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life. Here they are:

1. Keep your hand moving.
2. Don't think.
3. Don't worry about spelling, punctuation or grammar.
4. Be specific.
5. You're free to write the worst junk in America.

The students wrote these down and I explained what they meant. The goal is to stretch the writing muscles, not to have something perfectly written. I gave them a topic and set the timer for three minutes. Ready, set, write!

When they were done they read aloud in small groups. Then the whole class heard a few of them. After this, we did it again, this time for longer. More kids wanted to read aloud.

We didn't have much time, so we rushed on to one more story structure game. It's a game where we write a story line by line, folding the page backwards after each line and then passing that paper to the next person. I prompt the kids for each line: "Who was it?", "Where was he/she?", "What did he/she do?" and so on until the story is done. After each line, the paper is passed to the next kid. They're not supposed to look at the previous lines, so when the paper is unfolded, it's a completely ridiculous story. Some of them make a strange kind of sense.

The kids were great. Though some occasionally got stuck on the timed writing, generally they dove right in. I love the intensity in the room as they're writing, writing, writing, occasionally shaking a cramp out their hands. The more they do this, the more easily the words will flow out of their minds onto the paper. They seemed to like the last game, though we could have used another 15 minutes for them really to enjoy it.

Tomorrow is a storytelling day at three other schools.

Snow day!

I'm out here in Salina, KS for two days. The plan was that I'd do a day of writing workshops with fifth graders today and then have performances at other schools tomorrow. It wasn't until I'd arrived last night that I learned that school would be cancelled today.

There was a massive ice storm here. Lots of houses (and the middle school) are still without electricity. Limbs are down all over town. I went out for a walk this morning and took some pictures. It was brilliantly sunny and the trees sparkled. I used my old-fashioned camera (remember, the kind that uses something called "film"?) so I won't have the pics for a while. I dug around on youtube and found some footage, not of the sunny scenes but of earlier devastation. I'm not sure if this is Salina, but it might be:



So today was a day off. I've been getting over a cold and didn't mind having more time to feel better. I had full confidence that I'd be in the schools tomorrow.

It was a pleasant day, a motel-based solitary retreat, with a short meeting in the afternoon. I stopped at Big Lots on the way back to the motel and was surprised to hear the cashier say that school was cancelled tomorrow as well. I thought about going home, but by chance I'm in a room with a jacuzzi. I'll hang out here and make my way home tomorrow before the next snowstorm blows in.

Time to fill the tub.