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I start teaching at Wayward High tomorrow, I just transferred from my last school over the summer. Believe me, when I tell you this it's not just the students who get the first-day jitters. I can't tell you what it stems from it could be the fact that it was just summer and you had all the time in the world or realizing the fact that you are one step closer to meeting the real world face to face. For me, I think it has to do with the fact that I teach high schoolers, hormone raging pimply faced kids who have no concern for the people around them. I have to meet hundreds of these kids, remember their names and their faces I have to learn details about them that their parents wouldn't even know. Trust me once a child enters the building it brings out a side of them that most don't show at home. Wayward high is nothing like my last school which I am happy about. They didn't truly appreciate my art class over there, and the kids, they were just terrible. It wasn't too great of an area though, let alone a good school district. Most of the kids were presumed to be drug addicts and or dealers. Only a couple of students even bothered to show up to my art class, one of them Abby Martin, she was a wonderful artist, she could draw like Egon Schiele and paint like Vincent van Gogh but she thought of it as a hobby and had no further plans for her artistic abilities, it was heartbreaking to see her spirits fall when they cut my art class. I've only been teaching for about two years now, I got my first job as a teachers assistant shortly after my 21st birthday so I still have a lot to learn and a lot to teach. my parents always wanted more from me, they didn't want me to study art they expected me to become something bigger like a doctor or a lawyer just to at least follow in their footsteps the legacy they left for me. But I had a dream and I was determined to follow it, whether or not my dream was big enough or met the expectations they had set for me, I wanted to encourage people where I wasn't and to them that was the biggest mistake I could have made. I'm excited to go to Wayward High because it's an area with more money, as sad as it is if the district has more money the kids are more well behaved and have a better chance to succeed in life. They have an amazing art program and their previous art teacher just retired. Retirement. That is terrifying, I'm not sure what I would do with my life. There's all this talk about settling down with your family but what family? I won't be having any kids or even a husband, my parents disowned me for following my dream. 

Reviews

[JayG]

Some things to think about:

1. Can a reader, who knows nothing about you or the story as they begin to read this know how YOU would read this—how you want them to? Would they know the inflection and emotion you place into the words?

If not, what will they hear? Will it be what you expect? Have the computer read it aloud to hear what a reader gets.

2. Do things like paragraphing and grammar help the reader follow the story? If so...

3. We know that to write a screenplay we must know such things as how to frame a scene, the role of camera angles and how much to leave to the director and actors to decide. To write for the theater we need stagecraft. We know that. So, is it reasonable to believe that to write fiction that a reader will enjoy we need no more than the writing skills we learned in our schooling? Is there such a thing as the craft of the fiction-writer? Are there tricks-of-the-trade in that profession, as well? Because if there are...

4. If we need do no more than transcribe ourselves telling a story aloud, would the universities offer four-year majors in fiction-writing? Would the local library have a section devoted to fiction writing?

Perhaps a little research could prevent A lot of rewriting—and frustrating. After all, don't we want our story-art to have the best frame and setting?