- What we're gonna do today is
I'll say a few words
about storytelling.
Then, we're going to do some exercises
where you'll have a chance to think about and write about
some of your own stories.
So it's really your workshop.
I'm just here to sort of guide it along.
Ordinarily, I've done this workshop over five days.
So now we've consolidated it into two hours.
I continue to do day-long workshops at The Clearing.
And people say to me,
"Why in the world do you keep doing this?
You're old."
And I say I've been doing it since 1971
and I'm trying to figure out how to do it.
If I ever get it figured out, I'll probably quit.
So you're all gonna help me today
figure out how to do this writing workshop thing.
Today, the focus is on
your experience
as an elementary school student.
How many of you, for example,
how many of you attended a one-room country school?
Quite a few of you.
That's one of the areas that we'll look at.
But it doesn't matter.
Whatever schoolroom you were a part of,
that's gonna be the focus of the program today.
This little book, Telling Your Story,
this little book came from workshops just like this,
where my students said to me,
"When in the world are you gonna write down
what it is you've been telling us all these years?"
And so I did.
And in here you will find a number of stories
written by students just like yourselves.
I got their permission to use them,
and they are in here at various places.
What I'm talking about today,
you can read in far greater depth
here in this book.
All the way from
how to trigger memories of your early life
to how to tell your story in front of a group,
in addition to how to write it.
So that's what this little book is about.
And on occasion, I will refer to it.
What we're gonna start with--
Well, first, I need to say this:
Why in the world is it important that you should do this?
Why take time from your busy life
to write down some of these stories?
Well, there's several reasons.
And I wanna say thank you to my wife
who created these visuals for us.
It's the old-school way of doing things,
but I still like to do it that way.
Can you all see this?
Maybe need to tip it around a little bit this way.
Why write your stories?
And there are several reasons that are listed here.
For those of you who are older,
it's a way for your family to know
what it is that you experienced growing up.
Your family deserves to know that, interestingly enough.
And you may think, "Well, my family doesn't care
what my early schooling was like."
You'd be surprised what your family would care about.
And I think we all have some obligation
to pass on our stories to the next generation.
I feel very strongly about that.
Writing down your story is another way to record history.
No question about it.
And one of the things that I encourage everyone to do,
especially after writing down your stories,
and sharing them with your family,
is to make sure you share them with
your local historical society
and your local public library.
There's an interesting collection of stories
in this little library on the other end.
And the Wild Rose Historical Society
has a bunch of stories that they've collected,
as most other historical societies do.
So when you are writing these stories,
you indeed are writing history.
And then the last reason for doing it,
which I think is so important--
and I say this to every group I've ever worked with--
when we forget our histories, we forget who we are.
When we forget our histories, we forget who we are.
And so now we move along.
The first thing I'd like to have you do,
and you should have sheets of paper in front of you,
along with some very special Public Television pens,
which you are welcome to take home with you,
here's what I'd like to have you do.
Take one of those big sheets of paper
and what I'm gonna ask you to do
is map,
make a map of the schoolroom
that you were a part of, in, let's say, fifth grade.
And put in that schoolroom the floor plan.
Put in the desks and the tables and the shelves.
Put the pictures on the wall.
Make a little note what pictures were on the wall.
Make a note of the sounds that you remember
from that schoolroom.
And I'm a product of a one-room country school.
And if you were to ask me what the sounds were,
I would answer in this way.
We had a big Regulator clock on the wall.
And the teacher insisted that the schoolroom
be absolutely quiet.
And the sounds that we heard were tick-tock, tick-tock.
Unless you could hear the clock,
the room was not quiet enough.
And we had an old wood stove in the back of the schoolroom.
And the sound that you would hear
in addition to the tick-tock, tick-tock
was the sputtering and crackling of the wood burning
in that old wood stove.
Those of the kinds of sounds I want you to remember.
And I want you to remember and write down the smells
associated with the school.
And again, a personal memory.
This old wood stove in the back of my school
had on it, on top, a pan of water.
And in that pan of water,
we could bring from home
chili, soup, something like that.
And when we put it in that pot--
that was our school lunch, by the way.
There wasn't any school lunch program--
in that little pan.
And by about 10:30 in the morning,
that's a wonderful smell of chili and tomato soup
along with the smell of all of the kids
who worked in the barn
and didn't really clean up too well when they came to school.
The smells were really very much a part of it.
So take a minute and think about,
"What do I remember about that schoolroom
"that I was a part of
when I was in, say, fifth or sixth grade?"
And when you think about that for a minute,
then I want you to sketch the map of that schoolroom,
and do what I'm suggesting here.
And you have 10 to 15 minutes.
Any questions before you go on?
Anybody?
All right, go for it.
[light music]
Oh, and by the way,
there's no looking on your neighbor's--
There's no cheating here. [class laughs]
[light music]
Okay, I'm gonna interrupt.
I think most of you are finished.
How did that work for you?
Anyone want to comment on that?
Did you come up with something
that you hadn't thought about in a long time?
- Not enough room on the paper. [class laughs]
- What?
- Student: Not enough room on the paper.
- Not enough room on the paper.
Well, that's probably right.
Anybody else want to comment,
just how the process worked for you?
Yes.
- Jennifer Wirth: As soon as I started thinking about things
and you start remembering...
I remember we had a flag in the corner, and every morning--
I forgot that every single morning--
we got up and said a "Pledge of Allegiance" to the flag.
And that's something...
- Did you all hear that?
There was a flag in the corner,
and we said the "Pledge" every day.
Someone else that...? Yes?
- Jane Erickson: I found myself remembering a couple specific events
rather than the general. - Jerry: Sure.
- So, my picture was an event. - Jerry: Okay, alright.
- And I kinda built off of that. - Yes.
- Fred Johannes: And you know, what I remember of pictures,
there was Abraham Lincoln and George Washington
up in the front by the blackboard.
- Jerry: Yeah, most country schools had those.
Anybody on this side have a comment? Yes?
- Lenora Glover: Reminded me that not only we had coat rooms
to hang our coats and put our boots in that we go,
but then I remember too there was always a piano
in every classroom because the teacher would,
we'd have a session for music to sing.
So there was always a piano,
and most of the teachers were able to play well enough
to get us through some music lessons.
- Jerry: Yeah.
How about you young guys?
What did you come up with?
- Matthew Wech: It seems like a lot of it's
a little different than maybe what some of...
[laughter] - Jerry: That's why I'm asking.
- Matthew Wech: Instead of pictures of presidents,
I remember a lot more inspirational posters and stuff.
- For example?
- "You can do anything if you put your mind to it."
Stuff like that.
- Brady Hinrichs: I had, like, letters of the alphabet,
or like maps or like
the counties and the states that we lived in and stuff.
- Okay, here's what I'd like to have you do next.
I'd like to have you turn to your neighbor
and introduce yourself if you don't know that person,
and say where you're from,
and then share that picture with your neighbor.
And we're gonna take 10, 15 minutes to do that.
So, introduce yourself,
share that picture with your neighbor.
[multiple conversations]
Once more, I'm going to interrupt.
Here's the next thing I'd like to have you do.
Look at that map and think about a story
that happened in that schoolroom.
For example, when I was in first grade
at Chain O' Lakes school, and I'll give it all away.
I'll give my age away.
It was in 1939, which is a day or two ago.
No electricity, no anything.
We didn't have electricity at home either.
And there I discovered-- a little five-year-old,
because there wasn't any kindergarten--
that there's this wonderful water cooler.
And if you pushed a button, water came up
right out of it you could drink.
We only had a water pail at home with a dipper.
And this was a wonderful new thing.
Now Clair Jenks-- some of you will know the name--
He lived in this community for a long time.
Clair was a couple, three years ahead of me.
And Clair said,
"I see you're interested in that water cooler."
I said, "Yes, I never saw anything like that before.
How does that work?"
And Clair said, "Well, here's what you do.
"You put your nose right down here where this,
see that little hole?"
Yes, oh, I see that.
He pushes the button, shot right up into my nose.
I could have--
Well, good thing the teacher did not--
Ms. Piechowski didn't see that
or he would have been in big trouble.
And he got-- Well, that's my story.
That was my introduction to school
as a first grader.
Take 15 minutes and write a story
about something that happened to you
in that schoolroom that you just drew
a picture of, 15 minutes.
[light music]
Find a place to put a period or a question mark
or an exclamation point or whatever seems appropriate.
How did this work for you?
- Students: It was fun.
- This is called "timed writing" or "forced writing,"
and I use it a lot in my workshops.
Most people find it useful.
Some people absolutely hate it.
But it's one way, if you have problems,
in getting at doing some writing,
it's one way to get over that.
And just a quick comment:
we have each of us in our heads,
a creative self, and a judging self.
And that judging self is constantly working
to tell us, "Oh, that's dumb!
"You're never gonna be a writer.
You shouldn't even try it."
And the creative self is
desperately wanting to be expressed.
Timed writing forces the judge into the corner
so that the creative self has the chance to come out.
And you will discover,
if you haven't already in what you've just done,
that by forcing yourself to write about something quickly
you just don't have time-- the judge doesn't have time
to get started to destroy what it is you're trying to do.
So, with that in mind, anyone find that useful?
When you go home, just set the timer sometimes
you want to write something.
Set the timer for 15 minutes,
agree on a topic and start writing.
You will surprise yourself.
I do that sort of thing all the time.
I start writing something.
I haven't a clue what I'm gonna write about really
until I get into it.
And some people think you oughta plan it all ahead of time.
Well, you don't; you really don't.
Enough said.
I now want to have some volunteers
to come up at this mic and read your story.
This is your time, people.
And I can see some wonderful stories
on the expressions on your faces.
So, who'd like to start
by coming up and sharing your story?
Come right up, Jane, come right on up here.
- Jane Erickson: This is from third grade,
'cause I remember nothing about fifth and sixth grade.
We were doing some science experiments.
Karen Smith was doing something with chick development
of fertilized eggs.
I sat in the corner of the back row
because I was one of those good kids.
Side note, a perk of being a good kid meant that
the teacher had the naughty boys sit next to me,
and I've always liked the naughty boys.
[laughter]
Anyway, one day Karen accidentally dropped
one of the dead eggs with a half-developed chick
behind my chair.
And what an awful stink.
One of the other students sprinkled that mop-up powder
on it,
but the smell lingered at least all day
and probably longer.
I wonder what grade Karen got.
[laughter]
[applause]
- Somebody else?
In a little bit, we're gonna talk about what makes a story.
But right now, I'd just like to get a bunch of them out there.
So who's next?
Don't be afraid, it's a fun thing.
Sure, Judy, go ahead.
Judy was one of my students many years ago.
- Students: Too old.
[laughter]
- Judy Adrian: We moved from Tacoma to Chicago when I was seven,
and I was very excited about moving
to the big city.
Now my mother was quite nervous about this move
from the rural area into the urban area.
So to prepare my sister and myself for elementary school,
she made us walk from the elementary school
five blocks to our house.
We were complaining and carrying on
and acting out the whole way
because she drove along next to us
like a stalker
in her aqua-blue Nash Rambler,
looking at us all the way.
The next day she found out
that Laurel School was not where we were supposed to go.
We were supposed to go Central School,
and she just sent us off and said, "Go. Go on your own."
Just abandoned us. [laughter]
[applause]
- Who's next?
Come on.
- Kathy Mahoney: When I was either in the fourth or fifth grade,
I went to a big elementary school
in Appleton, Wisconsin, and I remember at recess
getting into kind of a nasty verbal argument
with one of the other girls in the class.
I don't remember what the argument was about.
I think she was being snotty to me.
And what I remember is: I slapped her in the face.
And I always felt really bad about that.
But later on in my working career,
she came into my office on business
and I had the opportunity to apologize.
So that was really, really nice.
[laughter and applause]
- You know, talking about having sort of bully-like
experience, I share this story from my own experience
and had I done that today,
I would probably be expelled,
but I'm gonna tell you the story anyway.
I had a cap, one cap.
And I was very proud of my cap.
And Clair Jenks, that same guy who initiated me,
[laughter]
I was getting kindling wood for the stove.
The little first graders
had to bring in the kindling wood.
I'm getting kindling wood from out in the woodshed,
and there's Clair Jenks, and he steals my cap.
That is the worst possible thing to happen for a little kid,
to have some-- when you only got one cap.
He's got my cap.
I took a piece of kindling.
I whopped him over the head and he fell on his knees,
tears running down his face.
He never bothered me again.
[laughter]
And thankfully the teacher never heard about it either.
Who's next with a story to tell?
Yes, come ahead.
You know one of things we've forgotten to do?
You should say who you are to start with.
Pretty obvious, but I forgot to say that.
- I'm Guy Kaplan, and I was a teacher for 34 years,
but I'm not from Wisconsin either.
I always liked learning science in fifth grade.
It was my favorite subject,
especially the systems of the body.
I remember memorizing the parts of the ear or the eye.
We did digestion and we did the circulatory system.
I still remember the posters on the wall
and all the names of each part.
Later in life, I use that information
in my teaching career
and in training for an EMT program in the community.
- Jerry: Well, how 'bout that?
[applause]
Who's next? I saw another--
Yes, come on up.
You two young guys are on notice, you know.
[laughter]
We're gonna get to you.
- I'm Peggy Thiel, and I went to a one-room schoolhouse...
- Move closer to the mic. - In first grade.
My clearest memory of first grade
centered on the lack of indoor plumbing.
[laughter]
One day there was a huge snowstorm
and it blocked the entry to the outhouse.
And I made several trips outside,
but it was blocked every time.
And finally, I had to tell the teacher
that I needed help.
I was so embarrassed,
and Mr. Rodencel had to stop teaching
and go outside and shovel a path for me to get in.
The unwanted attention was very embarrassing
for a six-year-old girl, but I made it.
And I was very relieved. [laughter]
And then there was the matter of drinking water.
Although the first-graders never had to pump the water,
I was always afraid
'cause it looked like it was hard work.
But fortunately for me,
there was one kid, Gary, who was in seventh grade,
and he got in trouble every single day
and his punishment was always
to pump water and fill the stone water container.
So I got out of that job.
[laughter] - Jerry: Very good.
[applause]
Somebody else? Yes.
- I'm Leroy Staaland.
- Jerry: Get right up close to the mic.
- I'm Leroy Staaland.
Well, my experience with country schools
was only a year and a half.
My first year was down in Illinois,
and I was in a school with eight girls,
and I was the only one.
But I was small for my age, so they took good care of me.
Just before the Christmas program was gonna be,
I decided I needed to cut my hair.
So I did a little cutting job
which looked like, "Ho, ho, ho!" [laughter]
But one of the girl's mother helped it out
and took care of it.
[applause]
- Okay, I want to hear from one of you guys.
I wanna hear a story from one of you guys.
- Okay, my name is Brady Hinrichs,
and the remembrance I had was from sixth grade,
and I don't know why this was on my memory today,
but it was.
And it was the time of Barack Obama's first inauguration.
So it was in January.
And we had the choice, as kids, to stay after lunch
and watch the inauguration or go out and play recess.
And I obviously chose recess, but one of my friends
whose family was very liberal decided to watch it.
And all I remember is coming back from recess
into a dark classroom with the TV on.
And I was thinking,
"Why in the world would you want to watch this?"
As a sixth-grader, I had no interest in doing it.
So that's just the memory that I thought of today.
[laughter]
- Yeah, do you have a story to tell?
- Matthew Wech: I guess, sure.
[laughter]
- Jerry: Give us your name first.
- I'm Matthew Wech.
One of my memories I have is from fourth grade.
All the fourth graders got to take a trip
to University of Madison to tour it.
One of the reasons I remember it
is because my sister was a senior.
Since she graduated a few days early, so she was out of school.
And she decided to be a chaperone,
which I thought was cool
'cause no one else got to have a sister, a sibling,
and it was always their parent.
So I thought that was way cool.
And then, she actually had the same fourth-grade teacher as me,
and she went to be an elementary teacher
because of that teacher.
- Great, well thank you.
[applause]
Okay, front row.
- Kathy Mahoney: I did it. - I know.
I'm looking at the rest of the front row.
Yes, come on up.
- I'm Beth Wilcox, Elizabeth, but I'm always called 'Beth.'
Our son went to the same school my husband and his father
and grandpa and probably great grandpa
all went to the Raymond's School
in the town of Dakota.
Well, Paul, was our first child,
and all our kids learned
to take part in the farming process
so they all helped build their muscles.
I have to admit, I wrote this before coming here
because I couldn't remember too many things.
I was only in country school eight grades
for one year,
and I couldn't remember
too many things that were too pleasant.
But I'm going to tell you about my son, Paul.
He walked a mile to the Raymond's School.
It was a one-room school that the family had all gone to.
Sometimes he rode his two-wheel bike
with a chain that sometimes was loose,
and he'd keep turning 'til it finally hit the right cog
and pulled him on to the school.
He came home one day after school
when he was in the first grade.
The kids were playing baseball,
and wouldn't you know it, the batter hit that ball
straight through the hole...
the hole of the outhouse window
and fell right into the hole that, luckily,
had just been given a cleaning a few days before.
Well, Paul, being the smallest and the youngest kid at school,
got lowered down the hole
[laughter]
through the seat to retrieve the ball.
Well, while he's down there,
and this kid's hanging onto him,
the teacher came to the door and rang the bell.
Down Paul was dropped.
Everybody ran into the school.
So Paul thought, "Well, how am I gonna get out of here?"
They had all this dirt there
so he dug his feet in and climbed up and grabbed the dirt.
I suppose there was some grass in it.
He made it out.
He was a little late getting into class,
and the teacher asked him why he was late.
And he said the truth.
He told her he was dropped down in there
and she rang the bell and everybody ran in
and left him down in the bottom of the hole.
Well, he told the truth, but nobody stuck up for him.
So he got turned over the teacher's lap and spanked.
And I thought that was really terrible,
and it wasn't right.
But it was a lesson he learned,
and he's always been a real good kid.
- Jerry: It didn't damage him permanently?
- Beth: No, but I thought, "What first grader
would be able to climb out of a toilet hole?"
and he said, "I hung on to the seat."
- Jerry: I didn't bet he smelled too good either.
[laughter]
- Beth: Well, it was pretty clean in there really
at the time, [laughs] so he was lucky.
- Student: That's a poopy day. - Yes.
[laughter]
[applause]
- Oh, we got time for a couple more.
Yes, come on up.
And you ought to tell us, Kay,
not only your name but how old you are.
We need to hear that.
- I'm Kay Barnard, and my son is the librarian here.
So I'm not responsible for anything he does.
[laughter]
My first day in school was in September of 1925,
and I'd been waiting oh so desperately.
I could go to school and I could learn to read.
Well, I got to school,
with my pencil, new paper,
met my friend whom I hadn't seen, Pat, for some time.
We went into the room, sat down,
and we really learned right away
that you do not talk in school.
[laughter]
So we shut up and pretty soon the day was...
the morning was over.
I hadn't even had a book.
So the teacher said,
"Okay, dinnertime. You're excused."
All right, Pat and I had lots to say to each other.
So we were bumbling all the way downstairs,
went around the corner of the building.
There was a little terrace.
We weren't very hungry,
so we sat down and started talking.
A little bit later, a very red-face lady
appeared on the lawn behind us
and said, "Pat, Doris, get home! Now!"
We didn't know what we'd done.
We were sure it was something real bad.
So we scooted for home.
I got home, discovered that I was late for dinner.
I got switched,
you know, with little branches.
That doesn't hurt as much as other spankings do.
And I ate dinner, went back,
and the afternoon went,
and I left that school at three o'clock
and got home right away.
But I hadn't learned to read yet,
and I was very disgusted with first grade.
[laughter and applause]
- Jerry: That's absolutely disgusting.
Go to school a whole day and you didn't learn to read?
- Kay Barnard: That's right.
And they didn't even give me a book.
- How'd you do by the second day?
- Kay Barnard: Well, let's go on to the second grade,
and we had a section: you could read these books
if you were in the first grade.
Then there were those for the second grade.
And then there were those for the third.
Well, I'd read most of the first and second already.
It wasn't legal to read the second grade.
And I got to school
and my mother and the teacher had been talking.
So the teacher said, "Take your books
and ought to clean out your desk."
And I thought, "Ooh what did I do now?"
And she moved me over to the third grade.
Well, with three grades in a room
by the time you are in the second grade,
you're hearing for the second time everything.
So it was a breeze.
- That's how it worked. - Yes.
- Thank you very much.
[applause]
Anybody who's just been reluctant to come up here,
here's your chance, come on up.
- My name is Lenora Glover, and I went to school
in Milwaukee, in the big city.
And when I was in about, oh, around fifth grade,
I was always--
I always tried to be a good kid.
I always wanted to be good, never got in trouble.
And I always did my best to get the best grades I could.
But one thing I always would do in fifth grade,
I had a desk,
of course, with the inkwell.
And I lived right across the street from school.
So I would go home for lunch.
And when I got done with lunch,
at the other end of the block, there was a candy store.
And if I had an extra nickel, I would go to the candy store
and buy myself a bag of sunflower seeds.
And I would sneak that into school with me.
And I had a cup from a pencil sharpener
that I would have sitting in my inkwell,
and I'd have books propped underneath it
so it was just at the proper level.
And I would sneak sunflower seeds
in my mouth without the teacher looking.
I'd suck on them, and then I'd sneak the hulls out
and drop them in the little cup in the inkwell.
And I never got caught.
[laughter]
That was my naughty part of being in school.
- Well, that's pretty good.
[applause]
Okay, we're gonna move on
and the stories you've been sharing
are absolutely wonderful.
But I want to go another step
and talk a little bit about what makes a story a story.
And I wanna start out by saying
there's a difference
between recalling a memory and simply writing it down,
and a story.
There's nothing whatever wrong with recalling a memory.
That's wonderful, but as someone interested
in stories and storytelling, I encourage everybody
to go further,
to go deeper.
To turn that memory into a story.
And here are the elements of a story,
and I'll talk a little bit about each one of them.
Telling your Story book, I've got a whole chapter about that.
You can look at it later.
So what makes a story?
Well, this sounds so simplistic, but it's true.
A story has a beginning, and a middle and an end.
It's as simple as that in some ways
and as complicated as that in some ways.
And the elements of a story
beyond a beginning, a middle, and an end,
a story has characters in it.
And if you're writing your memory,
you are one of the characters.
But then you're meeting other people
and your little stories talked about other people.
But I want to see those people.
What did they wear?
What were their mannerisms?
How old were they?
Characters need to come alive in your story,
not just referencing them but making them come alive.
And everybody talks.
There's dialogue in a story.
Dialogue means somebody is saying something,
and if you're writing it,
that's what you're putting in quotation marks.
And dialogue is tricky because, well,
as you look around just our state of Wisconsin--
I used to live in Green Bay.
The Green Bay folks do not talk the same way
that Hayward folks talk,
nor do the Milwaukee folks talk the same way
that the natives of Wild Rose talk.
And so you develop an ear for dialogue
and in your memory of your stories,
think about, "How did my teacher talk?
What words did she use and how did she use them?"
My first teacher was Theresa Piechowski,
and she had a hint of a Polish accent.
Think about using dialogue,
and think about how it fits the person.
Educational level is another determinant
of how people talk.
My dad had a fifth-grade education.
He dropped the 'G's often when he talked.
He had very few, if any, 50-cent words,
but you could understand him very clearly.
And my mother, same way, had a seventh-grade education.
And their spelling was most creative, of course,
because they spelled the words as they sounded.
So you capture the character, the people in your stories
by how their physical descriptions,
their mannerisms, their age, and all of that,
and how they talk, their language,
how they use language.
And that helps now bring your story alive.
And we want to give life to these stories
so that when you tell them, and when you write them,
people will say to you,
"It's just like I'm standing next to what had happened."
That's one of the clues.
And then, generally, there's some kind of conflict.
Dumping the poor kid in the outhouse;
there's a wonderful conflict.
That has all the elements
of what would make a wonderful story.
You need some kind of conflict.
Having a bout with this person who was trying to be a bully.
That's a kind of a conflict.
Not all stories have conflict, but many, many of them do.
And there's suspense.
You wanna know, "What's next? What happened?"
And when you say, my eighth grade was a disaster,
ho, ho, that's a suspenseful statement.
In what way was it a disaster?
See that's the suspense.
And you don't give the story away in the first line.
Some people tend to do that.
They say, this is what happened,
and then they tell you the rest of the story,
and they need not bother
because you already know how it's gonna end.
You want a little suspense,
meaning you want people to keep reading,
to keep listening,
wondering, "What is going to happen next?"
That's what suspense is all about.
The Clair Jenks story with the water cooler,
that's an idea.
"What in the world is he gonna do?"
Well, it's a simple thing.
The stories do not need to be complicated.
In fact, the simpler the story,
the better it's understood often.
So conflict, suspense, emotion.
And some stories,
well, several of these,
evoked some laughter.
I did not hear a story that brought tears to my eyes.
Often there are those stories,
but emotion is often a part of a story.
And then details.
Oh, I want to know where and when and what color?
The aqua... What was the car?
A Rambler or whatever it was.
That's an example of detail.
Detail helps make the story.
That's why I had you drawing these maps
of your schoolrooms so that you've got
bunch of detail there that you can draw on.
We want to know time and place.
When did this story take place and where?
And what was it like then?
The time and place are a part of stories.
Questions?
I've just given you two days
of the deal that I've done in my workshops in about five minutes.
Any questions about this?
I'm really challenging each of you
to go deeper with your stories,
and take that memory,
that wonderful memory of whatever it is.
We all have a bunch of them, and take that memory
and work on it and set the timer,
and do whatever it takes,
and keep these in mind as you work your way through.
Now we're gonna do another exercise.
And this time, we're gonna go a step further.
And I don't wanna frighten any of you.
You're here to learn how to do this stuff.
And what we're gonna do is
I'm gonna have you writing some stories,
sharing the stories,
and then we're gonna talk about
to what extent did that story meet these criteria.
In other words, we're gonna test right off the bat.
I spent 38 years teaching.
I can't get over it so it probably shows badly.
Okay, so here's what's gonna happen.
Think about your favorite teacher.
And this can be high school, I suppose, too,
if you want.
I want--
Just make a list of these kinds of things to start with.
What's the name of the person,
physical characteristics,
special skills,
personality quirks,
teaching approach,
discipline strategy, whatever you wanna do.
Make a list of that.
I'll give you an example.
Some of you will remember Arlene Holt,
who was one of my high school teachers,
here, at Wild Rose High School, where I graduated in 1951.
Arlene Holt was an English teacher.
She also was the librarian.
And Arlene Holt had a magnificent way of sneezing.
We all sat watching.
Would today be another day for a Holt sneeze?
And it would go something like this.
We would all be watching.
And we were supposed to be talking about Beowulf
as I remember.
I was a senior then.
And Ms. Holt said, "I don't understand this stuff."
And so we then studied the Reader's Digest,
but that's a little aside.
We all understood the Reader's Digest.
But now this is the day when we knew there's likely
to be a Holt sneeze.
And it would start like this. [sniffs]
A-ha-ha-ha. She's getting ready. [sniffs]
She had a little dainty handkerchief she pulled out.
Now... [sniffs]
She would sniffle--
I mean she would sniffle for an enormous amount of time
before she ever got around to the sneeze.
And then [sniffs] and she'd screw up her face.
I mean it was just most difficult
to keep a straight face as an eighth grader
who was supposed to be a decent sort of a student.
And finally, there's a little bit, "Achoo."
That was it.
[laughter]
There was no big ACHOO that everybody would hear.
Take some time and write down the characteristics
of your favorite teacher,
and then we're gonna go another step with that.
But let's do that first.
Just take about five minutes and write down
the characteristics of one of your favorite teachers.
[light music]
Next thing I'd like to have you do
is just share that list, whatever you've written
about that favorite teacher with your neighbor.
We'll take a couple minutes to do that.
I think you'll find that interesting.
Just share that with your neighbor.
[multiple conversations]
- Sarah Peterson: My favorite teacher...
[multiple conversations]
- Jerry: Let me interrupt again
and now what I'd like to have you do
is to think about that teacher
and write a story related to how that teacher,
in your mind,
became one of your special teachers.
And let me give you an example.
When I was-- I had polio when I was in eighth grade,
and I came to Wild Rose High School hardly able to walk.
And I was, along with all the other freshman boys,
we were encouraged to go out for baseball.
And, of course, I'm standing at the base,
and I can't run.
I could hardly walk.
And Cliff Simonson was the pitcher then.
And he had, well, he had a way of initiating the freshman
by whistling the ball right by your nose.
And the ball hit me in the head and knocked me cold.
And Paul Wright, who was the coach,
when I came to--
And there weren't any ERs
and trips to the hospital and all that.
When I came to, he said,
"Jerry, I don't think you're gonna make the baseball team,"
[laughter]
which was the understatement of the year.
But then he encouraged me to take typewriting.
And why in the world should any boy take typewriting?
Everybody knew typewriting was for girls.
And it was
in 1946 or seven, whatever that year was.
And so here I am in a classroom with 15 girls.
It was not the worst situation, I must tell you.
Paul Wright got me into writing.
Because that typewriter class at Wild Rose High School
was also the newspaper office.
We produced the Rosebud.
Wasn't that just--
Do you just want to grab that and read it?
And, eventually, I became editor of it.
Paul Wright was my hero.
He saw something in me that I didn't see in myself.
I was a miserable little kid.
And he was able to say, "Jerry, maybe you can do
something else rather than baseball."
Write a story now for 15 minutes
about your favorite teacher
along the lines that I just shared with you.
[light music]
Again, find a place to put a period or a question mark
or whatever would be appropriate.
And I'm going to ask for volunteers,
especially those who have been reluctant to come up here
to share their stories.
Now before you do, this time we're gonna
do it a little differently in that
once you've heard the story,
then I want you to look at this list and note,
note what you really like about the story.
And every story has all kinds of worth
and every story, no matter how good it is,
can be improved.
So we're here to help each other,
not to send you home
thinking, "I was not cut out to be a writer,
and now I know for sure."
Come on up.
- Well, my name is Karl Gutknecht,
and I went to the Seaman's School in Richland County
and had one teacher for all eight grades, Mrs. Harper.
And as wonderful as Mrs. Harper was,
my favorite teacher was never even in the classroom.
He came to us through the radio.
And every single Monday morning for eight years
Mrs. Harper would go to the front of the room,
and there was this big radio with two knobs on it.
And she'd turn it, and it was set to a certain station,
and it was the Wisconsin School of the Air.
And after we recited the Pledge of Allegiance
with the flag was right next to the radio,
so our attention was focused right there.
This voice would come over the radio
from a place called Radio Park in Madison.
And we sat there, all eight grades,
from this big up to this big
imagining this Ranger Mac
sitting in a studio
on this vast agricultural campus, he said,
at the University of Wisconsin.
And he would start to talk like our friend Jerry Apps here,
about the wonderful things
that we already knew about when we walked to school every day.
Some people walked two miles and they had their dinner buckets,
and they would be walking.
Nobody ever took their kids to school in a car
and dropped them off like today.
God help us.
So...
Here Ranger Mac is talking about squirrels and acorns and nuts
and all the things that we knew,
and in our imagination on the way home, we said,
"Oh, that's what he was talking about today."
And it just came alive because he talked about
the wonders of the valleys and the meadows
and the cows and all the things that we knew.
And here we sat in this one-room school
and listened to this man.
Well, about the sixth grade,
I was startled to learn
that he had a double identity.
It's almost as bad as learning there isn't a Santa Claus.
This was really a man called Wakelin McNeel
and he had a job at the state conservation department.
And talking about nature,
it was just part of his job.
And of course, there were other memorable teachers,
but he would start every Monday morning,
and he would say,
"Hello, boys and girls.
"This is your day--
so, up and away."
[laughter]
And at the end of his half-hour show
after he talked about the squirrels
and the raccoons
and soil conservation,
he would...
He had this statement that I remember so vividly.
"May the great spirit put sunshine in your heart,
"now and forever more,
keep much."
My favorite teacher, Ranger Mac.
- Students: Aw... [applause]
- I've just got to do this.
I listened to that same radio program,
and I was so privileged to get to know him.
I was a professor in the College of Ag for years
and that's where Wakelin McNeel was.
He also was the state 4-H leader at one time.
And if you ever been to Upham Woods
on the Wisconsin River north of Wisconsin Dells,
he was the first director of Upham Woods.
So I have all kinds of wonderful memories
of Wakelin McNeel.
Write down your comments about this man's story.
He has the best German name, Gutknecht.
Is that pretty close?
- Karl: "Gutknecht" means good servant, so there's a story...
- Are you sure about that? [laughs]
Write down some comments related to what's here,
and we're gonna talk about this story for a little bit.
[light music]
All right, who wants to start?
Generally, we get everybody into it,
but we're running out of time.
Anybody? Comments? Yes.
- Jane Erickson: I'm just picturing--
I was thinking at first
about suspense, and the way he took us through
a Monday morning
and you're looking at the radio, and you say the Pledge,
and then you're waiting for the show to start.
It was wonderful.
- And then you hear, "This is WLBL, your state's station,
"coming to you today from Auburndale, Wisconsin.
"And today we feature, one more time,
Afield with Ranger Mac."
Okay, we want another volunteer to come up here.
And don't be afraid.
We're all here to help each other,
especially somebody who hasn't done it yet.
This is a chance to be up here
and share a story that we can help you with.
Look at that.
Yes, by all means. Come right up.
Tell us who you are and the whole schmear.
- Kate Norman: When I was in seventh or eighth grade,
we had a substitute teacher.
I don't remember her name.
She was very pretty, very young.
I think a blonde.
She had such a pretty smile and voice.
She was very sweet and calming.
I was very shy and unconfident.
I was made fun of a lot by other kids,
so I didn't smile much.
And this is bringing me to tears.
I remember her telling me that I had a pretty smile
and that I should smile more.
She made me feel important and valuable.
She inspired me to teach later.
And all growing up, I wanted to be a teacher and a mother.
My mom was just a wonderful mother.
And...
later on, I found out...
Terrible news to me was that
that substitute teacher was fired
or was not asked to come,
and I always wondered why.
I couldn't figure it out because, to me,
she was the best substitute teacher I'd ever had.
- Jerry: Thank you very much.
[applause]
Again, just take a moment
and think about what you just heard.
Write down a couple notes, and we'll talk about it.
Okay, let's start with
what you liked about what you heard.
Let me make a comment about emotion
because that's a good example of emotion
in what you just heard.
One criterion
for checking your own writing
as to whether or not it has any emotion.
If you are not laughing when you are reading
what's supposed to be funny, it ain't funny.
And if you are not coming to tears when you read it,
then the emotion of sadness is missing.
And we saw the example of that just now.
And never ever apologize
for allowing emotion to be expressed.
Do not ever apologize for that.
That often gives tremendous life to a story.
Emotion is a powerful, powerful thing.
Comments now? Yes.
- John Gwinn: I would mention emotion as well.
That's obvious, but also the suspense.
What happened to the teacher?
- Jerry: Yes. - John Gwinn: We don't know.
- And sometimes that's just fine.
We want, well--
What I saw when she was speaking,
what I saw she saw in this teacher,
apparently somebody else didn't,
or saw that as not a positive characteristic.
Comments? Yes.
- Kathy Mahoney: What was the time period, the years?
- Kate Norman: Okay, I got to figure it...
This was seventh and eighth grade.
I was born in '58, graduated in '76,
so this would have been probably early '70s.
- Other comments? Yes.
- Karl Gutknecht: What came through to me was the crucial importance
of teachers in our lives
and how they help us
to become what we are in such a positive way.
- Jerry: Yeah, excellent,
and that was a wonderful example of that, yes.
Somebody else? Yes.
- Lenora Glover: I think she had a lot of detail
about the teacher, herself.
You know, the impression she got from that teacher.
- Jerry: And what she looked like.
- Lenora Glover: What she looked like
and how that teacher made her feel.
- Jerry: Yeah.
This side? Yes, Jane.
- Jane Erickson: Back to emotion,
you know, we felt your emotion,
but your comments about bullying made me angry for you.
So, it brought up that emotion within me.
- Again, when you're writing it,
you should feel the emotion.
The reader ought then feel that emotion as well.
Generally speaking,
if you don't feel it yourself,
the reader isn't gonna feel it either.
That's the point I was trying to make.
Anybody else? In the back?
You folks way in the back there, you've been mute.
[laughter]
What did you like or not like?
How would you make this better?
This is a great start, yes.
Anybody? Judy?
- Judy Adrian: Not on how to make it better,
but on the idea that sometimes we write through adult eyes.
And this felt like it was written through a child's eyes to me.
And I liked that perspective a lot.
- Jerry: Yeah, I didn't get into point of view at all,
but that's a wonderfully good comment
because, generally speaking,
if you are writing as a child,
and several of my books--
they're piled up out there if you want to go look at them.
Several of my books are written from the perspective
of when I was eight or nine or ten years old.
And I worked really hard at that.
The language used, the dialogue, the whole schmear
has to be authentic or it's not going to work.
And that's the fun of doing this work
by the way,
is to seek, to remember yourself as who you were
and just crowd everything out
and forget that you got a Master's degree
and a lot of big words stuck away in your head,
and think about,
"What would I have said when I was five years old,
and how would I have said it?"
Other comments?
And we're almost out of time.
So, anything you want to say,
questions about what we're doing and all that.
And I'm sorry the time goes by so quickly.
Anything at all?
Questions? Comments? Yes.
- Kate Norman: I'd just like to make a comment about
just even getting out there.
- Jerry: A little louder please.
- Kate Norman: I was just going to say,
just going up there in front of everybody
was very... a big step for me.
And I never have considered myself a writer.
I don't feel like--
I'm not confident as even to do journaling 'cause that--
all the judgment of the years of other teachers or whatever
of my writing,
it just feels like that I can't do it right.
- Jerry: That's not uncommon.
You've got a huge judge sitting on your shoulder
that I referred to earlier.
Sometimes you just need to do
some of what I've been suggesting,
doing some timed stuff,
and knock the judge off your shoulder
and say, "Go talk to somebody else.
I want my creative self to be expressed."
Somebody else? Any? Yes.
- Jennifer Wirth: I wanted to make my experience
a little bit different
and tell my story through the school's point of view.
- Jerry: Uh-huh.
- And how it's no longer a school.
It's now just a storage building
and how sad it must be that it once housed
all of these kids through the ages.
- Fantastic.
Some of you know that I write about
barns and mills and breweries and all that kind of stuff.
And it's really interesting
to take the point of view
of a barn or a school.
And every building, especially older buildings,
every one of them has a story to tell
if we could only figure out a way
of hearing the story.
And sometimes that building needs a storyteller
so that we can capture...
That's a great idea.
Get after that.
Why are you sitting here? Get going, git!
[laughter] Yes?
- Fred Johannes: I have to tell you, Jerry,
you know my one-room country teacher
was Alice Daye at Webb School.
And I thought I was coming here today
to write and talk about the school.
But you made me realize that I'm really here
to write down about the teacher,
the magnificent teacher we had at Webb school.
And she taught us for the rest of our life.
And called me over to her deathbed at Heartland
just a year or two ago and gave me an assignment
to write about Webb School.
- And how are you doing?
- Fred Johannes: Well, you're helping me along.
[laughter]
But I think it really has to switch that
the school and the teacher
because they taught us for the rest of our lives.
- Jerry: Of course.
Anybody else have? Yes.
- Guy Kaplan: I used to call it "Drop Everything and Write"
when we were in fourth and fifth grade.
'Cause we had to drop everything and read,
and then we let everybody read
and then drop everything and write.
It was journaling.
- Well, writing is a powerful activity.
It's one way of finding out who we are.
It's a way of helping us get out from behind ourselves.
Think about that for a while.
Helping us get out from behind ourselves.
It's a way of having us reflect on where we've been
because we can't begin to know where we're going,
unless we have a pretty good idea
of where we've been.
History is a powerful, powerful area of inquiry.
Yes?
- Karl Gutknecht: It seems to me you can help me rediscover
that happy eight-year-old.
- Exactly, and my discovery of the happy eight-year-old
was just the opposite because I couldn't walk.
I was paralyzed in bed.
But I had to rediscover it, and I wasn't about to.
I don't want anybody to know I'd ever had polio.
I spent ten years in the Army Reserve.
I never told.
No doctor ever asked me so I didn't tell them.
So, that's right.
Folks, we are just about out of time.
You have been the most wonderful group.
We've just begun to do what needs to be done
in this area of storytelling.
And I hope you've gotten enough hints
out of what we've done today that when you go home,
you're gonna sit down
and you're gonna write the story about the school,
and you're gonna write some more about this wonderful woman
who helped you get in touch with yourself.
And you're gonna write more about this poor kid
stuck down in the toilet hole.
[laughter]
Thank you all so very much.
[applause]
[light music]