This guest post is by My Transforming Stories, a writer who prefers to stay anonymous until his book is published (which he hopes will be soon!) You can find his blog at mytransformingstories.blogspot.com.
PRACTICE
Throughout your high school or middle school careers you probably made many memories. Turn those memories into writing.
Remember that first kiss, or when you flunked a math test, or tried to make the best senior prank possible? Write about that!
Write for fifteen minutes, and when you’re finished, post your practice in the comments section.
Photo by Woodley Wonderworks
Here's my practice:
It was the end. Josh stood on the wooden stage that he knew he would remember forever. The lights shined from above. Josh could see the shadows of a few hundred sitting in the audience. His heart fluttered as he walked towards my principal; he held Josh’s diploma in his right hand, holding it out so Josh could snatch it from his hand.
Josh made my way towards, knowing that his family would be watching him and taking dozen of pictures. They were already cheering and clapping, making themselves heard. In that moment he felt nothing except nerves. Sweat beaded down his neck when Josh finally made his way towards his principal and his diploma. Josh reached forward and gently grabbed his diploma from his principal’s hand and simultaneously moving his tassel to the opposite side and then shaking his principal’s hand.
Josh’s diploma was visible to the audience and he saw flashes of pictures, no doubt coming from the silhouettes of my family. As Josh slowly walked back to seat he thought to myself, this is the end. For the first time ever I would have to move on, grow up and face a new stage in my life. Josh’s stomach felt very fuzzy, like every organ in his body was floating.
Josh looked around at his class. The crowd gave one final round of applause for the whole graduating class. All of Josh’s great memories up till now flashed in Josh’s mind, one by one. Now Josh would move on to even more amazing memories. Josh smiled; middle school was over, but his life would just be beginning.
HI there… there are some strange POV shifts between Josh and I?
Weird – even my husband noticed them!
It may have been written in first person originally, and then changed to a third omniscient with some oversights in the edit. Also, the link doesn’t work for me. I get a message saying the blog doesn’t exist.
I see that too and thought maybe it was some kind of new experimental thing but I can’t figure it out.
definitely. Maybe he was writing about himself, even thought it was 3rd person so kept on switching my/myself for his and himself? I guess reinforces the importance of editing our own work…
Back in the day, art classes used an adhesive called rubber cement. It came in these bulbous, brown jars with an application brush attached to the jar lid. Inevitably, our hands would be dotted with this rubbery substance by end of class. We couldn’t wait to pick the rubberized glue off our hands and flick at some unsuspecting classmate. You could almost count that we would just wipe a big glob of the adhesive in the palms of our hands for future use.
(On to the next class)
Citizens Education was the next class after Art. If you can, try to imagine at least 6 fun-loving, American Indian girls seated together at the back of the class, one of whom was my crazy cousin seated to the left of me.
Now, Cit Ed was a pretty boring class. We needed something to keep us entertained. It didn’t take long before my cousin, Pam pulled out her dried ball of rubber cement. Leaning on one elbow, she pushed the little brown ball through the fold of her arm with her other hand. This would set everyone to giggling as the little “terd” fell out from between her forearm and bicep.
One time, she put a small ball of rubber cement up her nose. It would shoot out like a bullet. Only one time, the bullet was a dud. I kept waiting for the explosion, but nothing happened. Pam held down one nostril and blew and blew. Finally, the panic in her eyes signaled her demise. (Pam never panicked because she was the toughest girl in our group.)
Quickly raising my hand, I interrupted our teacher, Ms. Brown.
“Yes. Shelley?”
“Ms Brown, Pam put rubber cement in her nose and can’t get it out.” I was trying to sound calm.
I can’t even imagine what was going through Ms. Brown’s mind. By this time, everyone in the class was giggling out loud, especially the boys.
“Take her to the nurse.”
When I think back to my middle school days and how much trouble my friends and I were to some of our teachers, it makes me want to go back and apologize a hundred times over (especially, now that I’ve been on the receiving side). But fifty years later, we still get a big laugh out of it.
Hey Shelley, great memory very funny, well done
Glad you enjoyed. Thank you, Suzie.
That was funny, kind of like spit balls but more complicated. I can see the show off being laughed at and not being able to inhale fully due to the wad of glue. Very funny.
It was definitely one of those times that “stuck” with us. Thanks, Marianne.
I started reading and just knew the rubber cement had to connect with someone’s nose somehow. I used to roll a dab between my fingers and then attach it just on the inside of my nose so it looked liked I had a dangler.
I should have included a description of our visit to the nurse. It was a precision tweezer removal.
My little sister put a bean up her nose once when the Brownies were making bean bag paperweights for Father’s Day presents. She had to go through the tweezer thing. I remember the tweezers as being huge but maybe it was because I wasn’t much older than she and was scared.
Well I’m getting a laugh out of it right now Shelley! Kids will be kids huh. I really like your easy writing style
Why thank you, Yvette. Next to so many “experts” here, I was wondering if I was even on the same playing field.
The great thing about The Write Practice is, no matter who you are, expert or no, your contribution is appreciated 🙂 Keep up the good work Shelley!
Fourteen and bolshie. What a combination for any teacher to deal with. That’s what me and my mates thought so we would hang out for most of the day in the top bogs, smoking.
Sometimes me and Milton would have enough of everyone else and we’d take ourselves off to our office. The bottom bogs had the cistern above the pan so to touch it you’d have to stand on the edges of the pan. Inside our office’s cistern was a bottle of vodka, me and Milt would take it in turns to swig.
Idyllic days and sweaty nights, that is how we spent our fifteenth year till Milt got pregnant, had an abortion and the whole world (entire town) blamed me.
“Fourteen and bolshie” aren’t we all the same, those of us who have a bit of the rebel about us anyway. I love this mainly because despite the fact that I had to look up bolshie and that bogs and cisterns and pans aren’t words I come across very often the story is much the same for most of us here. “Fourteen and bolshie” tells a familiar story.
I was going to write in American, and call it middle school but realised your cisterns probably never were six feet or more in the air. Vodka and ciggies though – universal for those type of girls!!!
I like it when you write in Irish, but do have to look things up. Just don’t hit mewith gaelic or not too much of it. We didn’t have cisterns where I grew up, water was from the lake, but they had one here a huge city block sized one (I’m not even sure that’s still called a cistern). It had a statue of a Greek water bearer in the middle of it but now its drained and closed up. Would have been a great place for a body in a murder mystery.
When I was young, many homes (including mine) had cisterns in the basement to collect rainwater. Of course, it was only good for washing. Drinking water was taken from our well. Such good memories.
aon fhadhb Marianne níl a fhios agam aon fhocal amháin an Ghaeilge ach úsáid a bhaint as google aistritheoir – gáire
which means no problem Marianne I have no word of Irish and use google translator – lol
I sense a leaning toward mystery going on Marianne. Thinking of writing one?
It seems every middle school kid is from the same mold, regardless where they’re from. I forgot all about the times we hid in the girls’ lag smoking. Your description takes me right to the movie, “To Sir, With Love”, one of my favorite young adult stories.
that book was on our booklist for school. The movie did not portray in graphic detail like the book did. I got kicked out of a boyfriend’s house watching that. I listened to the track out side M&M world in Las Vegas.
This book follows me round.
No one notices that I (female) made someone else pregnant, maybe mt first person needs work! Maybe I need work – to come across more feminine or gamine or something
You didn’t write that you “made” her pregnant, only that you were blamed for the situation. I sort of figured that the birds and the bees stuff is pretty universal and that you meant that you’d been seen as the bad influence who’d led her down that road making her ripe for trouble…
I have no clue about some of these words, yet the tone still comes through. Great last sentence! And now we look at children like this and slowly shake our heads at their naivety.
Just credited you (and this site) on the Merriam Webster site. They wanted to know where I came across the term bolshie…
Short, sweet, and heavy-hitting!
Middle school defined me. I was in Southern California, and I was cool with my Hammer Pants and PCH t-shirts. Although I lived six miles from the beach, I was more into skateboarding. There was only one problem. I sucked.
So I tried basketball. I’m 35 now, and I’m five foot and a half on my tiptoes, so you can see my dilemma. But I overcame. My dad taught at the school, and we lived right across the street, so I was in the gym all summer. Every day. For hours.I was so absorbed in developing my skills that I didn’t even have time to ogle the high school cheerleaders who practiced in the gym occasionally. Occasionally, they would ask me to leave because I was distracting them. So I’d go outside and practice on the blacktop courts.
For three summers, I stayed in that gym. An Irishman taught me how to execute a crossover dribble that ended in a pull-up jump shot. I played HORSE with some of the teachers who needed a break from lesson plans. I helped the Coca-Cola guy fill up the soda machine.
I was in that gym when the Gulf War started. I was in the gym when my father walked in, bloodied and broken, crushed bicycle in hand. I was in the gym when I said goodbye to my friends for the last time before we moved across the country to my new high school.
My new basketball coach didn’t like my fancy California skills. Reverse lay-ups and no-look-behind-the-back passes were not part of his fundamentals. But I learned the game watching Earvin “Magic” Johnson. There was no other way.
So when the last few seconds ticked off the clock during our homecoming game, I stole the ball near mid-court and charged the basket. The defensive center was the only player who stood in my way. My double-pump got him off his feet and gave me room to ease my body under his outstretched arm. I swung my right arm as far under the basket as I could. I released the soft, leathery orb with enough of a spin so that it caught the right side of the glass backboard and bounced back toward the goal on the left.
I never saw the ball go in, but I heard the explosion of the crowd as the final buzzer sounded. The skills I taught myself in junior high made me a hero in high school. They gave me the confidence in college.
And now they are skills that my son wants to learn.
*Disclaimer: This took more than the allotted 15, but I couldn’t keep track of time that well because two little ones insisted on going right to bed without any fuss at all.
This reads just like an excerpt from your book. You’re writing one, right?
No, I just made this up tonight. I’m not writing a book about my life yet. I’m working on something else at the moment. Does an author share my name?
I was hoping my comment with spurn you in to one.
I see what you did there.
That was some smooth writing. I don’t even like basketball but I enjoyed that. Thanks.
I hope that lighting bolt didn’t hurt too bad after writing that sacrilegious atrocity about the best sport ever. Thanks for the compliment.
Jason, really liking this, uncluttered, smooth, good stuff
Thank you for such kind words, Suzie.
Yup, I agree. Well written piece. Actually, although I stopped mine in the middle when the buzzer went off, I am beginning to gather that the 15 minutes is to get us started, if your juices are flowing, go for it!
Thank you, Mirel. I had to stop and start at least three times because my boys were demanding attention. Speaking of…
Loved this. Its a great piece of writing and I too spent my middle school years in So Cal wearing MC Hammer pants. Thanks for that flashback.
Thanks, Leti. I lived in Vista after a stint in “The Valley.”
Good writing, man! I didn’t get the Hammer pants and the whats-it t-shirts because I’m old! but I’m glad I kept reading! The image of your father walking in “broken and bloodied, carrying the bicycle” is unforgettable and gives your story a gritty reality that arrests the reader. Good job!
You don’t remember those baggy, colorful pants that made MC Hammer popular in the 80s? PCH = Pacific Coast Highway. It was a popular brand back then, too. I appreciate your comments, John. Thank you.
…….yeah, well, not only am I old, I’ve never been outside of Texas for more than a month at a time, so we’re lookin’ at a bubba factor here too!
“Thank globally, act hillbilly” . . . .
‘Transforming’ moments in High school
it was my second day at a new school, I was feeling handicapped by my previous few years of home schooling, and before that almost two years of being the rebel child who made all the wrong decisions. It was my first class in geography for the year, and I had already made the blunder of choosing the wrong class, and then having to be sent to the right one. So, as you can imagine, I was pretty embarrassed. Oh well, I thought, as I sat down by myself under the impatient gaze of the teacher, who as I found out later, had a bark worse than her bite. I noticed as I began writing up my title page for the class that there were two ‘cool’ boys to my right and that they were leaning back in their seats looking at me with more than curiosity. This made me nervous, for I had been used to being almost invisible to guys, especially those in the ‘cool’ class in school, unless I was with one of those girls who are gifted with natural beauty and charisma. Later, during the class, the closest guy passed me a note and gestured to the guy next to him who grinned at me and winked. I was most definitely out of my depth, the note was rather flattering while at the same time being insulting. It read, from what my memory still has, ‘Hello, sexy red head, please call me, [and a number was supplied]’ and then it was signed. For the purposes of myself and the poor guy who was involved, I won’t mention the name of the guy. The note was transforming to me, because as I stared at it, and glanced at the interested guy nearby, I realised that maybe I was interesting to guys and not only for my friends presence [this, since I was alone at the time]. Maybe this guy liked me, and only on first appearances.
I won’t explain anything else about this incident, because in the end of confidence was broken since the whole thing was a gag. But that moment, when I read that note, I felt a surge of confidence, and it took me at least a few months to come down from that high. It was for me, a transforming moment, and i’d like to remember the first part and not the part where I felt admired, than later when I lost it and became slightly more aware of the fickleness of teenage boys.
R, like the writing, well done
An artificial transforming moment. That’s a great idea so clearly laid out. That happens more than we would like to think I imagine.
Found this one hard to write. The gong sounded and hadn’t really gotten to the story, I’ll let you guess…
Their class was the largest class in the new school: 5 twelfth graders, 8 eleventh graders, 36
tenth graders and 22 ninth graders. Tenth grade ruled! Teachers hesitated before entering their
classroom. Substitute teachers would
leave their room in tears. Some even
quit.
While the class had strong students and weak students and its own cliques, test taking was open
game. The goal: everyone getting better
grades. The game plan: doing whatever
possible to pull one over on the teacher.
Passing notes, angling one’s paper so that it could be seen in the row
behind you: anything you could get away
with was kosher. Till Miss Abramowitz.
Miss Abramowitz was the youngest teacher in the school. Nineteen years old, fresh out of college
almost the same age as her older students.
And yet, when Miss Abramowitz walked into the room, backs straightened, talking
ceased and even the tenth grade class became orderly.
Mid-term season came, and the tenth graders
were at the height of their test-taking skills:
One test after another, with girls exchanging all their tried and true
methods for studying, sharing information and cribbing.
Then Miss Abramowitz walked into the room. “Girls, I have your mid-term exam
here. You have 45 minutes to complete
it. Look at this test, ask any questions
you may have now, for I will be leaving the room. I am giving this test relying on the honor
system. I am relying on your honor. Now look at the test. Any questions?”
The girls sat dumbfounded.
Ha good one Mirel, …. finish it please
Okay, here it is, finished:
Their class was the largest class in the new school: 5 twelfth graders, 8 eleventh graders, 36
tenth graders and 22 ninth graders. Tenth grade ruled! Teachers hesitated before entering their
classroom. Substitute teachers would
leave their room in tears. Some even
quit.
While the class had strong students and weak students, and its own cliques, test taking was open
game. The goal: everyone getting better
grades. The game plan: doing whatever
possible to pull one over on the teacher.
Passing notes, angling one’s paper so that it could be seen in the row
behind you: anything you could get away
with was kosher. Till Miss Abramowitz.
Miss Abramowitz was the youngest teacher in the school. Nineteen years old, fresh out of college
almost the same age as her older students.
And yet, when Miss Abramowitz walked into the room, backs straightened, talking
ceased and even the tenth grade class became orderly. Mid-term season came, and the tenth graders
were at the height of their test-taking skills:
One test after another, with girls exchanging all their tried and true
methods for studying, sharing information and cribbing.
Then Miss Abramowitz walked into the room. “Girls, I have your mid-term exam
here. You have 45 minutes to complete
it. Look at this test, ask any questions
you may have now, for I will be leaving the room. Should you need me, I will be in the
library. I am giving this test relying
on the honor system. I am relying on
your honor. Now look at the test. Any questions?”
The girls sat dumbfounded.
There were some nervous giggles, no one quite sure what to expect. But once Miss Abramowitz glanced around and saw that there were no more
questions, she bent down to retrieve her small bag, tossed her long blond hair
over her shoulder and did indeed walk out the room. When the sounds of her heel clicking down the
hall towards the library could no longer be heard, the class was the quietest
it had ever been. Girls glanced at each
other in consternation, not quite sure how to react, but bit by bit, heads went
down, pens and pencils were picked up and the writing began. There were one or two girls who begged for
answers, quietly, circumspectly but the room was still. Everyone ended up bent over her own paper,
doing the best she could.
Nine and a half years of being taught about God and godly
traits, the importance of honesty and sterling qualities did not seem to have
had much of an effect on that unruly class.
Yet one minute from that young teacher had made the girls contemplate,
many for the first time, their own moral integrity.
The class remained an exceedingly unruly class, and yet, for
many of those girls, those 45 minutes were a watershed moment. Many of the girls never cheated again. Many began to examine their behavior and set
limits on themselves. I should know, for
I was one of them. Thank you, Miss
Abramowitz.
I loved that. You have a good sense of pacing. Well done.
Thank you! I’d forgotten how much I love to write. I’ve spent too long working on outside writing (english testing, whole ‘nother story). I’m beginning to remember…
I like the name Miss Abramowitz. Don’t know if that part was fiction or not, but there’s nothing like a good name to set scene
Actually, didn’t want to use her real name, so the name is fiction. The rest is pretty right on.
I looked at the crowd and gulped. I can’t do this. Not with all these people looking at me, expecting me to mess up. At least, that’s what I thought I was doing.
Voice cracked. Yikes. I forget a dance step and I, basically, look like I wasn’t meant to be here.
I have always been into arts; writing, singing, and drawing, particularly. The problem was that I NEVER revealed my talent to anyone but my brother, unless I was going under a fake name. (You see now why my name is Puffy?) When I was 9, I was already so good in writing that people assumed I was an adult. At that same age, I made my cousins–most of them around twenty or above–taste losing as I beat them in countless drawing contests.
So I decided to work on my singing. I loved singing in the shower, and my parents told me I had a fantastic voice.
I was supposed to sing “This is Me” in a talent show for my school’s Christmas party. I practiced day and night, and sometimes I even fell asleep humming the song’s tune.
It was the day of the party and I was dolled up in a sparkly red gown. I tried psyching myself up by rehearsing the song and dance again and again.
Then everything went wrong.
First of all, the girl singing directly before me sang the exact same song, and this time while playing the guitar and having her friend play the keyboard. The applause was so loud, I think I can still hear it ringing in my ears.
Second, my shoe broke, and since I had no spare ballet flats, I had to perform with a worn out shoe.
Third, I always had terrible stage fright. The moment I stepped on the stage, my heart sounded like it was playing heavy metal and I was sweating an ocean.
I obviously didn’t win. I was so humiliated that I stopped singing altogether for a whole two weeks.
But I didn’t let that stop me.
With the help of my mom and my friends (they were all awesome cheerleaders), I started performing again. For the first few acts, I still had stage fright and I honestly expected everything to go wrong.
However, things got better and better.
At my last gig, I sang for 2 000 people and I didn’t break a sweat. Everyone was telling me how awesome I was.
Some of my performances were chaotic, but who cares? That’s middle school for you.
I like the metaphor about the heart playing heavy metal. It fits right in with the theme. Good job
This is semi-fictional, mostly non-fiction. I’ll let you figure out which parts are which. 😉
A month into seventh grade at Higson Jr. High and I had
figured out the social strata of this upper class backwater. Moving from
apartment to flat to duplex throughout the sketchier neighborhoods of the city
made me street-wise and world-weary. Oakdale was no different. My mom thought
she was doing better for us; a safer area, an actual house, a ‘good’ school district.
She didn’t know Oakdale was a regular Port Charles, just like that fictional
town on ‘General Hospital’, including the ubiquitous bottled blondes and
feathered bangs. And those were the sixth graders.
Everyone had an angle, just
like in the city, but unlike the city they had the connected parents and money
to disguise it. Drugs, sex, backstabbing gossips that ruined reputations behind
the braces, Izods and Farrah hair. Families had lived here for generations, and
even teachers played the game, favoring those they knew were the offspring of
power and money. Athletes were particularly sainted, and sexually attacking the opposing team’s cheer squad in their locker room was laughed off as boys being boys. I guess they were supposed to handle it since they were eighth grade girls.
Within thirty days I learned all this, as well as which
bathroom to avoid after third period, not to even act like you looked at Jim
Weller because his crazy cheerleader girlfriend Linda will threaten to beat you
down, although she probably never attempted anything that would possibly break
a nail, that you could get a joint from Mr. Hecht the art teacher and that all schools in the district had chocolate shake machines in
the cafeteria. What was an unconnected poor kid from the city to do to break
into this closed world? Get assigned to the school newspaper in journalism
class. That was the way to make a splash.
I like the street-wise humor with which this is written; humor that has a barb or two behind it, as unfolds nearer the end. I would read a book about this school if the characters were developed . . . .
Thanks, John. I may have to develop it. There’s a lot of material to work with, fortunately or unfortunately, depending how you look at it. 😉
It is the spring of 1969.
Today the teacher of my all-white ninth-grade English class has an unusual assignment. In her no-nonsense manner, so that we could not but realize she was utterly serious, Miss Kirk says, “Take out a sheet of paper, please, and write a short essay, one to two paragraphs, completing the following sentence: ‘If I were black . . . ‘ .”
There are three black students in my school, all siblings, two brothers and a sister; the older brother, who is in my grade, is far and away THE star of the football team, faster and bigger than any white boy and able to block and to run away with that ball; no one else can touch him. The other brother and sister are both younger than me.
This is the extent of my personal knowledge of black people to this point in my life.
I stare at the blank notebook paper in front of me. On the race question, all I can think of are generalities that came out sounding like the moralism I hear every Sunday in church. I pick up my pen and slowly begin forcing out the words.
The worst is yet to come: Miss Kirk’s next step is to collect our responses and read them out loud to the entire class. My cheeks burn with surprised embarassment when I hear my own words in her voice: “If I were black, I would be striving to . . .”. I instinctively cringe at my own fatuous patronization, though I don’t yet know these words that describe what I’ve written today.
But then I am absolutely stunned when Miss Kirk quotes a student from another class as having written: “If I were black . . . if I were black — I can’t think of anything more horrible.”
I can sense the immediacy and emotional honesty in those words, though I’d never admit it. But the expresssion is just too jarring to the comfortable view of things I nervously try to maintain, and at that very moment, an image of the segregated graveyard where they buried my grandpa three years ago rises in my mind. The small “black” section is separated from the nearest “white” graves by the width of the road you drive on, and is distinguishable by the rough, irregular, smallish sandstone markers, long flat rocks simply rounded on one end, turned on edge and driven into the ground, with perhaps a pair of initials crudely but deeply scratched into the rock, designating the final resting places of the remains of African-Americans, slave or slave-descended.
Whereas, of course, nearly all of the white people’s headstones are examples of the finest work of their day in marble or granite or dark heavy metal, with full names, birth and death dates, epitaphs, depictions of angels or patriarchs or lambs all expertly engraved or stamped on them.
Sitting in that warm and close classroom, I immediately and impatiently push the image back down again. The rest of the period will be one for staring out the open window and wishing I was riding my bike.
I am simply not ready for the horror.
that was both well written and thought provoking IMO John.
Thank you very much Marianne!
I really like how the use of present tense places me in that room with the narrator. I feel the discomfort. Nicely done.
Thank you! I find that the immediacy of the present tense often works really well for me.
This was excellent. You transported me to that classroom and I am shifting in my seat, trying to forget the whole thing. Very real and visceral. First person POV fits this very well.
Thank you, Kristin, for your very encouraging words! I apprciate them very much.
I am a new joinee in your community. I want to write about the memories of my school days while I was passing by the highways after 13 years.