who said student work can’t be inspiring
Just re-wrote a student’s story in one paragraph as an example to them of the power of paraphrasing to get through things quickly… This is the most fun exercise ever. Paraphrase a carver short story (or something that has good airspace) into one P.
There was a yellow-haired girl in Deirdre’s waiting room with a picture of the Grand Canyon taped to her binder. I told her that 48 percent of people who go there end up killing themselves there. She was eating her muffin. She said, “That can’t be true.” She ate the muffin like it was her own brother, and by eating it, she was killing him — it was all in the prolonging. “It’s true,” I said, and that was all I needed to say. She left the room and then she jumped off the balcony in Deirdre’s house. When we found her at the bottom of the stairs, she was brushing off her skirt, but she was sitting down. I thought maybe she had hurt her legs. She didn’t seem to be using them. She flexed her toes. “I can move my toes,” she said. “God girl, why you do a jumping thing like that,” Deirdre said, pulling at the girls’ sweater like that was the best way to pick her up. The sweater was white with little gold beads sewn in at different places. I thought the beads were beautiful in a way the girl could never be.
