Day 127- "Good description is a learned skill,one of the prime reasons you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. " On Writing by Stephen King

Friday! I finally made it. This felt like two weeks instead of one. Ending my week on a red day is a nice gift into next week where I will have two black days and one of them being on Friday.

English 12 almost finished up chapter 9 in Slaughter-House, but I intentionally held off because I had something I wanted them to do. In the Vonnegut Library, there is a letter on display that is sealed. Vonnegut Sr. wrote this letter to his son while Kurt was in Germany. Kurt Jr. never received the letter as he was a POW, and the letter was returned to sender. When Kurt Jr. arrived home, his father gave him the unopened letter. Kurt Jr. never opened it. It was passed along to his son, and is son donated it to the library on the condition it would never be opened. For a writing activity, I explained all this to the class, then I had them write what they thought the letter said. There is an actually contest held by the library for this very activity, but I can't find any information on it for this current year.

In continuing our theme of descriptive writing in creative writing, I went back to the senses. I told my students I want to be able to hear, see, and feel the places and people they are describing in their writing. I gave each one of them a mini Milky Way bite sized candy piece. I told them I must truly love them to give away my favorite candy, so they should feel very privileged. I placed them on the desks and said they couldn't touch them. They then had to describe what they looked like and what they saw. We went through all the senses and I wrote their descriptions up on the board. I then allowed them to eat it and describe the taste. I then explained they had to write a narrative about a person who had never eaten or seen a Milky Way before and describe in vivid detail the experience. I told them from now on, I want to be able to see, hear,  and feel their writing. I then had them polish up their writing from the last day we met and use as much description as possible. This was then submitted for a grade.