New Anthology this Sunday!

Each year we unveil an anthology of our students' work and this Sunday, September 25th, the new 2011 anthology will be cause for celebration! Please join us in honoring our students and their work at Breakfast Of Course on Trade Street in downtown Winston-Salem at 4:30. Students will be reading their work and you will get a chance to peruse the new anthology. Copies are available for students and their family members, and additional copies are available for order. 

The anthology this year is 245 pages of enthralling stories, poems, songs, plays, drawings, inventions, board games, and more! We are so proud of our students! See you this Sunday at Breakfast Of Course...chirp...chirp.

Student Work: Story Excerpt by Leah Wilson

This is an excerpt from a group story students have been working on this year that will appear in its entirety in the upcoming Story Hatchery Anthology this summer. 

            

Story Excerpt

by

Leah Wilson, age 13

             I walked quickly up the hallway to homeroom.  My bus was always late, so I had to hurry.  Other kids laughed and shouted across the hallway.  I hated how they could never be quiet.  Quiet was much better.

            “Jeremy!” yelled a voice from behind me.  I knew who it was without seeing him.  It was my worst tormentor, a bully named Dan.  I tried to run through the crowd, but my backpack was so heavy running was impossible.

            Dan grabbed my backpack and yanked it as hard as he could.  I was pulled to the dirty tiled floor by the force, landing painfully on my lumpy backpack.  Dan and his gang snorted with laughter.

            “What you got in there, Jeremy, an elephant?” jeered Dan.  “That would be useful—you could stand on it in basketball so you could put the ball in the hoop.”  Laughing again, Dan and his gang strode off in a pack. I heard Dan say, “He’s not even worth beating up.”

            “Yeah, he’s so wimpy it would be over so fast nobody could see it,” agreed one of his friends.

            My heart pounding with anger, I stood up, trying to ignore the pain in my back, and hurried to homeroom.  I got to my seat just as the bell rang with a loud, annoying buzz.  I set my heavy backpack next to my desk.  Most kids went to their lockers before coming to homeroom, but I needed to be prepared for anything, so I crammed all my stuff in my ratty old backpack and carried it everywhere.

            After the Pledge of Allegiance and the announcements, my teacher handed out tests from last week.  My math test grade was a C-, my language arts test grade was an A-, my science test grade was a B, and my social studies quiz grade was a D.  None of this surprised me.  I didn’t have much time to study, with my job, buying food, and homework, and social studies and math were my worst subjects.  I was okay at language arts because I like poetry, which is what we’re studying now. 

            “Some of your parents will be very disappointed with your grades,” my teacher said, handing a paper to a girl who glanced at it, turned to her friend in the seat behind her, and squealed, “I got a hundred!”

            I rolled my eyes. Marta, the girl who always got A’s, and her best friend, Ella, were showoffs.  They got an A+ for popularity, and they were model students.  They and the rest of their group were the prettiest, most liked girls in eighth grade.

            My teacher, who disapproved of talking in class, didn’t notice Marta speaking to Ella.  “Some of your parents,” she continued, “will not be very happy at all with the lack of effort some of you show.”

            A stab of longing pierced my heart.  Maybe it would be nice to have parents that cared and were disappointed when you didn’t do well.  But my parents never cared.  My dad didn’t care about anything, and my stepmother was too busy in her teenager world.  I think she just never finished growing up.  And my real mother?  I didn’t even know if she was alive, and if she was, she obviously didn’t care, or else she’d be here with me.  I pushed my longing away.  Who cared about parents?

            After the teacher dismissed us, I headed down the hall to art class.  It was the one subject I really, really liked. As I trudged through the mob of noisy kids trying to shove me to the dirty walls so they could get past, I heard something clatter to the floor behind me.

            I turned around and faced Marta and Ella, both holding pink cell phones, tiny keyboards slid out, as if they had just been texting (which they probably had been, since they texted their friends all the time).  Ella was holding my iPod, which must have fallen out of the pocket in my backpack I stored it in.

            “OMG, this is, like, fifty years old,” said Ella, disgusted. I was sure she and Marta only bought the newest, coolest iPods.

            “I don’t think iPods were invented fifty years ago,” I said, holding out my hand for my iPod.

“OMG. He’s, like, so weird,” said Marta.

            “Well, duh.  He’s Jeremy,” explained Ella, flinging my name off the tip of her tongue with distaste.  Marta laughed, and Ella dropped the iPod on the ground with a crash. “Here, have your stupid iPod.  Who would want it anyway?”

Student Work: Story-in-Progress Excerpt by Skyler Grogan

         Excerpt from a story in progress at The Story Hatchery. This story will appear in its entirety in the 2011 anthology coming out this summer. 

Story-in-Progress Excerpt

by 

Skyler Grogan, age 13   

            The screen door creaked as Donna trudged into her rusty trailer. The sounds of crickets and frogs chirping leaked into the musky living room air, signaling the beginning of spring. Life finally blooming in the empty winter’s lungs.

            Dan, her son, sat at the TV, eating a microwave dinner. He was hunched over the lukewarm corn, shoveling it into his gaping mouth. Donna sat next to him, stirring dust from the mushy cushions.

            “Hey, sweetheart. Sorry I couldn’t be here earlier. I was working overtime for Matilda,” she said, taking off her shoes and massaging her calloused feet. Her cheekbones sharply jutted from her narrow face, supporting fat bags under her eyes. Once she had been a beautiful girl, but hours of slaving at restaurants had sucked most of the beauty from her like a ravenous leech.

            “That’s what you always say,” mumbled Dan through a mouthful of watery corn. Donna guiltily looked at the dingy carpet.

            “At least you don’t have to work,” she said. “There’s a poor boy at the bakery who’s so skinny, if he stood sideways he’d disappear.”

            “At least he has a mom.” Dan kept staring at the TV, but what he said was sincere.

            “I don’t believe he does. He’s a nice boy, doesn’t talk much. I’m not even sure he has a home. His name’s Jeremy.” Donna continued up her leg, soothing the raw muscles in her calves. Dan looked at Donna, furrowing his brow.

            “Jeremy? Jeremy what?” He dropped his spoon.

            “I think it was Mabe, or May, or something. Why?”

            “No reason.” Dan leaned and dropped his empty tray into the wastebasket. “I’m going outside for a little.”

            Donna didn’t look up from her leg. “Be back by 1.”

            Stepping into the crisp air, Dan gulped in breaths. He dragged a hammer off the porch and smashed it into a rock. It chipped and showed white specks. He smashed and smashed, sending sparks everywhere. The rock turned to minute pebbles, and Dan began striking bare ground. He threw the hammer across his yard and dropped. He was silent.

            Jeremy knew his pain. And it made him sick. 

Feature in the Winston Salem Monthly

The Story Hatchery Contest Winners are published in this month's Winston Salem Monthly! Check out the online version at the link below, or better yet, pick up a print version for the full experience. Each winning story has an illustration and the article has some wonderful photographs of our students at work in The Story Hatchery. Look at the wonderful cover art of the magazine! It's all for you, wonderful students, who are so dedicated to expressing yourselves through crafted language and art! Congratulations to all our winners, finalists, and participants!

http://www.winstonsalemmonthly.com/index.php/site/features/hatching-stories/

Personification--or giving weird objects eyes and a mouth!

Personification is giving human traits (qualities, feelings, action, or characteristics) to non-living objects (things, colors, qualities, or ideas).


To have the most fun with this, turn to the many objects sitting around you right now and imagine giving one of the objects a pair of eyes (or one eye) and a mouth.


...are you laughing yet? 


I just imagined a vase on my mantel with eyes and a mouth. It is a vase I have filled with sand and sticks--a minimalist arrangement I swear looks good! And now the vase is telling me in a British accent that I have no taste and the sticks are crude and he will not stand for one more scratch. "I am made for fresh flowers and the dishonor you have visited upon me...oh, I can't bear to think of how many years I am imprisoned to stand here like a yard waste bin full of the dead and discarded. Miss, how do you sleep at night?" 


Oh, the poor vase. I must get some fresh flowers! 


Check out this video of a wonderful character created from an object named Marcel. Try making your own short video personifying an object. 

Student Work: "Cute to Some, But Not to All"

 Cute to Some, But Not to All

by

Alex Elliott, age 9

            Jamaica was desperately trying to get her hair done in curly braids all by herself because Sammy, her mom, had gone out to get a taco. She was getting her hair done in preparation for her concert because she was a famous child country singer.

            Meanwhile, Cop Ralph, her bodyguard, tapped on the door. “Jamaica, how are the curly braids coming?” Cop Ralph knew it wasn’t possible for Jamaica to do her curly braids by herself, so he used a little exaggeration.

            “Cop Ralph,” Jamaica groaned.

            “Uh, yes, Jamaica.”

            “My curly braids aren’t working!” Jamaica yelled as she stomped her foot. “I want my mama!”

            Now, Jamaica was five years old, so her fame wasn’t going to last long. It was mostly due to her cuteness. Jamaica had a whiny voice, but also little green eyes, an everlasting smile, and long wavy hair. Her mama was very careless and left her child alone with Cop Ralph for long periods of time. Once, she even left her because she needed a pack of gum and to catch up on the latest magazines.

            Cop Ralph was desperate. “Where’s your mom?” he asked as he paced Jamaica’s dressing room floor.

            “Out getting a taco,” Jamaica answered.

            “Should’ve guessed,” Cop Ralph muttered, shaking his head.

            “Hey,” Jamaica snapped. “Back to my hair! Fix it, Cop Ralph,” she moaned.

            “I am a man,” he yelled. “I don’t have little girls. I’m just plain old Cop Ralph. I don’t know how to curl hair.”

            Tears filled Jamaica’s eyes. “Oh. I guess, I’ll just put on a hat,” she whispered, shuffling her feet around the room with her head lowered.

            “No, no, no, I’m sorry. I’m only frustrated,” Cop Ralph said as he rubbed his bald head.

            “Cop Ralph,” Jamaica said, “speaking of hair, you could use some of your own.”

            “Oh, for crying out loud,” Cop Ralph said.
            “Sorry, Cop Ralph,” she giggled.

            “Oh, just give me that head of yours and I’ll make these braids curly.” Cop Ralph stood over her and shoved his fingers into her thick head of hair. “Hmm, let me get the curling iron. Where is it?” Cop Ralph started searching, lifting seat cushions and opening drawers.

            “I’m hungry,” Jamaica whined.

            “Get it yourself,” Cop Ralph said. “I’m busy.”

            She walked over to a cabinet and pulled down a bowl, a spoon, and some corn flakes. When she dumped the cereal in the bowl, out fell a curling iron. “Cop Ralph, look,” Jamaica cried.

            “Really?” Cop Ralph muttered as he turned his head. “What in the world is it doing in the cereal box?”

            “Hey,” Jamaica said, “now you can curl my hair while I eat!”

            “This world is full of surprises,” Cop Ralph said, rolling his eyes. Jamaica sat down and Cop Ralph stood behind her with the curling iron. He rolled it up and down her hair, unsure of how to work it.

            As Jamaica dipped her spoon into her corn flakes, applause and the sounds of a cheering crowd rose from outside the dressing room.

            “Oh, I give up,” Cop Ralph said, dropping his arms. He fumbled through a drawer and pulled out a big, floppy tan hat with a bow on the front. He put it on her head with a satisfying plop and pulled her up. “Come on, Jamaica. Show time!” Cop Ralph tugged Jamaica by the hand and led her backstage.

            “Wait, woah, woah. What if my hat falls off and I get embarrassed, or what if it falls in my eyes and I can’t see where I’m going, and I trip? Or, someone might even pull it off my head to keep, since it is, after all, something I’ve touched and I’m the great Jamaica, a living legend.”

            “Uh-huh, come on, get over here.” Cop Ralph tugged her to the edge of the stage. Lights shone brightly from the stage, where an announcer stood with a microphone.

            “Wait, wait,” Jamaica said.

            “And now,” the announcer sang, “please welcome to the stage, the cutest of all, Jamaica!”

            Cop Ralph shoved Jamaica out onto the stage and she began to sing:

                                                            There was a flower,

                                                            there was a bug.

                                                            The bug was snug

                                                            on the flower’s rug.

                                                            The flower was rosy.           

                                                            The bug was blue.

                                                            Then, with a twitch,

                                                            the bug went achoo.

                                   

                                                            It blew the petals

                                                            off the stem.

                                                            The bug was homeless,

                                                            so he found a cozy limb.

            The crowd erupted in cheers. Cop Ralph fell back into a chair, breathing a sigh of relief.

The End

This story first appeared in the inaugural Story Hatchery Anthology last year. 

Art According to Story Hatchery Students

A few months ago, a Story Hatchery student came into class with something she wanted to discuss. She had been on the bus for school and saw a boy draw a slanted line in the condensation on the window. The student was perplexed why the boy didn't draw a picture like the other kids on the bus were doing. The boy drew the line and then did nothing else but stare at it.

This sparked a conversation at our round table. Story Hatchery students came up with ideas (listed below) as to what this small action could represent of a character in a story.

1) The boy feels his life is downhill.

2) The boy unconsciously draws the line. 

3) The boy is experiencing, feeling, and noticing what others take for granted. 

4) The boy draws it to evoke reactions from others on the bus, to create mystery. 

5) The line symbolizes uncertainty, an unfinished childhood. 

This list lead to a class discussion of what is art. We talked about some paintings in museums seeming just as simple as a line made in condensation on a window. Could the line the boy drew on the window be art? Is everything that hangs in a museum art? Out students came up with some possible definitions of art: 1) Art is personal creation. 2) Art has meaning to the viewer or artist. 3) Art is expressing yourself. 4) Art is symbolic. Our students wanted to make sure their definitions could not limit art, but some students thought art should be limited. 

What do you think? What is art? What is it for? Can art have a definition? 

Inspired by this discussion, this Story Hatchery class of 12 and 13 year olds have been working on a story about a 14 year old boy named Jeremy. Look for this story in our upcoming anthology coming out this summer.