One image. Many stories. Early words from my MG/YA class at Penn.

This Penn semester I'm teaching something new—wading into the land of middle grade and young adult writing with fifteen spectacular students. We're learning about character and voice from verse novels, in-the-round perspective from multiple-voice novels, dialogue and pacing from graphic novels. We're inviting Sara Novic into our fold. We're building personalities, landscapes, tensions, plots—and friendships.

Around a crowded table, we warm up with a five-minute-five-sentence exercise. An image is presented. A question is asked: What is the story?

The image above was created by my artist-husband. The words below come from a sampling of my students. They're pretty great, right? Teaching all of us how one frozen moment in time can mean many things to many people.

<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} </style> --> <br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">She begins a new job in the same city, but somehow it feels like a completely new world. As she watches the other adults go by, something in her shrinks and she reverts to feeling small, young, scared. Her briefcase weighs on her like a suitcase, her resume in hand turns into her beloved childhood stuffed animal, Maxie. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Jillian</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Relative to her height, the legs around her might as well have been a forest. The pant-legs were saplings, and the skirts like old, stout, round trees. Afraid of losing her grip on the small briefcase, she tightened her fingers until the knuckles all blanched and the sweat in her palm had nowhere to go. In order to get out of this crowd, Penelope thought, she was going to need to pick her way through the forest.<br /><br />Catherine</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">She had been walking for fifteen minutes when it first occurred to her to look up. There had been a voice over the intercom, at first, directing her back to her mother—she had been walking away from that. She and her mother had gone to the mall to buy new shoes for school. Before they had left, she had packed a suitcase with the essentials: goldfish crackers, blanket, and two pairs of socks. Now, the girl was free.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Charlotte</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">She was on her way home. Her mother said home was faces and so she looked up at the people walking past her. Their faces spoke travel, work, and other things she could not describe. She stood there with wonder and confusion and pondered over which face to trust, which long leg to grasp. Then, she made her choice.</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Gene</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Does growing up mean growing tall?</div><div class="MsoNormal">Do we learn as our bodies grow?</div><div class="MsoNormal">Does small person mean small mind?</div><div class="MsoNormal">A young girl holds her stuffed animal by her side, and she wants to loosen her grip, but doesn’t know how.</div><div class="MsoNormal">What can we learn about what can be lost from the gloss in our eyes?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Jane</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">She'd begged her mother for weeks to let her ride the subway on her own to school - a girl always seeking to be older, imitating her father by using his old suitcase in lieu of a backpack in preschool. After a persistent fight, she finds herself on the platform of the 2, Uptown. And though she is in high school now, the feeling of being absolutely lost makes her feel more like she's five than fifteen. In the midst of the chaos, of adults transferring cars, squeezing between commuters, she feels like her younger self, suitcase in hand, stuffed animal tucked under her arm. And the boldness of her desire to be older is overcome by the reality that she might still be a child.</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Erin F.</div></blockquote><div class="feedflare">
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