Notes from a teacher's diary

Page 2

by Sally Cragin

Four years ago, when I returned from Los Angeles -- a city devoted to the image first and the word second -- I visited some old friends at the Fitchburg Art Museum. While I was there, I reacquainted myself with the incredible works of art in the permanent collection. There were many pieces I remembered: a glorious Audubon print, White Heron from the "Elephant portfolio"; Rockwell Kent's impressionistic landscape of Mt. Monadnock; a self-portrait of the museum's enigmatic founder, artist Eleanor Norcross (1854-1923).

Before they're 12, most children spend a lot of time in front of various flickering glass boxes (TV, Nintendo, home computers). It's quite a transition to look at a screen that doesn't move. But the Friday-afternoon writers have tremendous concentration and come to enjoy the museum atmosphere. As the class gets underway, they learn that looking at a painting or a photograph again and again brings fresh rewards and ignites the imagination. Progress comes, page after page.

Fitchburg Art Museum has a terrific series of portraits dating from the 18th to the 20th century, and these paintings are very appealing to a writer. If the students don't have any ideas right away, they can wander the elegant Old Wing and peruse the images from another era. I like to ask some of these questions: "What is this person thinking of? Did she just hear bad news? Is she proud of the dress she's wearing?" There is a Sargent portrait on loan showing an elegant, but obviously sickly woman, and this picture prompts thoughtful responses. Alyce thinks she looks "sad," while Claudel supplies the word "sorrowful." Jenn decides "she looks exhausted," and David concludes that "she looks like she has a secret." This portrait prompts a few children to begin stories based on her point of view, and I am curious to find out what they think she's looking at.

We also have some animal pictures in the Old Gallery, including a 19th-century pastorale On Guard, depicting a flock of sheep with a sheepdog. Last year, Angelina wrote an exciting story, with exposition and dialogue about what the sheep and dog said to one another when a coyote came to call. (Angelina lives in a rural community and has spent enough time around animals to construct convincing literary personalities for them.)

Later in the course, we will wander over to the new building, which houses current exhibitions, and visit the amazing "Egyptian Tomb," built last year and containing the century-old "tomb paintings" of Joseph Lindon Smith. Several years ago, Heather wrote an elegiac poem about two Egyptian princesses who were sisters, which was true to its period. And last year, Heather visited Egypt, so I always look forward to her "from-experience" comments about this room.

For our first meeting, with this current group, I made copies of Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening ("Whose woods these are I think I know . . ."). We stood in a semi-circle in front of the Rockwell Kent landscape of Mt. Monadnock, which many of the children recognize from having climbed it.

Before the children set to writing, we always read aloud, each person reading a sentence, or stanza. This way, they can practice their voice projection (we have a reading for family and friends during our last class), and also "feel" what excellent prose and poetry sound like aloud. Even if they don't "understand" every last word, it doesn't matter. A child who wants to write will absorb the rhythm of Shakespeare's cadences, Emily Dickinson's psychological mystery, and Robert Frost's evocations of nature. I tell them I will not -- will never -- ask them "what-is-this-poem-about?" Instead, I ask them if they've ever been lost in the woods and wasn't it enjoyable -- at first? "What is that feeling like -- `miles to go before I sleep'?"

Most of the kids have been lost in the woods, some quite intentionally. They agree that such solitude is essential to their particular nature ("It's kinda neat to be all alone out there -- for a while," said one child). Talking about "being lost" is a good way to discuss the Frost poem, but it's clear that they want to look at the paintings and then write, and so that's what they do.

Within 15 minutes, the museum has become a different place. Children sit on chairs, on the floor or stand. Each holds a pen and notebook and begins the first draft of a story or a poem. Every so often, they look up, or reach for a dictionary, but mostly they write. I quietly look over their shoulders, and, once again, I'm amazed.

Sally Cragin directs the Creative Writing Program at the Fitchburg Art Museum.