Untitled By Sage Millen, 13 (Vancouver, Canada) A note from William What a gorgeous spring day it is here in Santa Cruz, California! I hope that as March gives way to April that all of your gardens are at least beginning their spring re-birth. And, with the coming of spring, I’d like to announce that our spring session classes—beginning April 23—are up and ready on Eventbrite! Once again, we are offering two writing classes—mine, Saturdays at 9 AM Pacific, and Conner Bassett’s, Saturdays at 11 AM Pacific—as well as Book Club with Maya Mahony Saturday April 30 and Saturday May 28 at 9 AM Pacific. We’re sorry not to offer a short form filmmaking class with Isidore Bethel this go-round, but hope to once again offer it in the future. In the meantime, please watch some of the amazing short films our students made in the fall session of 2020. In terms of the behind-the-scenes activity at Stone Soup, these last few weeks find us in a lull. Projects are in process. Our website revisions are coming along. Sophia Opitz, our fabulous administrator, and I had a very good meeting on Friday with our web developers. We will start seeing website changes go live next week. Mostly, Sophia and I have been working on the educator pages getting the new curriculum material in shape preparatory to the launch of our site license beta testing program in a couple weeks. I’d like to talk about Sage’s fabulous photograph showing two kids reading Stone Soup under a blanket. As part of our website revision we are making sure that all photographs on the site are by kids. And, I will say, what a difference that is making! Our Stone Soup photographers have a creative flair that sets their work apart. If you are a photographer age 13 or younger and would like to be part of our pool of web photographers, please write to sophia@stonesoup.com. Weekend project: I want you to look at this double portrait. It is a photograph in which we, the observers, share a private moment with these two girls. Unlike most portraits in which the subject is looking directly at the camera, the girls in this photograph are focused on the issue Stone Soup they are reading—December 2021, to be exact! There is clearly lots I could say about how this photograph is framed and lit—the black background and gentle foreground lighting frame the girls to perfection—but in the interest of keeping things simple, I want you to focus on their eyes, on the direction of their gaze. I am not asking you today to compose a picture with careful lighting, as we see here, but what I am asking you to do is take a portrait of someone in the midst of an action—someone doing something alone or with someone else. What I want you to capture is that look where the person is focused on something else. Practicing, reading, cooking, drawing, typing. Doing something on their phone. What I want you to do is focus on the eyes. I want you to take a photograph in which the eyes of the person you are photographing are focused on what they are doing, not on you. There is one kind of intensity when the person you are photographing is looking directly into your camera—so that when we look at the picture they are looking at us. There is another kind of intensity when you capture the look on someone’s face who is absorbed in what they are doing, and that is the intensity I want you to go after this weekend with your phone or camera. As always, if you feel especially good about your photograph, please submit to us via Submittable. Until next time, From the Stone Soup Blog March 2022 Spring By Grace Zhuang, 6 (Vienna, VA) Winds are running around Telling everyone the good news, “Spring is coming!” “Spring is coming!” The little delphinium Looking around Looking for spring. She did not know that She herself is the spring. To read more from the March Issue, click here! Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498. Stone Soup’s advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos Velasquez, Susan Wilky.
writing workshop
Writing Workshop #61: Stream-of-Consciousness
An update from our sixty-first Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, March 12th, plus some of the output published below In this workshop, William went over the concept of Stream of Consciousness. He emphasized the lack of traditional structure in Stream of Consciousness writing, and the wondering and wandering nature of the style. The writers saw examples from literature, including Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot. As a mini-writing challenge, William played a clip from a silent French film and asked the writers to imagine a stream-of-consciousness from the perspective of the woman in the film. The Challenge: Let the thoughts of your character run freely. Focus on sights, thoughts, feelings, sounds. The Participants: Agatha, Eliana, Lauren, Yueling, Liam, Stella, Kate, Elbert, Peri, Anya, Rachael, Ananya, Kelby, Iago Peri Gordon, 12Sherman Oaks, CA Bad Dog by Peri Gordon, 12 Her Hand reaches Stroke, stroke I love— No, don’t leave Wait— Slam Alone School. Tail Chase, chase, pant Where’s the food? Yesterday’s was good Combined with stroke stroke and music from black and white thing Hoop jump! Treat Hoop jump! Treat Hoop jump! Treat Hoop? Not again Run away Couch Click, flash, see myself tiny Soft hand soft hand stroke stroke Just like her Still at school? Ahhhh Treats without jumping Happyslurplick Couch suddenly gone Suddenly hard brown tiny balls Food! Yuckyewwblech! Like when I licked the old woman’s skin She was so nicesweetgentle but I should have never licked her skin But she was so nicesweetgentle Just like her Still at school? Bite Yuckkyewwblech! Brown balls go flying Deep voice “Bad dog!” Shrill voice “Waffles! Bad dog!” Waffles I think that’s me Or is it sweet round thing with little boxes? I think it’s both But “bad dog” usually means me Usually followed by angry shouts “Bad dog” comes after things like ripping up bed Or running away Or I guess making food go flying Is it even food? She would never give it to me Deep voice and shrill voice people aren’t as nice She is nicer Still at school? Ugh Couch Wait Wait Wait Close eyes Peek Close eyes Peek Blurry silhouette outside Door opens Run run run trip run run run ouch run run shatter noise she’s home!!! Kisskisshappyslurplicknicesweetgentle I love her Soothing voice almost blocks out deep voice and shrill voice saying “Bad dog!” “Bad dog” is okay when I can hear “good dog” too
How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #31: Irony
An update from the thirty-first Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday March 12, plus some of the output published below By popular demand, this week we focused on writing the concept of irony. We began with a few basic definitions of irony: the difference between what something appears to mean versus its literal meaning, the difference between what someone says and what someone means, and the subversion of expectation. We then discussed four different types of irony, beginning with the most common form, dramatic irony, defined as when the reader knows something that a character does not know. Olaf from Frozen, for example, we identified as an example of dramatic irony as he sings about loving summer while we, the audience, know the summer is what will be his demise, an ironic device also found in the form of Ahab in Moby Dick. The second type of irony we discussed was situational irony, defined as when the expected outcome of a situation is reversed. One such example of this was found in The Wizard of Oz, as the four primary characters in search of the great wizard found out his appearance was just a charade, and that the characters had within them what they were searching for all along. We also, of course, talked about Alanis Morrissette’s infamous song “Ironic,” and changed a few of her unironic lines so that they were actually ironic. The next type of irony we discussed was verbal irony, defined as when a character says the opposite of what they mean, exemplified by Polonius in Hamlet when he says “to thine own self be true,” the irony being that Polonius is himself a lier and a con-artist. The final and most complicated type of irony we discussed was formal irony, defined as when a work of art calls attention to itself as a work of art. In order to reinforce this type of irony, we looked at Ron Padgett’s poem, “Poem,” and the artwork of Jackson Pollock, which calls attention to itself as a painting by representing literal paint on a canvas. The Participants: Amelia, Penelope, Emma, Sophia, Nova, Gwynne, Lina, Josh, Quinn, Ellie, Samantha, Ethan, Amber, Alice The Challenge: Write a story, scene, or poem that uses at least one of the four forms of irony discussed. To watch more readings from this workshop, like Emma’s below, click here. Emma Hoff, 9(Bronx, NY) Irony Emma Hoff, 9 “You can climb up the rope,” said Sarah to Lucy. And she almost wanted it to be true because she meant to say, “I won’t be able to stand it if you fall off again.” Johnny thought he could get straight As if he pretended to be listening while he was really drawing his teacher, but he was caught after a whole month of him acting and was told that report cards would be given out in three months and that he should give up his whole charade.eds courage to build a school ! Belle’s fish was going to die, and she didn’t want her mother to get rid of it by flushing it down the toilet, but the fish died while Belle was in school, and Belle’s mother couldn’t stand looking at its dead body, so she disposed of it and got a new fish which she claimed was Belle’s perfectly healthy “old fish.” Belle never guessed and neither would Johnny have if he hadn’t been told. And Lucy fell off the rope and Sarah ran outside and cried. And Sarah read this very poem and thought about Lucy, and Lucy read it and thought about Sarah, and Belle finally guessed what she would never have guessed and Johnny remembered. And Belle’s new fish swam around until it, too, died, but Belle was guarding it with a pitchfork. And this poem unspiraled like a ball of yarn and stuck to Johnny’s cheek and made him sulk. And Lucy pretended to hug Sarah but slapped her instead, and Sarah did some more crying. And the rope in the gym sat depressed and sad and decided that it would never be climbed again, and Johnny’s drawings of the teacher were found by Sarah, who gave them to Belle, who gave them to Lucy, who gave them to the unclimbable rope, covered in post-it notes and protecting every last line of poetry that comedy concocted.
