A Patchwork Life

I’ve been in bed since yesterday afternoon– swine flu? who knows?– and it’s been raining since then too, so I’ve been snuggled up with my comforter and we’re watching Enchanted.

So why not a weekend blog post?

Yesterday, in the class I taught right before going home and taking a four-hour nap, I finally got to put some of my theories into action as far as teaching the iceberg theory. I had asked the students to read The Killers and Hills Like White Elephants, and in preparation, I had made a Word document of “The Killers” and printed it out. It came out to twelve pages, and due to absences, I only had six students, so each student got two pages. Of course, you could pair students if you have 24 students, or give each person one page if you have twelve, and if you want, you could do both stories in tandem. I think it could work with any size group of students. I planned this lesson over the summer, but of course, didn’t plan to be sick while teaching it.

I started by explaining the iceberg theory and how Hemingway thought about his work. I asked them to tell their initial thoughts and responses to the story, and we talked about those. Then we talked a little about how the story in front of us was a skeleton, and we could flesh it out, and think about whether we preferred the skeleton or the fleshed-out version. So they took their pages, and fleshed it out, adding adjectives, adverbs, description, interior thoughts, and whatever else they thought might add something, making sure their name was on each page. It was great– they were quiet and intent and really thought about their choices. Then I asked them to take out their books and review the story, and I dashed down the hallway and made six copies of the “new” story. Then we read the new story, and I gave them each a highlighter and asked them to mark which revisions they noticed, for whatever reason.

It was a great exercise– they saw that there were consistent threads in their additions, like making the same characters nervous and anxious, and other characters consistently sarcastic. They also chose the same character–Nick Adams– to flesh out more, giving him feelings of guilt and shame and concern that unfolded through the story. We had a nice discussion about tone and adverbs and how characters evolve through the story. Some students preferred the “new” version and others the old, and we talked some about that too. I had planned for them to write about their preferences and choices at the end, but was so foggy I forgot. We finished by talking about the way Hemingway ended it, with a “zero ending,” and a little about how in real life, this is often all we know.

It would have been a stronger class if I had been more on my mental game and could have done a better job facilitating, but even still, it worked well. I think it was a great way for them to really think about a story from the inside out, and as a result of authorial choices, and then what authorial intent might have been. I’m sure I’ll be posting more about this unit– this was the second day, and for the first class, we had a great discussion about A Jury of Her Peers, one of my favorite short stories. I’m really enjoying this new unit so far.