Is the Very Old Man With Enormous Wings a Flaming Rooster?

So I taught Marquez! I would like to go on record that Ryan is a liar. And he informed his group to “not do it like Jennifer’s group did” so that they partake in the preparation of the discussion. However, I did meet with David, and he said if they wanted to prep with visuals and the like they were welcome though not required. Moving onward!

I read this short story on my own and wasn’t entirely sure what angle to take when teaching it. It’s hard because in my world, Marquez can do no wrong. I had a long list of things I wanted to talk about, but I managed to fill the hour with relative ease so all’s well that ends well. I attempted to give the class a basis in magical realism, or specifically that it has a backdrop of realistic elements with instance of the magical for the sake of an unconventional reality. Most of the story is grounded in reality but it is punctuated by the fantastical in a matter of fact tone. I will say that on the whole they seemed to hold back as a group, there were only a few who had something to say about it. And while it makes me giddy with delight, perhaps it’s not everyone’s bag. Still, I’m curious about how the ambiguities of story are generative, and at what point is the reader put off. Are readers satisfied with not knowing? When is the writer/ reader contract violated?

I am curious about how it differs from the surreal, from science fiction and I had hoped there would be more engagement with that distinction. There was hesitancy with identifying oneself as a sci-fi geek, but maybe that’s because I totally put people on the spot. I think of science fiction as prescribing an alternate reality for the reader. It’s a vested creation in another world, its specific, and it outlines the rules explicitly. Magical realism tends to leave greater gaps and ambiguities, it requires that the reader makes decisions and fills in the gaps. I think that’s why I love Marquez. I wholeheartedly accept the magical elements, and they work on a subconscious level for inserting one’s interpretations into the work.

I will say I felt like I dominated the conversation a bit, though I had resigned myself to the awkwardness. It felt a bit like a performance because I very clearly am not the instructor, but I enjoyed the practice of generating that discussion. Even though I did not in fact do it wrong (cough bateman cough) if I had to do it again, I would have been specific with group expectations so there were other jumping off points. The visual art opening is working really well in the class, so I wish I had used that method for starting the discussion so that I wasn’t solely responsible for generating topics of discussion. Anyway, long live the flaming rooster!

Finding the "In" When Starting a Workshop Conversation 3.22

So I am looking through my notes from 371, and one thing that has been on my mind is how as an instructor one can pose a question in workshop that gets the student thinking, but doesn’t serve as hand holding through the process of workshop. What I mean to say is that there are moments when David asks a question and multiple people have something to say, but there are also moments when the question falls flat—this is not to say silence is indicative of some failure to ask the right question—because they seem almost stumped, unsure of what exactly he is getting at. What I’m curious about is, how we as instructor guide the discussion and help students to articulate matters of craft, or to theorize the choices the writer is making, without turning the workshop into a specific set of “issues” with regard to a particular story. I appreciate the way the workshop is often framed with regard to a particular discussion that is presented in all the submissions for the evening. I think there was a lot to be said for the discussion on tension when group two was workshopped and discussion the inverted check mark as a representation of dramatic tension. Having one idea to touch back on is nice because it keeps a central focus for the workshop, and a touchstone for the class period.

I’ve been attempting to keep track of the phrasing used to open discussion and am considering language used when beginning discussion. On 3/22 we did the first groups submissions. For the first story, David opened things up by laying out his agenda right off the bat, “Really what I want to talk about here…” We discussed the journey itself, as compared to the placid serene more quiet moments in the story. He also began with, “Lets talk about compliments, what is the story doing genuinely well?” This all feels very non-threatening and I think everyone can easily look to their notes for something they noted as working well within the story. We went on to discuss the foreshadowing with the rain, how the use of 3rd person past tense implies we’re being told this story for a reason. David asked “What do other people think of the slowness of the rest of the story?” I like that there’s a specific calling out for students who are more quiet, or who default to the chatterboxes of the classroom. We discussed why it’s important to show the main character making choices, and David said “The best characters embody those contradictions.” Also when hinting at something he hoped to discuss he might say, “I’m curious about…” We also discussed what a flashback adds to the story. These are all helpful ways to probe some of the central concerns with the story, but they also allow room for multiple interpretations. In this particular class we workshopped the remaining stories and switched gears to Annie Proulx and her use of language (ie fingersnap, landforms, yatata yatata ya, sagebrush, kangaroos, young man’s scalding anger, a fools world).

As a collector of fragments of language, here are some other useful phrasings of questions I’ve noted:

“What kind of suggestions do we have for this story?”
“Whose story is this?”
“If Rick Bass wrote this story what would he do?”
“If a character’s looking closely, what’s interesting to them? What specific details?”
“Is the reader situated, is it enough, are we too comfortable?”
“Is the main character facing conflict, actively making choices?”
“If dialog complicates or provides a slant for the story, how is it packaged here?”
“Has the character found redemption?”
“Should we talk about that ______ moment?”
“I really like_____, so lets just dive in.”
“What’s working well here?”
“How does time operate in this story?”
“A lot seems to revolve around this idea of _____, how does this function in the story?”
“Does ______ apply to this story?”
“Are you satisfied with the puzzle not being solved?”
“How does he give us solid footing, and encourage trust?”
“What is being held back, what’s being included? Some narrators are trustworthy, sometimes Judge Judy is required.”

I guess I’m just curious about how as instructors we determine the basic premise or content of discussion, and guide the students but still leave room for them to articulate the choices they think the writer is making. How do you guys think this is done in a workshop?