Read THURSDAY to answer questions g)-i)
THURSDAY
The Gray's Bay School Writers Group had its second meeting in Room 7 at lunchtime today. Weird! We read what we'd written. Mr Richards asked us to try and give each author (I'm an author!) some feedback.
Kim was first. ("Eeny-meeny-miney ... Kim".) He read his soliloquy, which turns out to be something expressing your thoughts. It was full of typical Kim Tan big words: we all looked at him with our mouths open like dental patients, though Emma Jensen actually gave him a nod.
Then Melanie Somebody, who's in the other Form 2 class, read the start of a story about a girl who shoplifts so her friends will think she's tough.
When she finished, I said, "I like the way you use conversation to keep the story moving." I hadn't known I was going to say it, and I went red. Melanie went red too. Mr R said, "Good point, Ben. Conversation's useful for showing feelings, also." I felt pretty cool!
Janine Boisen had quite a good poem about riding a ghostly black horse. (Surprise!)
Athol Maxwell had a story about fishing from a reef with his father. I suppose it was OK. At any rate, Emma Jensen nodded at it too. After Athol read, he just tossed it down on the desk like he couldn't care less. You can do these things when you're tall and good-looking. (Hate! Hate!)
Then came Rewa Hiroti. "I've got a really sad poem," Rewa said. "Everyone got their handkerchiefs ready?" She read (I wrote it down later so I'd remember it):
Burning down the motorway, At a hundred k's, Granny did the biggest blow-off That I've heard for days. Engine exploded, Car fell apart, All because of Granny's Supersonic fart.
YEEE-HAR! Mr Richards laughed as hard as the rest of us. Kids in the playground were stopping and trying to see what was happening inside. "You've learned something," Mr R told us when the noise died down. "Writing can be fun!"
Nobody else quite matched Rewa-strangely enough. Some kids hadn't written anything. Mr Richards didn't get heavy, just said he hoped everyone would contribute next time. There was a Holiday story and a Cat poem. Emma Jensen, the only one who didn't really laugh at Rewa's poem, read something I hardly understood a word of-except for "dark", which came in every line. One girl went, "That's weird!" and Mr R-very quietly-said he wanted all comments to be constructive comments, please. Criticism, yes. Put-downs, no.
The little kid Krystal (her last name is Ball! Hee-hee) said she hadn't started her story, but she'd done the heading. She showed us MY ROOM in about 109 different coloured felts, which caused a lot of grins.
Oh yeah, and I read my poem. It was about being no good at sport. I felt nervous because I don't usually admit such things to people, unless they're friends like Kim. But everyone listened, and some of them made murmuring noises at the end. Little Krystal said "That's cleverl" which caused more grins. Melanie Whatserface said, "I like it too. It's honest." She and I both went red.
I enjoyed the meeting. I felt good. Have I found something I'm not hopeless at?