Using Mentor Texts to Reckon with Nuanced Reactions: Aly Wane's "A (Complicated) Prayer for Kobe"

Aly Wane, Human Rights Worker in Syracuse, New York 

To acquaint students with using the texts they read as mentors for their writing, I chose as our first topic, Kobe Bryant. I wanted to pick a timely topic that would help students work through their complicated reactions to Kobe's death.  I selected what was initially widely disseminated on a Facebook post by Aly Wane, a peace activist living in Syracuse, New York. Published under the title of “A (Complicated) Prayer for Kobe.” Wane’s piece has subsequently been published in the online magazine America: Jesuit Review. 

Wane’s poem enacts a dialogue going back and forth between the narrator’s contradictory feelings about Kobe Bryant and the moment of national mourning. Was Kobe a hero? A villain? To whom? And why? The poem doesn’t definitely land on one side or the other. Instead, Wane asks us to recognize our own messy, imperfect human lives that can’t be reduced to a single moment or action. As Wane points out, “I will hurt and harm the people I love."  

Creative Quote: George R.R. Martin's Architects & Gardeners

Here's a Haiku Deck "remix" of a quote by Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin. I took liberties with his phrasing, but I hope I've captured the essence of his meaning: Writing is rocking back and forth and toggling between two distinct mindsets. 

One approach calls for the kind of planning and mechanical processes we might associate with architects. The other mindset approaches writing from the more romanticism inspired, "faith-based"of gardening. 

These apparently divergent ways of thinking about the creative process are less a static "right/wrong" or "either/or" opposition than of an active shifting within a dynamic equilibrium (that was a mouthful!). 

Two types of writers - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Zombies, Mentor Texts, & Procrastination

I can tell it's getting close to the end of the semester when I find myself avoiding grading by making plans for next semester. Yes, it's wise to plan ahead. But I know that my "advance planning" is often a procrastination strategy. 

My current procrastinating planning takes the form of attending a book study group where we are reading the book Writing with Mentors: How to Reach Every Writer in the room Using Current, Engaging, Mentor Texts by Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O'Dell. 

According to Marchetti and O'Dell: Mentor texts are model pieces of writing - or excerpts of writing - by established authors that can inspire students and teach them how to write. . . . Mentor texts enable student writers to become connected to the dynamic world of professional writers. Mentor texts enable independence as, over time, students are able to find and use inspiration and craft elements found in the sentences and pages of their favorite writers. Mentor texts enable complete creativity and individuality to emerge in student writing and instruction. (3) 

Picnic Paper Plates, M.K. Asante, & Mentor Texts?

I tried out an exercise I experienced at a San Diego Area Writing Project  study session, one on revision and mentor texts. 

In several classes, we are in the middle of a narrative project, and I wanted to see if I could use a mentor text to illustrate how solid story telling skills. I didn't use the process exactly as the facilitator did, but I did keep with the spirit of it.

After the requisite "beginning-of-class-throat-clearing-noises," I projected an image of a picnic scene to the class. I asked folks to chat in pairs about a favorite (or least favorite) outdoor meal they recently had. I told them we'd be doing a fluency exercise, to simply practice writing as quickly and clearly as we could. As they chatted, I passed around paper plates.

Then I directed students to write the best story they could about their best or worst experience at an outdoor meal - picnic, barbecue, party, whatevers - directly onto the paper plate. 

I loved this strategy when the SDAWP leader modeled the revision exercise - having writers compose not on standard paper but on a paper that matches the topic. For picnics, pass out paper plates. For a story about a trips, use old maps. For a holiday story, use the back of wrapping paper. Use old postcards for a remembered vacation. You get the idea. This move doesn't simply add novelty and a sense of play to the activity - it somehow signals we can be creative, experimental. Messy, even.