Here are a variety of excerpts from our fall writing session. It was called, "Take Flight!" and explored all different aspects of flight, including flights of fancy, Amelia Earhart's flight and the flight of the bumblebee. We also used free write prompts to jump into stories. In the "My Name Is.." poems, we personified our names.
From a free write
The fan whirs and gushes of air woosh toward me. I’m sitting next to Starr, and on the other side of me, staring at the whiteboard, is my best bud, Redhead.
“Just stay quiet, I think it’s blind,” somebody says, reading the whiteboard.
“Is he talking about Jewel?” Starr asks. We burst into giggles and get a murderous look from Spock.
-Ciel
My Name Is…
My name is high and low,
My name is made from pureness,
I found my name in a restaurant’s kitchen,
My name can fly wherever it wants.
If I lost my name, I could
never replace it,
My name is Cate.
-Cate
Writing Prompt: I used to believe…
I used to believe in flying forever, away from here when times get rough below, and back when people find peace in themselves and others. I used to believe that I could just soar above, never coming to a stop and never interfering with the complex world on the ground. I used to believe that I would never land, that my wings would flap forever, that the wind would never stop. I would never get lower, never higher.
And now I realize that there is no going away, no running from death, from fear. You must face your troubles, you must come down to the ground to solve your problems. Then you can take flight again, to stay tethered to the chain that is your breathing. Because when that stops, the world will too.
-Ruby H
From a freewrite
I am walking in a dark tunnel, under a house, a house that has been sitting abandoned and dark for longer than anyone in this funny little town can remember. At night, the surrounding neighbors have seen a light drifting down the hall. Now, as I walk through the secret tunnel, I wonder what I will find or if I will survive to tell the story of how I came to be here.
-Paola
My Name Is…
It is made of fiery green and California blue.My name is jumping for joy for no particular reason,
I found my name wrapped in deep folds of fog,
My name can be something it’s not.
If my name ran away, I’d put up posters everywhere, and be on every corner,
looking far and wide
-Olivia
From her “Flight of Fancy”
My name is Jen, well, Jennifer Hughson really. I’m named after my great aunt, Jennifer Bailey. But that’s on my mom’s side, well, my first mom that is. I have four parents: my first mom and dad and my second mom and mom. You see, my first set of parents got divorced when I was six and they both started dating other people, and my dad, he got married again to a woman named Stacey. My mom got remarried to a woman, which I think is great. In ways I have what I call a double-decker life!
-Clara
From her “Flight of Fancy”
My silk gown flutters in the wind as I escape down the narrow alley. My dark blue heels are getting splattered with mud and I stumble as my arm scrapes the brick wall beside me. I shake of the chalk that dusted my torn sleeve.
As I round the sharp turn, I skid in a puddle of mud, and in the process, one of my belted shoes goes flying. I have no time to retrieve it, so I unlatch my other Gucci high heel and I shiver as my feet slap the wet gravel below me.
I reach the next corner and as soon as I am sure that I am out of sight of all people, I start to climb. The metal wires of the tall chain link fence dig into the balls of my thumbs.
-Mattie
From her “Flight of Fancy”
The color raced across the Ivory Hill, creating color in its wake. It made sparkling rivers that gave life to flowers and the flowers’ seeds drifted lazily through the air in a living dream, creating beauty and life in whichever path they chose, and from that little seed came light, racing like a wild stallion through the darkness, an explosive amount of light, rippling through the fields and illuminating a dark corner where a pale moth sat, spreading its wings and soaking up the light. It flew for endless time until it reached the ground where it fluttered gently onto a baby’s serene sleeping face, and that baby grew up to be an artist and when his finger (dipped in the sparkling colors of the world) touched his canvas (a blank Ivory Hill), the color raced and the cycle began again.
-JoJo
Flying, a bumblebee's point of view...
Just a soft flutter at first, a soft rock, a twitch of the wing. Then it
was more, a blast of strength, a burst of hope. Now it was time, up off
the cracked ground and into the innocent air. I can fly, she thought,
but instead I’m going to soar. The feeling of flying was the feeling of
power. I am your ruler and you’re of air, she thought, you’re of silk,
of nothing, because I am free.
-Jake
Describe It (observation activity):
