Today was our first day of studio-style writing.
Here was our schedule:
1. Read My Name by Sandra Cisneros. This is an example of how thinking about your name can reveal elements of your personality and thoughts. We discussed the tone, style, and big ideas of Cisneros’ piece.
2. Selection of ideas. Students starred 3 of the bullet points from their name chart to help focus their writing.
3. Students changed the bullet points into sentences, explaining the significance of their name and any memories they associate with it.
HW: Complete a draft of the name piece. This should feel complete and be AT LEAST one page in length.
About the Writer’s Notebook:
All left-hand pages are reserved for notes and prewriting.
All right-hand pages are reserved for full-sentence writing.
This means, if you are writing, you should start on a right-hand page and, when you complete the page, do not write on the back of it. Just go one to the next page. This way, all your complete sentence writing will appear on right-hand pages. This will allow you to write notes about your piece on the left without having to cram it into the margins.
Here is a sample draft:
“My mother named me. It seems like she did everything for me. And she named me after the czars of Russia. I was Alexa, for Alexandra, and my brother Nic, for Nicholas (the great). I mean, I realize she loves us and all, but, really? The last czars of Russia? Talk about high expectations. She seems to have thought that my brother and I would take over the country. Her naming me was some form of her control over me. She never liked my boyfriends… They seemed to be never good enough for the czar.
Now, to talk about the names the men in my family gave me. My dad calls me Darter. And my brother, Nik calls me Sis. Okay, now, here’s the thing: these are neither proper given names (like Alexa) nor true family relatinoships. Sis is not even sister. And Darter far from daughter. It’s like they… we… were too smart to be family?
[This is how much I got written in one class period. My completion of the piece continues below:]
Darter. It all started with the letter he sent me at camp. I was at Interlochen for the first time. That was the year I first knew my dad. He seemed kind of distant up until then. Darter was, I think, his way of expressing his love for me. It was like he didn’t have it in him to call me daughter. I actually remember the first time he said, “I love you.” I must have been 14. It was tough for him. But now he says it every time I talk to him. As if he were proud of it. As if it were as great an accomplishment as quitting smoking. Which he hasn’t. Darter is his Wisconsin sarcasm coming through. His ridicule of where he comes from. As if he were ashamed of his country ways. Now it’s a joke.
And my brother calls me sis. Again. This is because we’re not that close. Not even close enought to admit family ties.
What is this all about? What’s wrong with the men in my family? Can they not admit that they love me? That I am their blood, too? That our dark hair and our pale hands tell the world that we are one but… we’re just too ashamed to admit it? As if, intellectual creatures that we are, we are beyond family ties. We are the supermen, bound by nothing, intellects, artists, out in the ether, unbounded by our ridiculous families. Ready to hit the road, alone, ashamed.”
ALEXA GARVOILLE 