story-of-an-hour-pdf-version

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Backseat Teaching: Reflections on the Instructor's Role in a Student-Driven Project I have always been skeptical about the notion of a ―student-driven classroom‖ and even more skeptical about the genuineness of English instructors who use that term to describe their approach to teaching literature or composition. Whenever I encounter that phrase, I instantly recall the advice of a professor who led a teaching statement-writing workshop that I attended as a graduate student. ―Please,‖ he pleaded, ―Do not go into an interview saying that you embrace the philosophy of a ‗student-centered classroom.‘‖ The truth, he continued, is that ―everyone knows that all professors really embrace a ‗mecentered‘ classroom.‖ While I, like so many of my progressive-minded colleagues, do truly believe in the value of a classroom that is driven by the students‘ needs and interests, I also believe that my professor‘s cynical assessment of the student-driven paradigm is fundamentally true. Try as we might to let our students determine the shape and flow of the classroom discussions and activities, that ―me-centered‖ model often manages to slide its way into the most well-intentioned teaching practices. Perhaps this is because the role of the instructor becomes unclear in a classroom where students are encouraged to take the lead in discussions and debate. For students to thrive in such an environment, the instructor has to be willing to marginalize his or her own voice occasionally in classroom discussions. Rather than leading a discussion or inviting students to comment, we may have to guide the exchange among students in various nonintrusive ways--or simply keep quiet and let the discussion unfold, digressions and all. I find this to be a monumental exercise in self-restraint and patience on my part and, at times, frustrating and unnerving.

Working on this project with my first-year honors students has helped me to learn to embrace teaching from the margins. The project was originally conceived as a collaborative story to be written by the students under my instruction. For my purposes, this was an assignment designed to reinforce the postmodern theme of the course. I thought that the act of writing a story from multiple perspectives grounded in a single genre and cast of literary archetypes would give the students a sharper understanding of the structure of postmodern narratives, character development, and rhetorical devices. What I did not anticipate, however, is the degree of ownership that the students would assume over the concept and creation of the story. From the earliest stages of development they gently but firmly rejected my attempts to shape the story. When I challenged them on their original concept, a comedy in the style of a mockumentary populated with the various archetypal honors students, they held their ground. Rather than give up their idea, they continually reworked it to correct those elements I identified as problematic until they had a solid framework for the story.

Throughout this process, my role gradually shifted from project leader to project consultant. I was invited into discussions of the project to clarify technical points or pre-established guidelines. They asked me questions like ―Is this an archetype or stereotype?‖ or ―How many pages can each group have?‖

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Or, I was asked to settle disagreements over stylistic choices: ―Do you think it would be funny to add a moose?‖ or ―Wouldn‘t it be more interesting if our character wore glasses?‖ In these instances, I was consulted primarily because I was the only ―outsider‖ who happened to be around; often, my opinion did not settle the matter. In fact, I got the impression more than once that my opinion served as an index of what not to do.

My marginal status in the creation of this story was solidified when the students chose to incorporate my absence from class on the day the story was planned into the story. The entire story revolves around their inability to complete the planning of the story on the day that their professor is out of town. The one hour and fifteen minutes in question refers to the class period they were supposed to use to work out the structure of the story together while I attended (allegedly attended, according to their accounts) a field trip in Atlanta. Thus, one of the themes running through ―The Story of an Hour and Fifteen Minutes‖ is my absence during the critical stages of the story‘s development. This theme also characterizes my real role in the development of the project. Because I was not there when the idea was conceived, my knowledge of the project was always anecdotal, second-hand knowledge, filtered through the multiple conflicting accounts the students have shared with me. Both as a character and a real-life instructor, my authorial voice/ authority with regard to this project is diminished by my absence during the planning stages of the project.

The writerly position that I take up in the story as the beset professor who has lost control over her class and been made into a marginal figure in their class project is not far from the truth. As the project progressed and we embarked on the ―Behind the Story of A Story of an Hour and Fifteen Minutes‖ movie, the students worked more independently. They met after classes to work on revisions and the movie. Twice, we worked on Saturdays. On these days, my job was to let them into the building, supply donuts in the morning, pizza at noon, and check out audio-visual equipment that the school will lend only to faculty. My suggestions for the film were roundly panned and flat-out ignored. Eventually, I resorted to shooting my own video of them shooting the video for the film, creating a meta-film titled, ―Behind the Story of the Story Behind The Story of an Hour,‖ which still has not been incorporated into any of the ―official‖ film footage. Fittingly, the two film parts I was given only reinforce my marginal status: I am the nosy professor caught peeking in on my class from an outside window, and later, the exhausted professor trying to slip away at the end of Saturday session only to discover that her students are continuing to film her as she drives away in her car. My screen time in the finished film: two minutes.

The number of my suggestions that made it into the film: zero.

For their final project, the students presented the project and the film (which I was not allowed to see) to a panel of invited guests and faculty members. Their objective was to explain the structure and logic of ―The Story of an Hour and Fifteen Minutes‖ and to show how it uses postmodern narrative

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devices and strategies. I provided them with only a rough set of guidelines for the presentation. Again, I had to sit on the margins and let them struggle through the painstaking process of articulating the work they had done and connecting it to formal literary elements. Only once did I have to intervene, and that intervention took the form of a sharp dressing down/ pep talk when I realized that only one person had actually written out her presentation. Yet, I had only to remind them that this was their project and that they were responsible for seeing it through to get them moving again. Two days later, they delivered a flawless, well-written, articulate, and organized presentation that culminated in two short films, which made every faculty member laugh and made two faculty members cry (I was one of them).

I have not yet had time to process fully every component that went into making this class a successful example of a ―student-centered‖ course. I am, however, certain that one of those components is my (sometimes reluctant) willingness to give up control of my class and renegotiate my role as an instructor when the students seemed to be doing just fine without me. I have also learned that simply guiding students in the right direction can be a form of active instruction. The things that I wanted them to learn registered when I instructed through casual conversation or gentle suggestions. At the end of the course, they were able to fill a whiteboard with literary terms they had learned throughout the semester; they even listed terms that I did not recall teaching them (see fig.1). After they collected the terms, I had them go through the entire story together (projected on a screen in the classroom) and identify those elements that exemplified the literary and rhetorical devices they put on the whiteboard.

They also used this time to proofread and revise for clarity and style. This whole process took about two hours; one student made the changes on the computer as they were suggested, while another read the story aloud (in various European accents ―to keep things interesting,‖ I was told). While this is a rather unorthodox way of teaching students the importance of editing and revising, it was extremely effective. Their personal investment in the story made them more attentive to issues surrounding clarity and style. Similarly, revising the story together gave them a chance to discuss and debate why they wanted to make certain changes. Finally, with the knowledge that I was not going to intervene unless absolutely necessary, the students turned to their class notes, dictionaries, and style guides when they were unclear about certain points. (Of course, I helped them work through mistakes in later class discussions.) So, in addition to helping them understand the importance of editing and revision, this student-centered process helped them to become more self-reliant and engaged in productive peer-review activities.

Ultimately, the project they produced was more creative and interesting than anything I could have conceived of on my own. Further, their insistence on keeping parts of the project a secret from me forced them to rely on their own knowledge to resolve problems. Resigning myself to the margins of my own classroom has been a challenge at times; I did not always do it willingly. What I know now is that it

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is a challenge worth taking if I hope to continue to cultivate truly student-centered learning experiences for my students.

Fig. 1: Graphic Re-presentation of Classroom Whiteboard

Reflective Essay of the Writer of the Prologue and Keeper of the Post-itÂŽ note When Dr. Mason initially introduced this project to the class, it was mean to be optional. At the time I already had multiple assignments in progress for various classes so I had no intentions of starting this new one. The project quickly became something that the entire class was working on, so really it was no longer optional. I am so thankful that my attempt at ignoring this assignment was a failure.

I am truly surprised by how much I learned from writing a postmodern piece. I had always viewed post-modern literature as an ―easy way out‖ for authors. I thought that writers were simply escaping all the rules they were taught in high school English classes by throwing abstract bits and pieces together and forgetting about beginnings, middles, and ends. While getting frustrated with myself in

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realizing the difficulties of writing my part for this class project, I found that I had been so wrong. I learned that the story in itself is not everything. In many cases, the important piece of the work, and the hardest part, is the telling of the story. When the actual plot is not very complex, the author has to work extra hard in getting a point across. So, to throw a beginning, middle, and end out of the window in story writing is actually not cutting corners at all. It is a challenge for the author to present a point or a ―moral‖ without falling into the same circular routine.

Our class learned about this concept towards the beginning of the semester actually, at a point when Dr. Mason explained the differences between a ―metanarrative‖ (or, grand narrative) and a ―metanarrative‖ (outside of the story). During this lecture, Dr. Mason introduced us to a famous Shakespearean line: ―The play‘s the thing.‖ I had thought that I understood this lecture at the time, but this project made it so much clearer to me. ―The play‘s the thing,‖ means that it is the way in which one arrives to a point that matters. It is a perfect lesson to be taught around this class project! Though the story that we wrote is quite simple for what it truly is–a story about honors students not being able to accomplish the task of writing a story, but managing to write a story in the process-–what makes our project good is the way in which we told the story.

Once we realized that we really needed to focus on the method of telling the story, we began developing archetypes, perspectives, and common threads. Never before have I been able to say that I have written a piece in such a way that even the exact wording used is meant to serve as a function. This was the first time I attempted to turn my writing into somewhat of a math equation. I was ecstatic when I realized it worked out wonderfully. I had the same feeling I get when I spend a long ten minutes on one math problem only to see the correct number show up on my calculator screen.

I find it so remarkable that this story the class wrote while Dr. Mason was away seems to fit perfectly into our ―meta‖ theme for the semester. As I look back now on how the semester unfolded, I am truly amazed. This project, whether by chance or by some secretive planning that I am unaware of, was exactly what we all needed. This project became a tool that allowed us to fully teach ourselves concepts that were only briefly introduced during the early days of the semester.

How will I use this project in my future? I may never complete anything exactly like it again, but there is definitely something I am taking away from this all: challenge. Literature is not an easy school subject. I cannot get away with fluffy words and pretty metaphors. Though there is a freedom in writing, I now fully appreciate the challenge that goes along with that freedom. Yes, I may write about whatever I wish, but there will always be a sort of equation in figuring out how I am to approach the ―telling.‖ This is exciting for me. I have a newfound giddiness, if you will, when I think about the options and opportunities in fiction. I compare this feeling with that of a child with a new toy. I want to play with the things I‘ve learned.

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The Story of an Hour and Fifteen Minutes Or (The Never-Ending Beginning Mystery/ Romance/ UnStory of the Pre [post]-Apocalyptic Fall of a Generic Action Hero and the Completely Predictable (but not so heroic) Meltdown of an English Honors Class Attempting to Agree on [anything] a Framework for Their Group Project When Their Beleaguered Professor Was Out of Town)1 2

Preface: The Professor’s Version I still do not know exactly what happened in that one hour and fifteen minutes. You see, I had a field trip scheduled with another class that day, so I was unable to meet with my honors students. In what must have been a momentary lapse of all reason and sanity, I left the students to work out the framework of a group story on their own with the guidance of Angela the Substitute. They had previously decided to write their own Exquisite Corpse-style story to submit to the FYHC Journal.3 On the day in question, their task was to come up with a framework for the story, which would include the genre, archetypes, and conflicts. They said something along the lines of, ―No problem, Dr.Mason. We can do it. See ya’ when you get back!‖ I left Angela the Substitute with a detailed guide sheet in case she ran into any trouble (she did) and left for my field trip with complete confidence in this class of geniuses. That, dear reader, is the last time that I had any control over this story. What happened next was one hour and fifteen minutes of utter chaos. This story is the harrowing and mostly true (or not) account of those seventy-five minutes.

And it is shocking.

Please know that my preface will not offer readers any insight, clarity, or omniscient perspective. To the contrary, this preface is the only space left in a story that has otherwise been hijacked by my students. These students have relegated my voice to the periphery of what was supposed to be a group story led by the professor. I have been tacitly (and explicitly) informed that I may speak from anywhere except the story itself. They said, ―Footnotes, introduction, preface, conclusion, or any other paratextual space—that is your terrain, Dr. Mason. See that you keep to it.

Oh, and you can have parentheses, too.‖ (For as you will soon see, the students had already 1

Note from beleaguered professor who does not deserve any of this and hopes that they will not notice the footnotes: They could not even agree on the title. This was the compromise.

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Note from Angela the Substitute who deserves this even less and hopes that she has time to change her major: My title suggestion, “The Story of an Hour and Fifteen Minutes of Pure Hell,” did not make the final cut.

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The Exquisite Corpse is a variation on a parlor game in which a slip of paper is passed around among a group of people. Each person adds a sentence or word to the paper without looking to see what has been already been written. Ideally, the individual contributions will together reflect the “unconscious reality in the personality of the group” (CITE). As such, the Exquisite Corpse is generally associated with the Surrealists, particularly Andrè Breton.

However, its origins extend to earlier traditional parlor games. In contemporary narrative discourse, Exquisite Corpse speaks to the notion of writing as a collaborative process, which, in turn, generates a “collage” narrative.

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established a presence for me within the story itself as the absent teacher who may or may not meet her demise in an unfortunate white board eraser ―incident.‖) This does not, however, particularly bother me because, as I said earlier, I am pretty clueless when it comes to the actual production of the story. From the multiple versions of the story-writing process that they have shared with me, I was able to piece together a rough account of what happened in that critical one hour and fifteen minutes. And, my dear reader, a rough account is what you also will get.

But know this: you are getting the pretty version of the rough account, the written and rewritten version, the double-spaced, carefully worded, Helvetica-fonted (they tried to bully me into Cambria, but here is where I drew that proverbial line in the sand) version.4 What you are not getting is the real rough version with which I had to contend. Here, I use the term ―rough‖ literally. There were chairs knocked over, threats made, things slammed down on desks in the telling of the stories that I heard. Accusations were made, tears were dropped, and inappropriate words were uttered. I heard something about an eraser being ripped from the hands of student in midsentence erasure. There were rumors floating around about fights that spilled over into the hall, down the main corridor, out to the quad, carried on through a full lunch (and refreshing post-lunch coffee), back out to the student union, through the walls of men’s bathroom stalls, to the microfiche section of the campus library, through texts messages and Facebook when the parties involved had to go to their respective classes, picked back up in the smoking section by the South parking lot, only to circle back to the honors classroom (nicknamed the ―fishbowl‖ because of the glass walls), where the parties involved signed and initialed a 48-hour ceasefire so that they could go home, come up with new ideas to argue about, and resume the arguments in the next class meeting. Someone slipped me a ―secret‖ video that captures some of these moments, but I still cannot make it past the first two minutes without getting physically ill. And, at one point, I heard someone mutter something about my ―lack of classroom management skills.‖ So reader, please do not complain about the fragmented tone of this story and the numerous gaps and inconsistencies. You do not know what a ―rough account‖ is.

As I am reaching my page limit (yes, I was given a limit), I will leave you with the few facts about the writing of this story that I know; I hope you find them useful. I walked into class one day and said, ―Are you all interested in writing some kind of group story to submit to a journal?‖ They said something along the lines of ―Sure/Not really/ Who will be in charge? /Can we use scrapbooking materials? / I don’t work in groups/ No, not at all.‖ What I heard was cheering and one emphatic ―Yes!‖ So, we began ―spitballing‖ (they insisted that I work that word into the preface) ideas until we agreed on a single story written in sections by small groups, loosely modeled on the Exquisite Corpse project.

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You will note that the subtitle font is indeed a creative mix of Helvetica and Helvetica Neue. Small victories…

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Note how in the preceding sentences I use the term ―we.‖ That ―we‖ indicates that I played a fairly significant role in the production of this project, and that I had some control over the shape and outcome of the project, and that I had some measure of authority derived from my role as teacher and years of intense schooling. But that one hour and fifteen minutes changed everything. After that, it became their story, their idea, their project. And what became of little ol’ me? Well, I am just here, writing from the sidelines, still trying to understand how it all came to this. That is all I can tell you. But I still have the footnotes…

Before you get to the ―real‖ story, read Angela the Substitute’s account of the incident…5

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They actually had the nerve—the “unmitigated gall,” as my mother says—to ask me to ask Angela to write her own account of the incident.

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The Fishbowl: A Story about a Pretentious Post-it® Note

By Angela the Substitute Thursday. It was just a usual Thursday. I was excited about sitting in on my friend Dr. Mason’s Honors English 1102 class and I was dreading having to go to my own class afterward. I love postcolonial literature, but I have read all this before. As I walked over to Solms 103, a room also known as ―The Fishbowl,‖ I wondered whether the students would be excited about writing a narrative, or whether they would be apathetic because it was a Thursday. It is an honors class; they will most definitely be excited. As soon as I entered the classroom, I asked if it were Dr. Mason’s class. It is always good to check. ―You’re not Dr. Mason,‖ several of the students said, looking at me questioningly. ―No, I’m Angela, a friend of Dr. Mason’s. I will be substituting for her today.‖ The part I left out about my introduction is that I am a senior and an English Lit major, graduating magna cum laude in less than two months. I did not want to intimidate the 1102 students.

As I surveyed the room, the left side—a side I often favor— the students seemed to be eagerly anticipating the assignment. One student in particular, the one who sat across from me, looked like a fierce warrior ready for battle—a metaphorical battle between pen and paper. But as I looked to my right, students seemed apathetic, and some even seemed fearful. Who wouldn’t be fearful with such a daunting task ahead? I sympathized because creative writing is completely foreign to me. I like think of myself as a writer of creative non-fiction.

So, we began outlining the narrative structure, and before I knew it, we were talking about the apocalypse, Clue, and something about a Post-it® note. And there was this very peculiar student pacing around the room, and filming people and saying all sorts of far-fetched things.6 I thought that he was delirious, and I am still perplexed by his behavior.7 There was a lot of talk about how amazing honor students are. My, aren’t we pretentious? That is quite all right. Honors students have earned the right to be somewhat pretentious. After finally coming to an agreement and dismissing class, I walked back to my home at Gamble Hall. The whole thing was so strange and surreal that later that day, I still was not sure if that had actually happened, or if it was a dream.8 It must have been a dream, because I did not make use of my favorite punctuation mark, the semicolon.

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Kenneth.

He is just like that. When he is thinking really hard, he gets very animated. I probably should have put that in the teaching notes.

8 In a later account, one student suggested that Angela was literally paralyzed with fear for about sixty minutes.

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The Story of an Hour and Fifteen Minutes As told by Dr. Mason’s Honors English 1102

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The Story of an Hour and Fifteen Minutes

By The “Normal” Honors Students The original idea was that the class was collectively supposed to work on a narrative for a 9

contest. It would all be written out and submitted by the end of March. The brainstorming began, and everything seemed headed toward the right direction. It was decided that discussion would begin on Thursday, a day when Dr. Mason was out of town. We would have a substitute monitoring the class, but it turned out to be a free time for all of the students to shoot out ideas and finalize a structure. Everything sounded like it would be fine, but the minute the clock struck eleven on Thursday morning, the chaos began.

Thalia was at the board acting like the teacher while waiting for the sub to arrive. Suddenly, an unknown figure occupied the doorway. It was Angela. Everyone straightened up in his or her seats. Then, everything went downhill from there.

After she took attendance, Thalia began mapping ideas onto the board. The class was discussing the genre and out of nowhere, Kenneth yelled out, ―Bruce Willis!‖ Everyone looked stunned for a second and then moved on. Miss Angela suggested going with a detective genre because Dr. Mason had mentioned it to her. Everyone started spitting out random genres: romance, comedy, sci-fi (which really got everyone riled up). Austin, of course, suggested something that was literally out of this world—the pre-apocalyptic idea. Kenneth took off with this idea.10 Panic entered the room. There was screaming, crying, and yelling. Someone cried out, ―Whoa!

The world is going to end?‖ Kenneth kept going on and on, adding in how he wanted romance to be added into this crazy pre-apocalyptic thing and Kearra snapped, ―SHUT UP!‖11 One by one, everyone rejected the idea, except for Kenneth obviously.

Enter the Post-it® note. Through all this chaos, Jessica had been discreetly jotting down everything said on a giant Post-it® note with a hint of sarcasm.

Trying to get back to the detective narrative, Juliann brought up the idea of using Clue. After immediately shutting her down, the students kept arguing about Kenneth’s pre-apocalyptic idea. Jessica brought the Clue idea back up and added on that the plot could be based around someone killing Dr. Mason with the white board eraser.12 Then Juliann countered discreetly to Wesley suggesting to kill Kenneth because no one would care.

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I did not say “contest.”

This is not what I heard. I was told that Kenneth came up with the idea and everyone else hated it.

11 That is actually on the secret footage.

12 Sigh.

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Thalia and Kenneth wrote the two ideas—Clue and pre-apocalyptic—on the board. Jessica revealed the sticky note filled with random things taken from the class like Blue’s Clues and Mail Time.

The room filled with hysterical laughter.

The sticky note end up being the root of how the actual decision got made. The class would write a story about how a group of honor students could not agree on a story to write. At this point, Wesley felt like this would be a good time to start recording. They did not want to miss a thing.

The room filled with loud chatter as ideas were shot around about how to approach this new idea.

Conveniently, this is when Angela tuned back in.13 She gave the class a list of what we needed to fulfill; we had to figure out the genre, archetypes, and plot. With only ten minutes left of class, the students began frantically scrambling for concrete ideas. The genre would be comedy, of course, with the kinds of students that constitute the class. The setting would be in the honors classroom, and the characters were different archetypes taken from a typical classroom. We came up with the archetypes of the OCD student, the ―Know-it-All,‖ the Honors Class Reject, and the Aloof student.14 The clock struck 11:15 and immediately everyone darted out of the room, more quickly than usual.

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Now might be a good time to mention that Angela the Substitute apparently was in a state of shock for the majority of the class period. The one thing the students agreed on was that she seemed “traumatized.”

14 As the writers point out, these were the original archetypes that the students developed. Over time, we refined the archetypes and even added one more.

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Reflections of a “Normal” Honors Student Walking into my first day of English Honors 1102, I didn't know what to expect. We were each handed a syllabus that looked pretty overwhelming at the time. My eyes immediately darted to the top of the page that read, ―Note: This schedule is always subject to change. In fact, it is probably changing right now.‖ Dr. Mason wasn't kidding. Little did I know, this would be a good thing. Our first lecture was on metanarratives. We learned that they are self-reflexive, which meant a way of telling a story with the writer’s views put into it. Dr. Mason told us how authors have tried to break the traditional narrative for years to form a new way of writing called postmodern, a term our class became familiar with as the semester progressed. This first lecture would be a broad outlook on what this English class would be about. Every lecture (I should say discussion) after this would move more and more toward a deeper meaning.

It had been a few weeks, and surprisingly we were going along with the syllabus, until one morning when Dr. Mason threw out a new idea. She told us about this ―call for papers‖ where first-year literature classes could submit a story with the possibility of being published. Of course, as honors students, we looked at this as a contest. At first I was not thrilled with what we were about to get ourselves into, but soon, with the class’ excitement, I adjusted to the idea of writing a story. This is the exact moment when everything on the syllabus screeched to a stop. We were now focused on this ―contest.‖ The day we were scheduled to work on this, Dr. Mason was conveniently on a field trip. That day was filled with chaos and frustration, but by the end of class we had a theme—post-modern and selfreflexive—of a story about writing a story. The writing began.

We had learned many concepts and techniques of writing a story, and we applied those thoroughly within the narrative. The broad aspect of a metanarrative (previously described as a way of telling a story including the writer’s point of view) was done by our own experience of the infamous hour and fifteen minutes on that Thursday morning. We used five different archetypes to do so: the normal kids, quiet kids, cynics, freaks and geeks, and know-it-alls. Our story acted as a frame story, which meant that each perspective revealed a deeper meaning of the story. I was part of the ―normal kids‖ group. Our responsibility was essentially to give a third-person view of what happened that Thursday. We were the first perspective in the story due to the fact that we were the broadest. After us came the quiet kids, who counterbalanced our group; they were on a more personal level. Following them were the cynics, then freaks and geeks, and finally, the know-it-alls, who lead into the story of the Post-it note itself. Each

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group included the post-it note, which acted like the McGuffin of the story. The McGuffin is something that is vaguely mentioned throughout a story and something the reader is anxious to know about. By the end of the story, it is revealed. What gave this story a postmodern flare is that the McGuffin in our story, the Post-it note, had no true meaning or purpose by the end.

After finishing and submitting our story, we started reading the graphic novel Maus, written by Art Spiegelman. This is when we formally learned about the frame story and how the different layers represented (another term learned in class, used instead of saying ―represent‖) the truth. This helped us understand what we had just accomplished as a class with our own frame story.

Now that I look back on this entire semester and my experience through this English class I see that the class was a frame story in of itself. The first class was a broad look into everything we were about to learn, and as time went on, we learned more and more, peeling back layer after layer, until we reached a point of writing our own story. The terms and techniques I learned this semester on how to analyze narratives and ultimately write my own have been permanently added to my continuously growing bundle of knowledge. Looking at the syllabus at the beginning of the semester, I would not have expected to be walking out of this class with not only the knowledge I gained, but also with a story published. I could not be prouder of my classmates and myself.

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The Story of an Hour and Fifteen Minutes

By The “Quiet” Honors Students I am usually one of the first people to get to class, and that day was no exception. There were a few others who were in the room when I got there. I sat in my regular seat and remained there watching the few other kids as they plotted against the substitute. They were trying to figure something out that would not be too outrageous but would give her a hard time.15 I found it ironic that the ones doing this were what I liked to call the ―Know-it-All‖ group. At this point, another one of them walked in with a giant post-it-note; his name was Austin and the air around him screamed control freak. He made a comment about not being able to find a giant pen. Thalia started writing idea on the board and for some reason or another, ―Bruce Willis‖ was written. I did not question it.

Eventually the rest of the class showed up, with the exception of the few who were usually late anyways. The substitute came in at the last minute, and I was hardly surprised when the group that had previously been plotting did nothing to her. The substitute was slightly intimidating. I had a feeling that she was going to ruin the class. Though, it was not as if they needed her help with that; they were usually crazy anyway. The substitute started going through the role, and Thalia was not on it.

Eventually the sub found it. At this point Manni, another one of the ―Know-it-Alls,‖ walked in late (as usual) and had a mini-OCD freak-out because the substitute was sitting in his seat.

It was at this point that the chaos began. Everybody scrambled to get an idea. Well, I use the term ―everybody‖ loosely, because I did not bother to throw in my opinion; nor did my fellow ―quiet‖ classmates. There were only a few of us, but I think we are all smart for not getting into the bedlam.

They figured that they would do one of the basic genres: detective, romance, comedy, or maybe a combination of them. Kenneth, who can very easily be placed in the ―Freaks and Geeks‖ category, suggested science fiction.16 He was very serious about this—aliens and all. His idea was dismissed and the class eventually decided to have the setting in Savannah because it was ―familiar‖ to all of us. That was a stupid thing to assume, though, because I grew up in a different country for fifteen years and did not know a thing about Savannah. I did not bother to let anybody know this (but it is not as if they would have actually considered my opinion anyway). Anyway, they wanted to place it in the 1920s, which honestly did not make much sense to me. I doubted anybody actually knew anything about that time period. I guess they eventually figured that out, too, so they moved the time period to modern-day Savannah.

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I have to say, I feel slightly guilty now for telling them to “give her kind of a hard time.” Sorry, Angela the Substitute.

16 This was one of the archetypes we came up with later. Oddly enough, Kenneth was not in it.

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Once they had that figured out, they moved on to the plot. One of the ―Freaks and Geeks‖ suggested that a little old lady should be the evil villain. I personally found the idea to be humorous, but once again, did not bother to actually voice my opinion. But of course, they could not agree so they moved on to the next idea. The next idea caused much division within the class; some liked the idea while some absolutely hated it. Austin, the ―control freak/ Know-it-All,‖ suggested that we do a preapocalyptic story that took on the different perspectives of different people during the last days of the earth that would have no real ending so that the reader would be left to wonder what would happen. At this point Manni absolutely freaked out. It turned out that he had been living in China for a while and had no clue about the Mayan calendar ending. He asked about it, so Austin attempted to answer this question all intellectually until Kenneth interrupted him and started babbling incoherently about it. The class continued to babble about the idea until one the ―Normals‖ suggested putting a Clue theme in it.17 I started getting dizzy. Everybody kept talking and I was still trying to figure out what Clue was.

They talked about the possibility of trying to figure out who stole Dr. Mason’s pen, and somehow or another it turned into a murder mystery of who killed Dr. Mason. All throughout this time, Thalia has been writing the ideas on the board. Randomly, Kenneth jumped up, grabbed two markers, and started to scribble diagrams on the board with both his hands like a toddler would almost. I had no idea what he was doing, and although I tried to decipher what his diagrams and drawings actually were, I could not.

And from the looks of it, the rest of the class could not either. But I was still stuck on what the heck Clue was, though. I guess they all assumed that everybody knew. Eventually one of the ―Freaks and Geeks‖ noticed my confusion and asked if everybody knew what it was. I shook my head and they explained it to me. I thought it was very nice of them.

At this point, everybody explained what they did and did not like about the different ideas floating around. I kind of zoned out because everyone was talking at the same time and I did not want to concentrate on so many things at once. Then everybody’s eyes turned as Austin demanded attention to the large post-it-note that Jessica had been writing on the whole time. There were so many crazy ideas on the post-it-note, though none of them were mine. Believe it or not, I actually had a couple of decent ideas that I probably could have contributed. But seriously, it would not have been worth the effort. Jessica then suggested that we write about a story about a story. Some agreed and some did not; go figure. They babbled uselessly some more until one of the guys started to record audio of the classroom. Kenneth then decided that he would record video of the conversation. He went up the board again for some reason, and while he was busy doing whatever the heck he was doing, a girl who usually seemed annoyed covered the lens with a small post-it-note.

17

I have no idea what this means either.

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They decided that they would do a story about how honor kids could not come up with a story.

Class ended and everybody started to leave. I honestly could not get out of there fast enough. Honors kids are crazy. It took us an hour and a half to come up with an idea, not even an actual plan on how to get it down. That was for another day, I suppose.

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Reflections of a “Quiet” Honors Student In the very beginning of my Honors English Composition class, we had to create a website where we could put our writing assignments and reflective pieces, but at the same time customize it to our liking. The website made me express my creative side. I made the website the way it looked to reflect my personality and who I am as a person. I filled it vibrant colors and music because I believe that that mirrors my character and my love for music. As an honors student, I had an impulse to change the fonts, the lines, and the colors in the website until I thought it was perfect. Similarly, I thought that creating a story is just as easy as putting a website together until we had an assignment to trace the anatomy of The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde. In the assignment, we were asked to dissect the book’s story elements and describe how they contributed to the story as a whole. It was not an easy task. I thought, ―It took hard work to break the story apart; it must have taken tons of creativity to put it together.‖ After doing the assignment, I realized how much creativity and knowledge it would take to come up with a really good story. It did.

In our group project, we created a story about a story of stereotypical honors students who cannot make up a story for a call for papers. The idea was actually true, but the content of the story would not be a reliable source of what actually happened because of the over-exaggeration of each the students’ versions of the story. I was put into the stereotype character of the ―quiet student.‖ I thought the role of a quiet kid would be all right just because I did not talk much in the beginning anyway. On the other hand, I do not think I am all that quiet, and later in the semester my fellow classmates did not think so either.

To be honest, I can be both extremes. I am both the very quiet student and the very rowdy friend.

In the beginning of the semester I just felt really uncomfortable in my Honors English Composition class. I was slightly intimidated sitting with a bunch of honors students and greatly intimidated with one that talked like ―Aristotle.‖ After doing the projects and discussions through the semester, little by little I was feeling more comfortable. I started talking to my fellow classmates as if they were my friends. This is when I started getting louder. My other classmates and Dr. Mason would be shocked because of the amount of energy I showed when I saw them outside of class. That is the real me. I get jumpy when I am happy and cranky when I am tired. My friends see me like that and my English class started to see me in the same light afterwards. This was probably because I have formed a closer bond with my classmates. I do not see ―Aristotle‖ as Aristotle anymore, but a student who is just like me who happens to know ten times more vocabulary words than I do. Last but not least, I learned that the best, but at the same time hardest, way to create a story is to work with a group of people who are diverse. It might end up as a story of a bunch of honors kids who cannot create a story because of their many ideas, but I assure you that it would be a heck lot of fun.

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The Story of an Hour and Fifteen Minutes

By The “Aloof/ Cynical” Honors Student As I slump in my seat, I wonder what I did to deserve this torture.

It began as a simple project—well, as simple as things can be in an honors class (because honors classes, at their core, seem to consist of menial tasks and simple questions that are over pondered and convoluted.) All we were instructed to do was come up with a short story for a contest.18 Thanks to certain people in the classroom, we cannot even seem to decide on a genre without bickering. Of course, for me this is no surprise. Asking honors students to do anything together is laughable at best.

There is a girl at the board, armed with a board marker and a very authoritative position that she has gained simply because of her natural intolerance of letting another student spoil her chances at a good grade. Keep in mind that this is the same person from a group of students who thought standing up at the board with a marker was the epitome of hilarity and/or rebelliousness when the substitute walked in. She is easily irritated by the loud classroom, especially by a geeky kid (almost painfully obviously, a freshman) who keeps getting up and trying to wrest control from her hands. He has big plans for the project- something about a ―pre-apocalyptic‖ setting, with a Bruce Willis type macho man as the protagonist. I scoff every time he tries to sell it to us. I mean, come on, ―preapocalypse?‖ I think he is the only person in the room that does not understand that the term makes absolutely no sense. The person next to me keeps asking why the geek keeps standing up, and I cannot help but to snicker at his hissed pleas for the geek to sit down.

Honestly, I feel bad for our substitute, a teacher in training. She clearly did not know that our class was filled with train wrecks. She tries to help us, but some people shoot her down. She seems like a nice girl, but maybe it is a good thing that she only has to deal with this class for an hour and fifteen minutes. I do not think that she had any idea what she was getting into when she decided to sub for us. Oh well, we all have to learn from experience.

If the geek was the least of my problems, I would simply be zoning out, only speaking up when someone said something completely ludicrous— what can I say, I like conflict—but unfortunately, the geek doesn’t even approach the precipice of my annoyance.

With even a glance at the actual source of this conflict, the ―Know-it-All,‖ I feel a migraine coming on. He is tall, with dirty blond hair and a perfectly straight, white smile. He is the type of person that believes class does not start until he walks in the door. Not only that, he is an insufferable fun-sucker. Trust me. I know.

18

Once again, I did not say “contest.”

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Of course, we would all be lost without him. Then again, at least if we were lost, we would not have to share the same air supply. The fact that his smile is not accompanied by satanic laughter and the wails of small children truly needs to be remedied. He also has a rather grating tendency to talk with his hands. He truly is the king of all that is OCD, honors, and pure evil.

Of course, the OCD kid got up this morning and decided to bring something totally random, a large Post-it® Note, to class just because. Although he thinks it is pretty funny and clever, I do not.

As my eyes wander across the classroom, I notice that some girl is writing on the Post-it® with a marker. I do not care to pay attention to what she is writing, deciding that it cannot possibly be worth the brain cells to think about. Eventually the large Post-it® note’s two minutes of fame run dry, but I still think it is completely pointless. I think it is dumb, but everyone else thinks it is brilliant. I still cannot bring myself to care one bit about it.

Eventually, we decide on doing a comedy. Wonderful. That is my least favorite genre. I do, however, find it rather comedic that the geek randomly decides that it would be a great idea to get this train wreck on video. I decide that it is best for the world to never see the footage and I cover the lens of his Mac Book approximately two minutes after he sets it up for recording. I receive my thanks when one girl on my right whose voice I have never heard decides to speak up, obviously as fed up at the situation as I am. The quiet kids are probably the only kids I cannot bring myself to hate.

As the class ponders such insightful, philosophical questions such as, ―What does simple mean?‖ after one student dared to suggest that the project might be too cut-and-dry, I am ready to start banging my head against my desk. While I idly contemplate the geek’s obsession with labeling himself as a ―band nerd‖ and roll my eyes when he erases the words the girl at the board has written—as she is writing them—the class ends. What a fitting end for a grueling 75 minutes of debate on how to write a story. There was no conclusion.

The geek who still considers himself a high school ―band nerd‖ tried his best to be the creative, fun guy but simply turned out to be more and more incoherent with every word and every overly enthusiastic gesture.19 The quiet kids were packing their things, probably more confused than anyone but content with the knowledge that they had no part in the madness and therefore could not be blamed for what did or did not go down. We aloof cynics sat with blank, disdainful faces at all we had just witnessed. The normal kids were probably just hoping that the student substitute teacher would not give us an awful report back to Professor Mason and also planning on checking Netflix to see if Clue is on Instant as soon as they get back to their dorms (it is not). But look! The six foot tall, perfect-teeth and tan Know-it-All with the deep voice and selectively boyish features that he’s trying too hard for everyone, 19

He really does get more animated when he is thinking. Give him a break!

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especially the two girls sitting on either side of him, to notice with every Know-it-All word he speaks while sitting all cool-like leaning back in his seat with his legs spread far out and a little grin on his face and twinkle in his eyes as if he’s sucking on a thought that couldn’t possibly be more clever, appears to have something to say! Yes, as every other student is completely satisfied with the nothing that was accomplished, he sees his opportunity to make sure the story is done his way. So he dramatically stands from his common classroom rolly chair with a gallant gust of wind bellowing majestically upon him, looking like an iconic super hero, Super Know-it-All! 20 He has that twinkle in his eye and then he starts to speak and his voice is like opera! Anyway, the Super Know-it-All holds up the gigantic Post-it® note that he brought to class so that he would get attention and points out that the girl sitting next to him has been writing on it the whole time we have been talking instead of contributing to the chaos. He points to the words written on it and says, ―The gigantic Post-it® that I can be credited with bringing to class has provided a path! This is the course we should take!‖ As the collective eye of the classroom fell upon the words written on the gigantic Post-it® note, our jaws dropped and with a brilliant flash of light! Then, it was gone. And so was the class— to lunch. We still had no idea what to do but hopefully we will all get A’s for trying.

20

The chairs have wheels. I suppose this is what a “rolly” chair is.

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Reflections of a “Cynical” Kid I never thought this project would work. What surprised me most the very first time the separate groups brought their stories together was that it did work really well. There is really no explanation for how that happened. Sometimes you start with nothing and that is all you think you have, but by the end of it, out of thin it air it seems, you have something that you are genuinely happy with. Of course it really was not just an accident. Almost in the same way only once in a while all the right weather conditions collide to create a perfect, extraordinary storm, this project seemed like an ordinary project on some fronts, but there were conditions that no one at all saw or could have realized would yield something extraordinary.

First of all it was a project. That is nothing out of the ordinary in an honors class; it is just another thing to get done. Secondly, it was a group project. Group projects really do not mean anything special is going to happen. In fact, I have been in plenty of group projects where no one really learned anything and nothing truly special came out of it. However, what made this project special, I would say, is the way we were grouped and the setting we chose for the project.

The general setting for the story was the honors classroom. This is something we could all obviously identify with. This also made the groups we were divided into very special. We picked five archetypical honors student personas to write points of view from. Thankfully Dr. Mason, for the most part, did not really assign us into groups. She sort of assigned the groups at first, but then she asked us if those were the groups we felt best personified who we were in class. As a result, some kids changed groups. This allowed a lot of space for a cathartic experience in which we were each allowed to tell the same story from our voice. Thankfully, we all did it in a healthy way. I do not think anybody really wrote anything that when read aloud to the class made anyone think, ―Wow, I had no idea that person thought that way.‖ With honors students there is a great tendency for us all to ―get things‖ rather quickly. We all pretty much know what the other person is thinking. The Know-It-Alls knows the Aloof/Cynics are rolling their eyes at him. The Quiet kids know that everyone notices how quiet they are, and honestly, everyone else knows that the Quiet kids know that we know they are quiet, and that just makes them more reserved. Therefore, with all of this psychological drama in the honors classroom (and we all feel it on the first day of class) there is a lot of natural tension. All of our chapters/perspectives were written with a hint of brutal honesty, just because I think every group wanted to see if the others would also have the guts to say what they really think. Mostly it was all done in good sport and a little tongue-in-cheek (which is one of Dr.Mason’s favorite figures of speech). And somehow, miraculously, this both worked and made us all really close.

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You can ask anybody in our class and they will tell you that there was a noticeable difference in the feelings in the classroom before and after we wrote this story. A classroom discussion at the beginning of the semester would always be filled with that usual tension that comes with the territory of the honors classroom because we all literally saw each other as the archetypes that we would later write from the perspectives of. However, after this story was written everybody knew each other’s names and there was little to no awkwardness anymore in debating a subject. In fact, I think there would be a consensus that we all actually looked forward to class after that, and I know for a fact that I never felt that comfortable in any class ever before. Even though I had a little animosity towards certain people at the beginning of the semester, those feelings were non-existent after this project. Somehow we all kept our identities while still being comfortable with one another.

Finally, I think the biggest factor that pushed this project from something simply well done into something sublime was the timing. After what I just said about how this project helped us all to get along, you might think that it would be a good idea to just do something like it at the beginning of the semester so as to act as a grand icebreaker. Well, that would never have yielded the same result in our case. The timing was just right such that everyone knew how he or she felt about each other, especially after the infamous chaotic day of class that the story is re-telling. I do not mean to paint the picture of a classroom full of kids who hate each other. We all, for the most part, respected one another and several groups or pairs of us separately would nod to the other outside of class. It is just that in the same way each group brought their perspectives together to create the full picture of one story, the making of this story actually brought all of the groups together as a class, and that is what made this project work for us.

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The Story of an Hour and Fifteen Minutes By the “Drama Kid/ Theater Major” Honors Student Today we paid our respects to the god of our class, the Sacred Gonga of honors English, the beloved Post-it.21 We used the Post-it® to organize our class project. You see, we needed to write a story as a class. I was looking forward to writing it. I am a theatre major so I enjoy being creative. It seemed simple enough. If only it had not been so difficult to agree with each other and stay on track. The Knowit-Alls were trying to control everything, The Geeks were being random, the Cynics were silently judging everyone in the class, The Quiet people were being quiet, and the Normal people were just chilling and dealing with the awkward situations around them. It was like watching a class full of circus freaks, but I knew that could not be right because I had thought the only real freak in the class was me!

We were having a little trouble starting the project so we started writing down our ideas on a giant Post-it. Ah, the Know-it-Alls’ beloved Post-it® note. They would take a pilgrimage to the Post-it® note if they could. They would peel off pieces of the Post-it® notes and consume them as if it was the Eucharist. Their leader was a tall, tan boy with blonde hair. In his own mind, he probably looked like Taylor Lautner, but in reality he was more like the love child of Richard Nixon. His female counterpart was channeling the smarty-pants little girl from the Gilmore Girls. She was the one who wrote on the great and wonderful Post-it® note. She was the Post-it® note’s high priestess. At one point in this class discussion, I became confused on how we would write the project so I addressed the class. I said, ―So how do we write this? Do we all just write one piece of the story? For example, would What’s-HisName,‖ I pointed to the leader of the Know-it-Alls, ―write one part of the story while another person wrote another part?‖ The Know-it-All I referred to seemed very insulted that I forgot his name. So I calmly looked at him and said, ―You are not a line in a play, I don’t have to remember you.‖22 The Quiet people, the sweet little Quiet people—I will never understand them. I do not understand people who do not talk or want to be noticed. But then again I am a person who prances around a stage in cheap make up and goofy costumes. I respect them because they are probably very intelligent, but I just do not get them. They remind me of Butters from South Park because they are sweet, innocent, and very well meaning. But deep down I bet they have a dark side. They are calm and they instill a sense of calm in the room, but calm people can be calculated killers like Dexter from the show Dexter. If they are killers can they make a few people in this class their next victims?

21

23

Clever allusion to a Jasper Fforde book we read earlier in the semester.

She really thought this was a clever comeback. She actually restructured the story to fit this line in.

23 She tends to trail off like this. Do not worry—she will be back.

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The Normal people are weird. They scare me. They have no mental problems. They have no personality quirks. When they are happy, they smile. And when they are sad, they cry. I am a theatre major; I do not understand these people. They agree with the class on some things and when they do disagree, they express their opinions politely. They do not mess up. They are not perfect. They are just normal. The fact that they are normal is in itself not normal. They are like Michael Cera in everything that he has ever been in: a normal non-combative person thrust into awkward situations.

Cynical people make my day. They are the superheroes of Honors English. They are blunt, they are mean and they are wonderful. Without them we would not get anything done… well, we probably would but what we did get done would probably suck and we would all fail. It was hilarious watching their facial expressions when the Know-it-Alls offered their overtly ornate opinions or when a Geek threw devil horns in the air. Their comments for the class may have been a little cold but most of the time they had a point. They were like Sherlock Holmes. They were all a bit cantankerous but they did have interesting ways of thinking. As funny and intelligent as the Cynics were, all the pessimism would get depressing sometimes. Their leader was a petite girl with short black hair and an impish smile that indicated that she had sarcastic comment ready in her arsenal of wisecracks. One of the Cynics recorded the audio of the class discussion. It was a useful idea to have more than just the Post-it® note as a reference point.

The Geeks were part of the group in our class known as the ―Freaks and Geeks‖ and no, I do not mean the series that Judd Apatow created.24 I was also part of this group, but I was the only Freak and the rest of the group was made up of two Geeks. They were like Oscar and Felix from the Neil Simon play, The Odd Couple. One was sloppy and random and the other was neat and discreet.25 The sloppy one decided that it was cool how one of the Cynics was recording the audio of the class so he decided to record a video of the class discussion. One of the angry Cynics was not amused by this plan and covered the camera of his computer with a tiny piece of paper. When one of our classmates started writing ideas on the board, the slovenly geek walked up behind her and erased everything she wrote. Maybe the Knowit-Alls were right and the Post-it® was a good idea. After all, you cannot erase a Post-it. He also kept mentioning how we should write a pre-apocalyptic story. The leader of the Cynics quickly demolished that idea by pointing out that the word ―pre-apocalyptic‖ was too broad of a term and that the time period we are living in right now can be labeled ―pre-apocalyptic.‖ He also wanted to write about Bruce Willis, which I thought was silly because Bruce Willis is an overrated actor.

24

But they are kind of like the Freaks and Geeks in Apatow’s series.

Kenneth and his best friend, ShaQuan. As mentioned earlier, Kenneth was later to break away and form his own outlier group of one. ShaQuan, on the other hand, went on to shine in the post-production of the film adaption of this story.

25

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Eventually we realized that we could not write the story and could not complete the project.

We decided that there were too many different opinions to be able to come to a unanimous decision on what we should write about. The postmodern side of me is happy that we were never able to write it because that is a more realistic conclusion. But the more romantic side of me wishes that we could have pulled together and written an amazing story. If we had combined the calm attitude of the Quiet people, the patience of the Normal people, the organization of the Know-it-Alls, the cleverness of the Cynics, the originality of the Freaks and Geeks, maybe we could have produced a wonderful class project. I guess we will never know.

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Reflections of an Ex-“Freaks and Geeks” Kid26 Never before have I been so aware of the complications of writing a literary work as I have now after completing this project. I had always merely thought of literature as something of pure absolute creativity and you either had it or you could not write. So much more goes into writing than pure creative writing. It takes careful planning and every object has to be given its full attention.

One of the hardest parts about working on this project was finding my own voice. Many groups were given an archetype. It gave them a starting point from where to mold a unique voice for their story that gave it a wonderful touch. The Post-it note group had a similar problem to mine. They were not given a starting point but they were given a direction to head in. I had to create something much larger than myself in order for my role to be fulfilled properly. I started by working off of what the other groups had described about me. I took information about myself from outsiders. From there, I had a decent place to start. I was a semi-sociopath with a thing for Bruce Willis. I decided in my voice to strictly rely on what was going on from my perspective, and strictly things that pertained to me. I believed it help to fuel the image of me being a self-obsessive ultra-geek.

From there I created another story world within our chaotic frame story, one made of all the thoughts running through my head, including the talks I had with Bruce Willis and the things he did. It gave me a direction and an interesting goal to aim for. Another challenge I faced was choosing what to include in my story. Since the viewpoint was from my subconscious, I had a lot of information and details. A lot of them I felt were really important, but by the end I had almost nine whole pages of nothing but pure details. I had to carefully pick and choose which details would create the strongest story.

In the end, I think I did a rather good job.

As far as the project as a whole was concerned, it was quite a spectacular feat. I was honestly surprised when we had come up with something so amazing as this story. While I was feeling down about the story not featuring some elements I would have liked, I eventually grew into loving the project.

The presentation of the project and the immense work that came with it was quite intense.

Frustration levels hit their highs; people were ready to go at each other‘s throats. As the presentation grew closer to the due date, the stress worsened, but something else happened on the way: we learned how to function as a class. We did have a few bones to pick with each other, and many people had a long list for me. We pulled together and bounced off our strengths and weaknesses. We did the very thing we said we could not do. We wrote an amazing story, something that actually got Dr. Mason excited.

26

Kenneth was in the “Freaks and Geeks” group originally. However, after his outrageous behavior during the “Bruce Willis Incident,” he elected to be in his own group, a decision that was heartily supported by his classmates.

He is, nevertheless, loved by all. He was also the director, co-producer, editor, and screenwriter for the film adaptation of this story.

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Through it all, our class grew closer together and stronger as individuals. We learned some valuable lessons about writing, and I am sure Dr. Mason learned a few lessons as well. In the end we came together as a class and put a great finish on a phenomenal project. I could not be more proud of anything I have written before.

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The Story of an Hour and Fifteen Minutes

By The Super-Honors-Student Honors Student (a.k.a., “The Know-it-Alls”) I walked into the classroom much earlier than usual, but to my dismay, I was not the first to arrive. 27 The room was dark, but I noticed some shadowy figures clustered in the corner. They muttered amongst themselves: a grotesque mixture of haunting whispers and haggish cackles. In an attempt to expel the demons, I hastily turned on the lights, but all this seemed to do was remove the silence that lingered in the empty areas of the room. To my horror, the huddled figures were not those of demons; they were the immutable figures of the class’s lesser peoples. Their speech was no longer the incoherent murmurings I had heard before. The light not only lifted the veil of darkness from the room but also brought with it an understanding of their tongue. I cringed when I made sense of their arguments on the superiority of the Cylon race. At once, I decided that both they and their discussion were not worth entering. Cylons are androids. Therefore, they are not a race.

When I sat down, I felt a sudden pang of discomfort as my arms searched for their usual rests.

Something was not right; this was not my chair. Infuriated by the lack of armrests, I stealthily stole my quiet neighbour’s empty chair and replaced it with my own. Though I believe she saw me, I knew that she would not—or could not—say anything. What was done was done. Regardless, I was satisfied by the recovery of my rightful throne.

I neatly arranged my assorted coloured pens, highlighters and other utensils around my opened notebook. Its pages were crisp, and they still carried the scent of starch from when I had ironed them the night before. I reached into my bag and extracted a coaster, which I then placed at the forefront of my desk, positioning it perfectly with the other ornaments to retain the symmetry I had created. The giant ®note, which I had astutely brought with me, was placed in the areas between my desk and that of my other neighbours.’ I gleamed contently at the items that were arranged, like silverware, on my desk. I took a sip of my Sugar-free Red Bull, placed it upon its coaster, and waited as the other students filed into the classroom.

I remembered that our professor had told us to give her temporary replacement a holistic learning experience. Through a surrogate, I would replace the substitute, who had yet to arrive, as the acting instructor. I turned to the simpleton who sat beside me and proposed my brilliant plan. She eagerly accepted, but as I was elaborating on what would be her speaking role, I came to the realization that she lacked the most basic skills required for this task. I brushed her aside. As usual, it was up to me to carry out the plan.

27

By “much earlier than usual,” he means not as late as usual, which is still later than everyone else but early for him.

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I walked to the front of the class, uncapped the marker, and waited for the substitute to arrive.

She was late. I closed the door at precisely ten o’clock and proceeded to moderate the discussion. I charted the structural elements required for a narrative onto the whiteboard, and those other students and I began to fill in the blanks.

Nothing was accomplished in the first few minutes of our discussion, even with my obvious skills leading them. They bickered amongst themselves, and they showed me little or no respect.

Twice in those early moments was I interrupted. Just as the discussion began, a loyal, but awkwardly enthusiastic, subordinate blurted, ―Bruce Willis!‖ A lesser human would have found it difficult to extract any sense from the various sounds that were emitted from his mouth. The borderline prepubescent tones that interrupted his off-tempo lisps resembled incomplete words. However, due to my prodigious mind, I interpreted what he had carelessly left out. This one firmly believed that Bruce Willis should serve as the Hero in our would-be narrative, and he was equally firm on having Nana Willis embody the Villain. Such simple fancies he must have: a world in which bald, elderly men battle their grandmothers with colostomy bags.

The second, and most heinous, of the interruptions occurred when the appointed substitute decided to grace28 torment us with her presence. Those other students and I were discussing possible genres for our narrative piece, but whatever progress I would have made was quickly silenced by what I had initially thought to be a natural disaster. The door suddenly shattered, and there, standing amidst splintered wood and broken glass, stood the substitute.

Dust and debris lingered in the air around her, creating a thin veil that only enhanced the flames in her eyes. She shot menacing glares throughout the classroom. Fumes bellowed from her nostrils as she began to pound her chest with alternating fists, each one pounding faster and harder than it had before. The force of each swing was enough to crush a skull and possibly collapse a wall.

When her eyes caught the projector that stood beside her, she released a howl that shook the whole room. Then she grabbed the projector and smashed it upon the floor. In a berserker’s rage, she stampeded towards the only empty chair, the one I had abandoned to instruct the class. I watched in horror as the substitute slammed her club-like bag upon my desk and seated herself in my chair.

Coloured pens and highlighters were catapulted through the air until, finally, their lifeless bodies were scattered on the floor. Sanguine ink flowed from the cap-less, red fountain pen, while another was lodged into the wall. A single tear rolled down my cheek. Sorrow quickly turned to anger, but when I turned to confront the beast, my heart sank. She had taken the coaster that once supported my Sugar-free Red Bull, and placed it under her cat-skin flask. A part of me died then.

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Quite pleased to see them playing with words and ideas as “under erasure.”

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The substitute spoke in an octave much too low for any human. ―Roll,‖ she said as she wiped the frothing saliva from the corners of her mouth. She tapped her sloping brow, perhaps in an attempt to notify her brain that it was time to wake up, and she struggled to read each student’s name.

When the substitute finished taking roll, she noticed that I was standing by the whiteboard.

Apparently, she had neither realised that I was in the process of leading the class, nor that she had disrupted that process. She asked if I would like to take notes on the board, and this angered me more than my deposition. A fool would have challenged the impostor. A coward would be frightened by the monstrosity. I, of course, am neither. She may have tried to take my place, but she would never have my honour. I pulled out a knife and slit her throat. The beast was dead. I turned to the simpletons around me and offered them the flesh of the slain, and they chanted my name and praised my heroism. Truly, they would be well fed for a year.29 But there was little I could do to remove the substitute. With my plan ruined, her arrival having left me momentarily confused, I resumed my place at the board.30 We again tried to decide upon a genre for our narrative, and the argumentative atmosphere that existed prior to the substitute’s arrival was restored. The class was divided. Some believed that the narrative should be a comedy, while others argued for a romance. Some wanted to write a Science Fiction story, and any remained quiet and disassociated with our discussion. Those of us who had been participating agreed to write a detective story that would include comedic, romantic and science fictional elements, but many were still not pleased. As tensions increased, chaos was quick to follow. The masses failed to agree on a setting for our narrative. Savannah, being the city where we were situated, was suggested as the location of our story. That idea was tossed out when we could not decide upon a time period; we shifted from every decade between 1920 and 2010.

The chaos finally erupted when I proposed that a pre-Apocalypse concept should replace the detective theme entirely. We had been arguing over the structure of our detective narrative. Half of the class wanted to base it on the popular Clue movie, while others wanted to incorporate it into a high school drama. I disliked both concepts. I did not want to write, let alone read, a story that revolved around stolen markers. The Bruce and Nana Willis advocate was the first to support this idea, but few others followed. The majority demanded that they should be allowed to relive their high school days through this college project. Some were so outraged that they began to plot the murder of our professor.

I decided to settle this matter democratically. The high school drama and Clue were collapsed into one category while the pre-Apocalypse theme became another. Unfortunately, my idea was rejected, but I had already withdrawn my support in an attempt to appease the rioting masses. However, the Willis

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This may be “under erasure” abuse.

Angela the Substitute asked that I note her dissatisfaction with this unflattering depiction of her in this scene.

Noted.

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family idolizer was adamant that the pre-Apocalypse theme remain because it would be the best way to include Bruce and his grandmother into the narrative. He begged the others to reconsider, and though I sympathized with his pleas, I could not help but to be amused by the situation. When the others rejected his cries, his frustration increased until he finally snapped. Like a madman, he jumped out of his seat, flailed his arms about, ran to the whiteboard, snatched the eraser and cleared a good portion of my notes.

He then turned to the others in the class and cursed them for their opposition, promising their damnation when the actual Apocalypse would come. He knocked the markers out of my hand and began to draw tiny houses on the whiteboard while muttering incoherently to himself.

The chaos continued as sticks, stones, and books were thrown across the room. A fire erupted in the corner where the silent sisters were seated, their inaudible cries muffled by the actual screams of their peers. Mothers clutched their infants tightly to their breasts, hoping to protect them from the havoc that ensued. The doomsayers recanted their cynicism, and pleaded for an end.31 Even the substitute was clearly disturbed by the anarchy; with her knees pressed against her chest, she rocked back and forth in the chair she had stolen from me.32 There was no hope in restoring order. I had been deposed by the substitute, and my authority over the peasantry was reduced to nothing. But, then there was the giant Post-it速 note.

31 32

This part may be an exaggeration.

I think this did happen.

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Reflections of “Know-it-All” Honors Student When I walked into class that first day in January, I was dreading walking back into the Fishbowl. I was absolutely sure that this English 1102 was going to be as boring as the English 1101 course I had taken the previous semester. Dr. Mason proved me wrong. The dynamic within the classroom was so different. The professor was not going to give us any answers, which meant that we had to actually speak up. I remember last semester we would be asked the question, and the students and I would stare at each other until the professor would tell us what he expected us to tell him. Here, it was different. She would ask the same question until the class could piece the answer together. She never gave us the answer—ever. It was almost like we were having a conversation with her. What seemed great to me was the fact that we all used each other in order to get an answer. It almost seemed like we depended on one another in order to be productive within the classroom. This helped me understand the concepts so much better because I was able to get an explanation not just from the professor, but also from my classmates. I felt more involved. I loved the dynamic between the students and the professor.

This changed once we started working on this project. Now, we had to actually interact more with each other. After working within the groups, we developed a new dynamic. We began to be more comfortable with each other. I remember that at the beginning of the semester we would listen to each other‘s comments and agree even though in our mind we were thinking, ―WRONG!‖ After the project, we would listen calmly, but afterwards we would say, ―So, I disagree with you because….‖ We had gotten very comfortable together. This changed how we talked about different topics, and it was more productive and more interesting than ever before. This class project brought us together. I really enjoyed being a part of a class that was really involved with the course, topics, and each other.

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Prologue: The Real Story of an Hour and Fifteen Minutes, or The Story of a Post-it® Note By the Honors Student in Charge of the Post-it® Note33 I guess it all started when I woke up exhausted in the morning. I knew I needed caffeine and I knew that I needed a lot of it. There are about twenty of us in this class, and our task for the day was to collectively write a story. I never liked this idea – We are an Honors English class, which means that we are only willing to create the best. We need a year to do this because it has to be perfect, not a day. I downed a large black coffee on the way to school as I thought about how this class hour could be: a) productive, or b) unproductive.34 I shuffled into class at five minutes to ten in the morning and took my seat. I think I sat there for about ten minutes without saying a word before I realized that Austin, who sits beside me, had brought a giant Post-it® note pad into class. He even brought a black marker to write on it. Okay, I guessed this day could be fun after all. This is the point where I started getting excited. I thought about the endless list of brilliant ideas that could be written down here. The Post-it® was huge, and I really do love lists. As each honors student shouted out something, it could be written down right here on this giant Post-it® note. Amazing! Honestly, I think the caffeine had kicked in.

I wish I could tell you exactly what happened during the rest of the class period. I wish I could read it all from the Post-it® note, but it’s not on there. The hour is a blur. I sat there, turning my head to the left and the right, listening to the most random yet wonderful ideas ever. Each individual in the class impressed me with their creative thoughts, but no one person’s plan flowed with another’s. Between every brilliant idea I heard Kenneth from the right side of the room yelling about how the world will end in 2012 and how it would be absolutely incredible to write about it. When we talked about choosing a genre, and somebody suggested romance, my head flew back to Kenneth, who said that we could still have a story about the end of the world, and if it had to be romance, then the last people on Earth could be madly in love with each other. His idea of a post-apocalyptic35 story did not go well with Jessica’s idea of a classroom murder mystery in which the white board marker disappeared and somehow Dr. Mason ended up dead, and neither of those ideas went well with the story about Bruce Willis disguised as a sweet old lady who is in fact the head of the detective department in a big city. What? My head was whipping back and forth, my legs were shaking from caffeine, and there was chaos in the classroom. So it ended up being option B—unproductive.36 I told Austin in a bit of a commanding tone that he really should use his giant Post-It. He usually takes charge in the classroom and people admire his smart ideas, so it bothered 33

This section was written by Jessica and Austin, of the “Normal” group and “Know-it-All” groups, respectively.

Since they were both in charge of the Post-it note, they were tasked with writing this prologue.

34 Guess which one it was.

35 I thought it was “pre-apocalyptic.” I guess both ideas stink.

36 Bingo.

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me that today he was actually enjoying and entertaining Kenneth’s ridiculous plan to write about exploding universes.37 I guessed it was a weak point for him. He told me, in an equally commanding voice, to use it myself. Fine. I slid the huge pad in front of me, and decided to take charge—silently. My eyes looked only at the paper from then on, and I did nothing but listen and write:

“Ideas: Too many” 17 students = 17 options Maybe 18 or 19.

Too many.

We are Honors students.

Only one idea? Only one story?

Yeah, right.

Clue? Blue’s Clues? 2012?

Bruce Willis is a tough old lady?

Setting: Too many, same deal Savannah – 1920’s Sunny day Rainy day There is no weather – we’re in space “No sci-fi, please? Okay, thanks.”

Can we go back to writing about Blue’s Clues?

This is post-modern. What is this?

Have we broken a mold? Meta-narrative, right?

Well, then, I guess we’re finished.”

Fig. 2. Graphic Re-Presentation of Actual Post-it® Note

I surfaced for air and noticed Austin backing out of the chaos. Clearly overcome, he saw that his Post-it® note had become riddled with my sarcasm. ―Left the command post?‖ I asked. It seemed he became more agitated by a lack of a sharp response than my actual poking fun at him.

After too long a pause, he puffed up like Schwarzenegger and squeaked, ―I’ll be back!‖ He dove again into the chaos. ―How’s it going out there?‖ I yelled after a while. ―Looks like we’re back to square one,‖ he yelled back, ―which I see you’ve written all over.‖ ―Somebody had to,‖ I countered.

37

It was later said that Austin backed out of the pre-apocalyptic theme, leaving Kenneth the lone defender of this horrible idea.

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I tried not to be mean, but I had to glare a little bit. I said, ―How about instead of criticizing, you actually take a look?‖ He looked down at the words I had written.38 —This is a riddle to me. What does it say? No, wait. Hold that thought. Tell me what a riddle is.

—Austin, where are you going with this? Ugh. A riddle is an over-thought problem with an obvious answer outside of the box. It’s— —And most riddles include some kind of play on wording, correct?

—Well, I was about to say that, but then you— —And the solution is derived from analyzing the pun, correct?

—That’s what I meant when I— —Therefore the solution to our problem must lie in the problem itself.

—Ok, Austin. You want me to ask you for clarification, yes?

—You need it from me, yes?

—No, but I’ll humor you.

It seemed that was enough for him. He stepped forward, facing the class, and reclaimed the spotlight: ―We have been sitting here thinking in circles for the better part of an hour.‖ He held up our Post-it® note to the screaming masses. ―I’d say this class has already written our story.‖ **** The class was almost over. The topic of our project had turned to nothing and everything all at once. We don’t really understand it, but we know that it is perfect in what it is. The Normal kids see it as just another day that all makes sense and does not change a thing. It is every unvoiced idea from the ones who rarely speak. It is every scream from Kenneth’s mouth, and every evil glare from the mean kids. It is the confusion, stress, and shock that we all clearly saw in Angela’s eyes. It’s everything brilliant that perhaps only the Know-it-Alls really understand. It’s all there. It is all there on the Post-It®.39

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O.K., here is where it gets very postmodern-ish.

Beautiful ending. Really.

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Works Cited Rubin, William S. ―Dada & Surrealist Art.‖ Exquisite Corpse, n.d. Web. 15 May 2012.

<http://www.exquisitecorpse.com/definition/About.html> .

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