Introduction to This Stone Soup Writing Activity “We Are Looking for Freedom” was written by Marigian one-and-a half-years after she arrived in the United States. It is a true story about the recent history of her family. At the time Marigian wrote this story she was still learning English. We have printed it just as she wrote it, so you will find the English is not perfect. But after you read “We Are looking for Freedom,” I think you will agree with me that the style of writing is itself part of the story of Marigian’s life and the terrible problems war caused her family. Marigian’s story is an example of a work written in a style that tells us something about the main character, and which increases the power of the story. This technique of writing stories in an unusual or imperfect English in order to show the special way the main character sees and thinks about the world is one used by many of the most famous writers. Project: Adopting a Style Create a narrator (the person who tells the story) who thinks in and speaks in an unusual English. Think of a character—a child, a recent immigrant to the United States, a person who is sick in bed with a high fever and a bit woozy, or even someone who is a little crazy and talks funny. The fun of this project, and the challenge, is to adopt the language of your character, or to express your own language in a way that will convey meaning to your readers. Imagine you aren’t you, that you think and speak an English different from your own; or that you are trying to write from the perspective of a different you hidden inside your imagination. Who and what do you see? How do you describe it? And what is the story you have to tell? We Are Looking for Freedom By Marigian Muhammed, 12, Fort Collins, Colorado From the March/April 1986 issue of Stone Soup I live in Vietnam. I went to school in Saigon. I has one cat. I has four brother, no sister. My mother selling in her own store. My father was working for C.I.A. before 1975. After 1975 my father stop working for C.I.A. One night at eight o’clock in August 30, 1978, the Viet Cong come and caught my father to put in the jail. Because my father work for C.I.A. At 1979 my dad is dead. One night my mother put the clothes in the bag. I was ask my mother where are we go? My mom said, “I take your brother to visit your grandma.” I so small didn’t know my brother and my mom escape. I saw her sitting on the table with my aunt, and my mom was crying. I came next to her and she said, “You have to live with your aunt.” I don’t know why. My mom gone about a month and my aunt tell me, “Your mother escape.” At one time my cousin, my aunt, and me try to escape, but we can’t because they caught two of my cousin. And they let them out. One day after school, I went to my house. The Viet Cong came and tell me that they have to take my house, tell me to go live at my aunt house. I ask them why I have to live in my aunt house, they tell me that I under eighteen years old, that right now I have to live with my aunt. At April 7, 1982 I escape with my aunt and her daughter. When we went to Cambodia, we there for week. The half way to the camp my aunt and her daughter go another way, and I go another. We don’t see each other for week. I went to the camp name Nong Samet. I live there for three day and my aunt try got in there. We don’t see each other for ten day. I live with woman. She so nice to me. When I and aunt together in Nong Samet for one week we went to the camp name N.W. 82, which is half in Cambodia and half in Thailand. When we live there they don’t has anything much food. Every day they cook rice for us lunch and dinner. We has to cook our own food to eat with rice. Every day we only has eight liter of the water, every day in the hospital has people sick and almost dead. In our tent it so big we live with two hundred people in there. If the tent dirty the Thailand man call the tent people. They came out, stand there, another Thailand man get a stick to hit the Vietnamese, they don’t care about old people or young people. We live there for a year and we went to Pamatnikhom. Our family live there a week and we went to Philippines, we live in Philippines near the mountain. Every day I went to school there. We live there, we got a lot of water, every day they gave the food to us to cook and eat. We very happy. But I miss my grandparents and aunt. One day in Bataan, Philippines, has hurricane, some of the big tree was fall down, some of the ceiling was flying, we so scary, just for few minutes, then hurricane was gone. One day, our name was call to travel to America. On September 29, 1983 in the morning we drive the bus to Manila. We went to the airplane, we fly all the way to Los Angeles. We stay there for five hours and we fly all the way to Denver. And I see my mother and my brothers. Now we together.
Teaching Writing
Writing Activity: writing a morality tale, with “Little Lies” by Meredith Proost, 12
Introduction to this Stone Soup Writing Activity This excellent story gets to the heart of why lying is wrong. Lying destroys trust between people. And when people don’t trust each other, they can never be really close—not even if they are family members. When we read (or hear) a little lecture on the evils of lying (or the evils of almost anything), we have a tendency to “tune out” the information. That is why, since the first stories were told, storytellers have been inventing characters and plots and scenery and dialogues to help those of us who are perhaps not as imaginative as other people to understand the many ways that breaking a moral code can cause harm. Unfortunately, many moral tales are boring. And this is all the more reason to recognize how very successful Meredith’s story is. She doesn’t preach and lecture. Instead, she tells us a story—a believable story with believable characters who talk and act realistically. No part of her story seems forced or fake. And that is how she makes us understand how even a relatively small lie is a big thing, and a bad thing. Project: Writing a Good Moral Tale Discuss with your teacher or parents or friends various moral rules—like it is wrong to lie, steal, cheat, or to maliciously tease someone. Now, using your imagination, invent a character or characters with unique personalities. Use these characters to create a story, like Meredith did, that will make people understand what wrong was done, why it was wrong, what impact the wrong thing had. Try to think of as many angles to the problem you choose to write about as possible. For instance, we say it is bad to maliciously tease someone. You will find it fairly easy to create a story that shows how teasing can hurt the person who is teased. You can also use your story to tackle more difficult problems—like creating a story that also shows how teasing hurts the person who does the teasing. Think of as many ways as you can to show us the effects of your chosen problem. Little Lies By Meredith Proost, 12, Aloha, Oregon Illustrated by Lucy Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, Portland, Oregon Reprinted with permission from Treasures, © 1985 From the September/October 1985 issue of Stone Soup It all began one Tuesday when Melinda and I lost all track of time and found we couldn’t possibly finish our practicing before our mom came home from grocery shopping. Before she left, we had agreed to do all our chores and practice piano. “Yes,” we said together when Mom asked if we had finished our practicing. But when she walked into the living room, there was the piano music, stacked just as she had stacked it that morning. And the lesson book was on the table where we had left it after our piano lesson the day before. Mom knew we were lying. She had a sad look on her face. Before Melinda or I could make up an excuse, Mom told us that she was going to tell us a lie some time during the next few days. We wouldn’t know when she was lying, and the lie would be something very important to both of us. That night Mom told us that the next morning when we woke up, breakfast would be waiting: hot cereal with lots of cream and even more brown sugar, just the way we like it. Melinda and I looked at each other knowingly. That must be the lie. But the next morning when we woke up, in the kitchen we found our bowls of hot cereal with lots of cream and even more brown sugar, just the way we like it. On Wednesday, Mom told us that she would pick us up right after school so that we could go shopping for spring clothes. Melinda and I looked at each other knowingly and said to ourselves that had to be the lie. We decided we would be going home on the bus as usual. But after school, there sat Mom in the parking lot ready to take us shopping. The following day our dad was on a business trip. Mom told us to pick a restaurant, Italian or Chinese, and the three of us would go out for dinner that night. Melinda and I looked at each other knowingly. That must be the lie. If we said Chinese, Mom would take us out for pizza. If we said Italian, we knew we’d be having chow mein for dinner. We said, “Chinese,” and that night we had won ton soup, chow mein, fortune cookies and tea. When we arrived home from school Friday, Mom greeted us with, “Guess what! I just reserved two airplane tickets. You two get to fly—all by yourselves—to visit your grandma over spring vacation.” Now that is something we had always wanted to do. We had dreamed about traveling alone and talked about it for years. Ordinarily we would have run to our rooms to start packing, even though spring vacation was three weeks away. But we looked at each other knowingly. That had to be the lie. Mom may have been surprised at our lack of excitement, but she didn’t say a word. She waited until the following day to ask us if we had discovered her lie. Melinda said, “Yes, we know. We won’t be flying to Grandma’s for spring vacation. Everything else you have said has been true, so the airplane trip must be the lie.” “I’m glad it’s finally over,” I said. Melinda said, “Yes. It has been awful for days thinking we couldn’t trust you. I guess we deserved that little lie about flying to Grandma’s.” Mom smiled. “The lie was that I would tell you a lie,” she said softly. “I haven’t told you any lies. The tickets to Grandma’s are under your pillow. Sweet dreams.” Happy ending.
Interview and Web Links for Author Ransom Riggs
This interview inspires two projects: write a story based on a photograph and illustrate a story with photographs. This is a great interview by Ransom Riggs. He starts out talking about the pressure of writing a second book after having published a first book that was exceptionally successful. He then talks about how, in Hollow City, he writes a book that is different from his first one. He talks about his writing day. His goal is 1500 words per day. This takes him about ten hours to achieve. For those of you who have read the Miss Perigrine’s Peculiar Children books, you know they are illustrated with photos. He talks about a little about using photos as illustrations. Ransom Riggs talks about the books that inspired him, his desire to be a writer as a child, his growing interest in film in middle school, and his final coming back to writing as a young adult. Best advice: just write. Don’t judge yourself. Write freely! • Writing pressure to repeat the success of his first book. • Describes the discipline of being a writer — his writing day. Daily word count goal of 1500 words. • Talks about the use of photos to illustrate the Miss Perigrine’s Peculiar Children books • Strong discussion of interest in writing starting in elementary school with change in interest in middle school and a return as a young adult. Project idea: Illustrate a story with photographs. Found photos: Ransom Riggs illustrates his books with found photos — photos he finds, for example, at garage sales. This makes a an excellent writing project! You can either send your students out to find photos in garage sales or to bring photos from home, but then trade them around in the classroom. Illustrate story with staged or posed photos: Another use of photographs are as illustrations to an existing story, or to a story written with the idea of illustrating with photographs in mind. This project can be as simple or involved as your students would like to make it. At its most involved, scenes can be set up with characters from the story photographed acting out one or more scenes. In a work of historic fiction, this could include dressing in costume. Web links for Ransom Riggs Website Wikipedia Facebook Twitter Books by Ransom Riggs Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children Boxed Set The Sherlock Holmes Handbook
