The birth of an idea
I decided to give my students a day off from their mundane, ordinary and quite frankly boring essays and give them something that not only would they enjoy writing but I’d actually enjoy reading. I decided to give them a creative piece. I walked into the classroom that day and decided that this change would be a good thing for all of us. The bell rang and I decided that it was time for me to start my first period class.
“Morning Class!” I yelled as to wake up my sleeping students in the back row. My students replied with sporadic outbursts of “Good morning Ms. Harding!”
“Class, today we’ll be talking about something that I’m sure no other English teacher has...well maybe not no other English teacher but not a lot of English teachers have encouraged. It’s a little thing I like to call creative writing,” I wrote it in big letters on the board, “Let’s all try and say it together.” The students burst out in laughter over my pathetic attempt at humor.
“Creative writing,” they all said.
“Good job class!! Now let’s practice doing it. I’m going to give you ten minutes to write a paragraph on anything you want. Ready? Set? GO!”
I observed as their hands scribbled word after word as fast as they could. I watched the clock and I watched them, their minds so young, so full of ideas. “Time’s up. Finish up that last sentence. Who wants to read their paragraph first? How about you Kelly? Kelly, come up to the front of the room and read your paragraph.”
“Okay Ms. Harding.” I watched her walk up in jeans, a white shirt and a blue sweatshirt. The sweatshirt said “soft as” on one arm and “butter” on the other, and the back was decorated with a giant peace sign that said “rock and roll”. These sweatshirts were very popular and very expensive (expensive for a ten-year-old girl’s sweatshirt). She stood there nervously for a few moments and finally managed to say, “May I begin Ms. Harding?”
“Yes you may,” I replied. She read her paragraph with only a few hesitations. It had something to do with a fantasy world where everyone wore pink and sang everything that they thought. I have no idea how some people get these ideas into their heads.
“Thanks Kelly, that was great. Good use of detail. Who wants to go next? We have time for one or two more. How about you George?”
“All right Ms. H” He walked up to the front of the class with attitude. He had on Adidas pants with a shirt that said, “I cause break ups” and a red sox hat that was slightly tilted to the side with his overly gelled hair sticking out the top. I had never understood why teachers hated it when students wore hats so I never asked any of mine to take theirs off. He read his paragraph and it was of course a typical response. Something about a world where you didn’t have to go to school and you could play sports all day. Then the bell rang.
“Alright class hand in your paragraphs,” I said, “Don’t forget, for homework you must find a poem by any author of your choice and write a response to the author’s message. Don’t be afraid to be creative!” After all of my students left I erased the board and got ready for the next class. I started the rest of my classes the same way I started the other one with the same stupid joke and I got the same exact burst of laughs over my pathetic comedy.
When I got in my car to drive home I plugged in my ipod once again. I put on some Rascall Flatts song and then set it to shuffle mode. While I was driving I sang every word to every song that came on. Moments like this always made me happy. Music had a way of setting me free. Even on my toughest days, I could get into a good mood just by putting on my ipod or fooling around on the piano with my Beatles book.
When I got home that night I knew that I had to grade every one of those paragraphs. I started by making a pile for class one, then a pile for class two, then another for class three and one more for class four. Most of the papers contained the same sort of idea, child fantasylands with no school and lots of games. Then I came across a paper, a paper that interested me. One of my students named, Seth Anderson, wrote an unbelievable paper. I kept reading it again and again as though by doing that I would be able to absorb the information simply by reading it. It was an unbelievably brilliant paper.
“I walk on the road everyday. Which road, you may ask? The only road that’s referred to as “THE ROAD,” similar to the way that people in New York refer to NYC as “the city.” It’s not the only one, it’s just the most prominent one. All I can see is white, whatever small length of road is in front of me, a crumbled intersection and two destroyed bubbles that we used to call home. What happened to our homes? Well, a few years ago. I lived in what is now called Universe A and they lived in Universe B. We didn’t know that the other existed. Until one day when a famous scientist by the name of Molly Haverstraw, of Universe A, discovered Universe B while on a space mission to each the end of the universe. She was met by Universe B’s top scientist Leon Motte who had coincidentally been on the same mission. Once they met in the center of the road connecting the two bubbles, a third road opened and a new bubble formed. Before them lay a tablet, which read: Here lie two homes and one fate. Take this new route. Pack up your homes. Time is running out. They then departed to their respective universes and rounded up every last creature, piled them into rockets and sent them all off in a month. Traveling through the space superhighway was a nightmare. It took a full two weeks to get everyone into the new Universe. The second that the last person stepped inside we saw a flash and in an instance both of the old universes had been destroyed. Now we have been here for five years. Every year we go back to the spot where each one of us entered and we celebrate the day we became one.”
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