A SHORT

It’s likely that most ELA teachers have been in the situation I found myself in one day: asking a question about a longer piece of writing our class was reading and getting… crickets. I cleared my throat and tried to rephrase, hoping to get someone to say something about the piece. Nothing. Zip. Nada.

             Next class, I changed gears. I loaded a 100-word story onto Google Classroom, read it to them, and had them read it again. Right then. On the spot. Then I asked the same questions I’d asked before: What’s important about where this is set? Who are these characters? What do they want? What are the themes?

           Hands went up. More than several. What was happening? I kept bringing in stories. They kept responding. So I had them write some, centering on a list of themes we’d generated from the stories we’d been reading. They wrote for me. And wrote. And wrote.

          I started referring to these stories as “Small, Bright Things” because they brought with them a sort of magic to my classroom. They glimmered, breathing new life into our study of literature and our original writing.

             When I first started assigning 100-word stories, one of my students said in surprise, “It’s like all the parts of a real story, but short!” I love this – even as I explained to her that a 100-word story is a real story, she was spot on about its parts. This is the beauty of using these stories to teach exploration and analysis of individual literary elements. In another class, we were unpacking a student’s original 100-word story when one of his classmates pointed out to him, “you devote 62 words to setting – that leaves almost nothing for all the other stuff!”

           All that other stuff is what this teaching guide breaks down. All the parts –not just of a short story, but of any longer piece of fiction too: character, setting, point of view, conflict/tension, sensory description, arc, theme. Each 100-word story allows students to explore a structure that holds all of these essential literary elements in an easily digestible package. I have found that working with this form before we dig into larger pieces, or during the study of longer pieces, enables my students to more readily recognize these elements in any piece of literature, because the study of these 100-word stories teaches them to identify a story’s intrinsic architecture.

          Before you read the following excerpt from Chapter 15, first have yourself/students do the exercise from Chapter 14: The First Line – The Window into the World. To start with, practice making a list of 6-8 compelling first lines.

          Chapter 15: “The Landing” -- the Power of the Last Line Literary focus review terms: first lines, the stakes, symbolism Featured Author: Ana Sagebiel, age 16 As with the hook of the first line and that window it creates into a story, the power of the last line should provide a satisfying ending, or “the landing” of the story. Everything in the story leads up to this moment and it is our job as writers to make it count. Have your students read the story, “The Human Algorithm,” written by teen author, Ana Sagebiel, with particular attention to that last line.

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                 The Human Algorithm

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                They picked her up in Los Angeles from a failed commercial job, desperate for a role. Her bags were packed for her.   

                There was a car driving by, the exhaust smelling slightly of bubblegum.

                Just one more thing they had gotten wrong about Earth.

             Her polka dot dress fit just right. The room was clean, maybe too clean. Everything seemed normal. They promised this was the last role she would ever have to play: Caucasian woman, 32, lower-end job. She was there to fill a space. She sighed faintly, smoothing her already ironed dress.

                She missed the smell of gas.

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DISCUSSION:

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1. Have students underline two places in the story that make them wonder something about this character and place. Share their findings with the group.

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2. Have students circle 2-3 specific details in the story that provide clues to the idea that something about this world might be strange.

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3. What do we know about the main character? What are some specific details that show this?

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4. Who might “they” be? What details from the story support this theory?

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5. Have students look closely at the last line. How does it “land” for them? How does it wrap up the rest of the story to give it a clear beginning, middle and end (arc)?

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6. What might be the significance of the title?

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Writing Practice:

Have the students use the list of possible first lines they wrote in their exercise from Chapter 14. Choosing one, have them write an original 100-word story set in an unusual place or centered around an unusual, even magical, idea. Have them focus on creating a last line that reveals something – either about the character, the world itself, or both.

 

Tie-in to classroom reading:

For the classroom novel or an outside reading book, have students look closely at both the first and last lines of three to four chapters. Are these good examples of windows into the story? Are the “landings” effective for these chapters? Why or why not?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kim Culbertson holds an M.S. in Education, an MFA in Fiction, and has been teaching high school creative writing and English since 1997. She is the award-winning author of five YA novels. Her titles Catch a Falling Star, The Possibility of Now, and The Wonder of Us were Scholastic book club selections. She won the Northern California Book Award for YA fiction for Instructions for a Broken Heart as well as had The Possibility of Now named a Bank Street Best Book of the Year. In addition to teaching high school, Kim sits on the Writers Council for National Writing Project and works as a Fiction mentor with Dominican University of California’s MFA in Creative Writing.  With 100-word Stories: A Short Form for Expansive Writing, Kim has finally found a way to blend her two professional loves, teaching and writing, into one book. These small, bright things have transformed her classroom and her own writing—she would love to share their potential with you. www.kimculbertson

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