Fedore Writer

At a March 14th event at the Invitation Bookshop, in Gig Harbor, I shared my inspiration for The Uncommon AP Club.

The attendees and my conversation reminded me of this essay that I wrote almost two decades ago, titled, “50 Things”:

“It’s Grab Bag Poetry day,” I announced to my sophomore English students. My announcement was met with a mix of groans and applause as I wove between rows of students handing out Happy Meal toys, board game pieces, a bar of soap, and other household items.

More playing was happening, rather than writing. I wondered if giving students toys was misguided, and if the students were ever going to settle into their poetry assignment. I resisted the urge to be too directive of their … creative process. I especially noticed a student, who’d seldom attended my class, twirling a plastic kaleidoscope near his eye.

Minutes passed and students began to put pen to paper, but the student with the kaleidoscope continued to twirl the prism. Would redirecting him encourage him to write? Or would I just create conflict with a student I hardly knew, who I wanted to feel welcome in my classroom? Leave him be. Pick your battles.

As I gathered the students’ poems, I vowed to never again give students toys to inspire poetry. Innovative teaching idea in theory, fruitless in outcome.

That evening, anticipating drivel, I began to read the students’ poems. A paper with no name held a poem that wove rhythm, the repetition of the word “fifty,” and exquisite imagery, which captured my awe. I was certain it was the seldom-seen student with the kaleidoscope. The student I’d been sure hadn’t completed the assignment. The student whose insightful list of observations had proven to be more observant than I.

He’d had probably been court ordered to attend school, since his absences spanned weeks, and then he’d show up for a few days. I imagined him feeling like he’d been dropped into another world, like when I’ve visited another country with unfamiliar customs and language, my brain on overdrive. 

But here was an artful, stunning poem.

That same semester, my kaleidoscope student arrived during Act II of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. I assigned him the part of the Soothsayer, who has a few lines, foreshadowing calamity, making it interesting.

The story was unfolding, and the Soothsayer was a sloth in his seat, his head resting on the back of the chair, one leg reaching across the isle, and his eyes half closed. I didn’t think I’d seen the page turn once.

“Be-wayah of the Ides of Mahch!” On cue, he delivered his line with the strength of a Gladiator. My eyebrows arched and a grin stretched my face. I nodded approval, realizing that he had been following the play; that he had been turning the page. I just hadn’t seen it. Like lacking faith—if you can’t see it, you don’t believe it.

Memories of students like him inspired me to write The Uncommon AP Club—an ode to teens finding their inner scholar and breaking down stereotypes. 

Attendees at the Invitation Bookshop book event would agree that the students with the least impressive transcripts delivered our most important lessons.

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