On Writing & Teaching Writing

ALL DONE

/ Fran Haley / 16 Comments

A Slice of Life tribute starring my granddaughter Micah, age 17 months.

First, a quick lesson in Micah-speak:

Hey Mama – standard greeting for anyone, female or male

Na na na na na na – a favorite song lyric

All done (usually accompanied by hand motions) – I’ve had enough

now, without further ado…

Hey Mama
Hey Mama

got my cup
can’t we get up
got no more water
betta change ya daughter

ALL DONE

Hey Mama
Hey Mama

tired of quesadilla
tired just to be ya
do grown-ups really see ya
countin’ one-two-three-yah

ALL DONE

Hey Mama
Hey Mama

books and toys galore
I just can’t, anymore
thinkin’ ’bout a snooze
but don’t you take my shoes

na na na na na na
na na na na na na

I’m ALL DONE

Girl, I am feeling it…

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

and to so many fellow Slicers who kept me going
more than you ever knew

we’re all done
but only with the March challenge

not with writing
not with life

especially over here today

’cause my beautiful Micah
is coming over to play

Hey Mama
Hey Mama

we’ve only just begun

Blessing

/ Fran Haley / 19 Comments

noun

a favor or gift bestowed by God, thereby bringing happiness.

—Dictionary.com

*******

I could hardly wait to get home yesterday to check the progress of the new finch nest on my door wreath.

On Day Two, it now has the characteristic cup shape. It’s lined with white fuzz, a soft cushion for the precious eggs to come.

It is comprised almost exclusively of fresh green grass. The color of newness and life.

House finches are said to represent new beginnings.

Their nests always fill me with awe, and never more than now, watching the parents working together to rebuild immediately after two of their babies died in the previous nest, which I tore down. Confession: I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing. Nature is mighty, ever-resilient, wise; it is imbued with regenerative power. Yet there are so many delicate balances within it. I didn’t want to upset any of these. I am a mere student of these birds. They are the experts.

So to see this nest being built in the exact spot as the ill-fated former one is a gift. It sends my spirits soaring, exponentially.

House finches are considered symbols of joy. If you ever hear one singing, you understand why.

In some parts of the world, they’re called the blessing bird.

They chose my door years ago as the place to bring new life into the world. I now share the wonder of it with my seven-year-old granddaughter, our “nurture scientist.” Together we have witnessed the miracle of tiny life coming into existence and eventually taking flight. In a couple more seasons, her baby sister will be able to enjoy it, too.

After I took this photo of the new nest, rejoicing and wondering when the first egg will appear, I went into the house to find a mysterious package my husband had retrieved from the mailbox.

Neither of us had ordered anything.

Curious.

I opened it…

A gift from a friend I met through writing, who reads about my finches each spring, who knows of the recent loss.

I am awed again.

A writing community is like a nest: a safe place especially created for growth, where we nurture one another and encourage each other to stretch our wings and fly.

It is here that we learn the true power of story and how it knits our hearts together. In the beginning, in the end, we are story.

To live it, write it, build it together, is a gift.

And the time for doing it is now. Today.

My love for the finches, like my love for writing, is inextricably woven through and through with gratitude for the blessings in my life. It’s all a song in my heart, greater than words.

Each day brings its own gifts. It’s up to us to see them, accept them, celebrate them.

And to give in return.

Beyond the horizon
Lies infinite possibility
Eyes cannot see.
Sky meeting sea
Sea meeting sky…
I fly ever onward
Nested and rested in the
Giver of every good and perfect gift.

Today, there might be an egg.

********
with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

and my dear gift-giver

Wall on the writing: a scrambled idiom poem

/ Fran Haley / 16 Comments

On the last day of Ethical ELA’s Open Write, host Denise Hill offered this invitation:

“Take a metaphor or idiom and reverse it or twist it up in any which way you choose – mumbo jumbo jam it!

Then write from the ‘sense’ the new phrase makes. It may be total nonsense. That’s perfectly fine! It may provide a ‘feeling’ or strike a memory chord or a fantasy chord with you in some way that inspires your poem today. Just go with it!”

Here is what came of my scrambling the writing on the wall…

The Wall on the Writing

In prehistory
cave-dwellers
dipped their fingers
into animal fat
charcoal
their own earwax

then dirt and ash

to paint their stories
on the walls
by flickering torchlight

over time
many caves
collapsed

to be reabsorbed
by the earth

In the course 
of human migration
the region of the caves
became a fortified city
with iron gates
and great stone walls

one of which
was constructed
over the buried caves

It is said that at this wall
the great orators
gave their mighty speeches
humble petitioners
made their prayers
poets composed their epics
chroniclers penned histories
and storytellers
found their words

I do not know
if the wall 
or the legends
are real

but I do know
that when I
hit a writing block
that I cannot
go over
around
or through
if I dig
deep
deeper
deeper still
within

I will find
the words

just human DNA
finding its way
with story
waiting 
deep
deeper
deeper still
beneath the wall
on the writing

Stone Wall. jcubic. CC BY-SA 2.0.

with thanks to Denise Hill and the Ethical ELA Open Write community

and Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

for story really is

in our DNA

Taking stock: my pile of good things

/ Fran Haley / 25 Comments

*******

With thanks to Stef Boutelier for the “pile-poem” form and Canva template on Day Two of Ethical ELA’s Open Write.

Thanks also to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge.

Life IS a challenge. The greatest. For writing inspiration, Stef quotes author Rainbow Rowell:

So, what if, instead of thinking about solving our whole life, you just think about adding additional good things. One at a time. Just let your pile of good things grow. 

What might your “pile of good things” be?

Sleep experiment poem

/ Fran Haley / 9 Comments

This is not what you think.

The poem you’re about to read is not about a sleep experiment.

It is an experiment in writing a poem about sleep, using Artificial Intelligence (AI).

On Day One of Ethical ELA’s OpenWrite, host Stef Boutelier invited participants to try AI for creating or modifying a poem, stating that “AI is here to stay. We might as well learn alongside and make sure our humanity isn’t disposed of too quickly.”

She shared these sites with the directive to “explore ways you might use, learn, or negate AI within the lens of poetry”:

So, as a test of AI vs. human creativity, I used the poem generator to write a villanelle.

My topic was sleep (I am coveting it in the throes of getting over a lengthy cold, going into week three) and as I was prompted to choose two characters, who better than Somnus and his son Morpheus, gods of sleep?

Confession: I did alter a few of the rhyming words but that is all…

Without further ado, the experiment results:

Somnus’s Torment: The Villanelle of the Sleep

Somnus couldn’t stop thinking about the sleep
It was just so elusive and desired
But he could never forget the sheep

That morning, Somnus was shocked by the upkeep
He found himself feeling rather wired
Somnus couldn’t stop thinking about the sleep

Later, he realized that the sleep was deep
He thought the situation had become rather uninspired
But he could never forget the sheep

Morpheus tried to distract him with a leap.
Said his mind had become too misfired
Somnus couldn’t stop thinking about the sleep

Somnus took action like a veep
The sleep was becoming required
But he could never forget the sheep

Somnus’s demise was cheap
His mind became dangerously tired
Somnus couldn’t stop thinking about the sleep
But he could never forget the sheep

And there you have it.

Give me “Do not go gentle into that good night” any day.

This is not to say that AI can’t inspire or help with learning form and composition. In fact, its greatest offering might be a lesson in the power of revision.

And while it can actually generate some alarmingly wonderful things, I don’t think AI can ever out-poet the human mind.

I shall have to write my own villanelle now…but I won’t be using AI.

Has it ever seen or heard the birds? Has it ever smelled cut grass or felt the heartbeat of a living creature? Can it experience anything?

No.

Here’s to using the senses and the soul to capture the experience of being alive. Is this not the whole purpose of writing?

Meanwhile, sleep is still calling me…

*******

with thanks to Stef Boutelier on Ethical ELA
and to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

A word on writing

/ Fran Haley / 7 Comments

I love writing, teaching writing, and helping others love writing.

There was a time in my career when I designed and co-created workshops for teachers as writers so that they could channel their own positive experiences into the classroom with students, to model for them how an embryo of an idea comes to life, how it grows bones and flesh and begins breathing and crying and rejoicing and blazing trails right there on the page (or screen). I led professional development. I went into classrooms. I worked alongside teachers and kids. I witnessed powerful things…I can still see the tears, the glowing faces, the pride and awe in the eyes of kids (and their teachers) over something they’d created, that came from within.

They wanted more.

That was before changes in my district, moving away from the writing workshop model and Lucy Calkins in general. Now writing is embedded in the Language Arts curriculum, largely in response to reading. The goals are lofty and writing assignments follow a highly prescribed pattern. Neatly formulaic. Uniform.

That is not to say there’s never any creativity… for example, in a nine-week unit series of extensive reading and writing about frogs, the students get to compose poems and write pourquoi tales about frogs. The pacing and process are pretty intensive… which is why a teacher came to me: “Could you meet with some of my students to help them with the pourquoi tales? So many are struggling. Meeting with each one is taking so long.”

It was like old times, almost, these writing conferences…except with the unique challenges of writing a myth about how some true facet of frogdom came to be while describing the setting and the frogs, giving them character traits, having them talk, and ending up with a lesson learned, i.e., moral to the story. —Did I say, by the way, these kids are around eight years old?

And did I say that there’s no way to teach writing without conferring with the writers? This is, in fact, THE teaching…teachers learning about the learners and figuring out what to do for them.

For there is an English learner who understands so much more than he’s able to convey; his struggle is with grammar, as word order is different in his language. His ideas, however, are original; he incorporates what he knows about his own father’s work. There is a child who missed some critical days in the unit and didn’t understand what to write about, and therefore wrote a completely off-topic but interesting narrative. Once he understood, he went on to compose an engaging narrative with a brilliant, metaphorical moral.

One by one, the kids came, and we talked about what they were trying to accomplish with this pourquoi, and then we figured out the big “hows” and “whys” in the tale… usually by my asking “what if…” and the lights in their eyes would come on. The sparkly pink and rainbow-dotted and brown-and-blue striped frogs came to life. They had conversations. They made bad choices like cheating; they made good choices by helping each other anyway. The tales explained why frogs jump so high, why their tongues are so long, why some are so colorful, why some are poisonous. They learned a lot of lessons about being better frogs.

One resistant boy didn’t want to stop working on his draft revisions to go to specials: “This is fun!” he said.

Oh, child. Somewhere the King of Frogs nods his head in understanding. I can almost see his tiny golden crown cocked to the side of his head, by his ancient and all-knowing eye:

Ribbit.

Only I hear it as Pourquoi…

Why.

frog

Frog. Dave Huth. CC BY

with special thanks to Two Writing Teachers for all you do on behalf of student writers and their teachers…our stories matter.

Mystery prompts…

/ Fran Haley / 5 Comments

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, Exploring mysteries, here’s a list of questions that have magically appeared in my supposed-to-be-empty WordPress blog posts this month:

What is one thing that you would change about myself?

What are five things you’re good at?

Do you have a favorite place you’ve visited? Where is it?

What big events have taken place in your life over the last year?

What could you do less of?

Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?

Tell about your first day at something—school, work, as a parent, etc.

What skills or lessons have you learned recently?

Is your life today where you pictured it a year ago?

All you writer-friends out there know the power of a good prompt for overcoming writer’s block, for reaching far and deep, tapping into memory and emotion. Writing itself is a release. It is healing. Perhaps even preventive medicine. Writing is a unique means of expression, of thinking, of creativity, of craftsmanship. It is a singular key for unlocking many mysteries, the greatest of all being yourself.

When gifts are offered, take them…they’re meant for your benefit, enjoyment, edification. The WordPress elves at work behind the scenes here clearly know this. These prompts are likely meant to be answered one by one (I have written to two: one thing I would change about myself and what skills I’ve learned recently) but today I wonder if I could tie them all into one reflection. For better or worse, here goes…

It is said that change is constant. I am constantly changing, growing older, a little slower. I would not change this. It is the price of having been alive a while. I’m willing to pay it. What one thing would I change about myself? My answer now would be different than it would have been years ago. I might have chosen something superficial, having to do with my appearance. Now I am much more concerned with my spirit. How do I narrow what I’d change to just one thing? I should choose to be more gracious, patient, forgiving, even loving…but as I write, the word listen blankets everything else that comes to mind. I would listen to others more. Not with my ears. With my soul. To hear what lies behind their words, their actions. Words are a thing I’m good with, usually. Were I to comprise a list of five things I’m good at, words are linked to at least half of it: I’m good at reading, writing (so I’m told…I do love it and work at it), imagining, wondering, and drinking coffee. In a way these are the five pillars of my daily life, the things I enjoy most, next to time spent with my family. When my boys were small my grandmothers told me that I was a good mother. Their simple proclamation, a revelation of their great esteem for motherhood, felt like the bestowment of a royal title. My boys have the final say, however. Children know all their parents’ flaws, eventually. What matters is that they know how much they are loved and that they learn to love. It is the beginning of belonging. It is why, when asked if I have a favorite place, I’m always going to talk about my grandparents’ home deep in the countryside, along an old dirt road (it’s gravel now). I haven’t been since the house has been torn down and a new one built for a young family. While I dread going because of that, another part of me desperately longs to go…to walk the old road once more, to remember being a child, hearing my grandmother’s old, old stories and my grandfather’s raspy, warm I love you when he offered his clean-shaven cheek to me for a goodnight kiss… again, listen. I imagine sensing them near even if all I hear is the breeze rustling the Spanish moss which wasn’t there, hanging there from the treetops, when I was a child. Once upon a time, though, there were little bridges along the road, due to the many canals…I don’t know what became of those bridges. But the tiny church at the crossroads remains, where my grandparents are buried with generations of my ancestors. One day soon, I must go. I carry them all and their stories with me… I am their story, the continuation of it, as my granddaughters are mine. They are the greatest event of my life in the last three years, one coming into our family at age three and the other born just over a year ago. They are the big event of my every day. I can almost hear Grandma chuckling…now you understand. Listen, listen. Carve time away from the clamor of the world to be still…to minimize distractions, to be fully present when another human is speaking to me, especially my young ones, especially my quiet son with the musical gifts and beautiful singing voice. So many layers there. Listen. I need to be less concerned with work; it is my livelihood, not my life. The family is my life. My pastor-husband, my pastor-son and his girls, The Boy and his music and funeral ministry, all our dogs, the church, the faith, the Lord God, Giver of all good gifts, including life, are my life. How perfect are His ways. Long ago when I was performing in plays and traveling to audition for acting school in New York, I could not have dreamed it would lead me to where I am now, that at nineteen I’d meet the man I’d marry through community theater. The title of that play: Whose Life Is It Anyway? Not just mine. Ours. It was ordained. I had an inkling of it, that first day after we were married, when we stood in the crashing ocean waves and I held onto my new gold wedding band for dear life, for fear of losing it. I knew salt isn’t good for jewelry. I just couldn’t bring myself to remove the ring. New beginnings are so fragile at first. As are new ideas. All these years into our journey, we still look for the new even within the old: we are going to learn how to use that Dobsonian telescope I got us for Christmas. We shall soon be wandering among the stars, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, all extending their glittering invitation every cold, cold night. I just learned I wasn’t using the finderscope properly. How poetic. Metaphorical. That’s what writing is for me… a finderscope. Through it I see the memories, the gratitude, the loves of my life…the light from years past, still meeting me right where I am today; I would not change a thing about that.

*******

with thanks to WordPress for the magical prompts and to Two Writing Teachers for the story-sharing place.

Happy holidays to all.

Why I Write—2022

/ Fran Haley / 6 Comments

Every year for National Day on Writing, I reflect on why I write.

It’s like looking at a diamond ring in a semi-darkened room. Different facets catch the light, scattering sparks of brilliant color, red to orange, green to blue. Writing, for me, is an inner fire. A living fire. It is in my blood the way that farming was in my grandfather’s blood, that music is in my son’s, that crafting was in my mother’s, that a love of children was in my grandmother’s. I see different facets even in these comparisons. Farming is about sustenance. Cultivating the earth, harnessing resources to make it produce—this is what earth is designed to do. Music is expression, form, response, sounds in time, even color. It can be endlessly repeated and replicated; it is the unique and universal language of humankind. Crafting…it takes skill to make a new, useful thing from pieces placed exactly right, sewing them together so that the seams don’t detract. My mother was given a hand-me-down sectional sofa covered with pink scratchy fabric (it was 1970s horrible). She studied it, measured it, bought earth-tone floral fabric and cording and systematically created a custom slipcover that lasted for years. The love of children…does this not tie all of the above? Creating, nurturing, producing, expressing, a contribution to the future.

Writing is all of this.

One can make the argument that all these things are learned, and so they are. But that doesn’t account for the compulsion to do them even when there is no need. Granddaddy gardened into his nineties when he didn’t have to produce his own food anymore, when all he could manage was two small rows in the old dog pen after the dog was dead and gone. He carried a chair to sit on and rest between the kneeling to weed. My son hears all the instruments, all the harmonies, in a song; he spends hours recording a song over and over with different instruments, singing the different vocals, until it all comes together like he wants it…simply for the joy of accomplishing it. My mother received little income from the clothes she made for people; she crocheted countless baby blankets as gifts. She made flop-eared stuffed bunnies with changeable clothes, for the whimsical fun of it, never making a dime. Craftsmanship is beauty unto itself. Like art. Like music. My grandmother’s face shone like the sun at sight of children. I was one of her greatest beneficiaries, my life indelibly shaped, still being shaped, by her love. I might also mention it was Grandma who sparked my love of reading and writing long before I could do either.

Writing, in the end, has much to do with story. At least for me. The story of having lived and loved. The story of seeking the beautiful. The story of gratitude for finding it, in all of life’s brilliant facets and sparks, even in the shadows. There would not be shadows if there were no light. It is there, always there, for the capturing.

And so I write.

Necklace given to me by my father. Years later, it still shines.

Slices of life recycled

/ Fran Haley / 17 Comments

If the writer
observes the world
then the artist
recreates it
and the poet
preserves it all

Knowing yesterday was a milestone anniversary of my father’s death, a friend created this digital image as a gift. She took lines from one of my blog posts, Fresh-cut grass, written in his memory: Grass, though cut, always heals itself and grows again, and you are always present in that sweet scent. She used pictures in my posts to make the grass…here in these blades are slices of my first Christmas, the cross necklace my father gave me, a portion of his Air Force uniform, and a lamppost like the one that stood in the yard of my childhood home; my father used say that when he turned onto the street he could see the light of home shining straight ahead.

I’m in awe of the gift and its artistry.

A metaphor for life itself.

My father’s presence remains in the scent of fresh-cut grass. Here is Sunday’s poem, marking the twentieth year of his passing: September, When Grass Was Green.

*******

with thanks to E. Johnson for the digital masterpiece and to Two Writing Teachers for the original impetus to start a blog for capturing Slices of Life. I began by writing each Tuesday in April 2016, then every day each March, then for Spiritual Journeys on the first Thursday of each month, and on occasion for other writing communities like SOS— Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog…and every day thus far in the year 2022.

If you are reading…thank you.

We are our stories. Let us write them and live them well. And bring healing to one another.