ellenpapazian.com

Park

ellen — Sat, 19 May 2012 23:24:35 +0000

Middle School

ellen — Fri, 18 May 2012 00:55:22 +0000

Day three of the residency: Twelve- and thirteen-year-olds tell their life story in six words. A few of my personal favorites:

“In my second life, I fly.”
“Maybe there’s treasure in my backyard.”
“My family is a big pain.”
“I don’t know my own life.”
“Perfect is not perfect. Go unique.”
“Never good enough. Weird. Just stop.”
“No one ever told me that.”
“I was born an awesome unicorn!”

Iris

ellen — Thu, 17 May 2012 01:01:43 +0000

Gallery

ellen — Sun, 13 May 2012 01:50:57 +0000

Story

ellen — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:19:11 +0000

It’s always thrilling to prepare for a teaching residency with young people. This time, middle schoolers. It brings you back to the beginning, when we first told ourselves stories. First, by what we saw, then by what we could speak and draw. How does “my first field trip to the farm” become “blue reminds me of California”? We get caught in the current, the fact becomes the sense. Yet I’ve worked with ten-year-olds and 91-year-olds, and I’m amazed at how often each group goes back to being six.

Caine’s Arcade

ellen — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:43:05 +0000

So beautiful. A film by Nirvan Mullick. Caine’s Arcade.

ellen — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 16:59:46 +0000

Faded Things

ellen — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 04:30:45 +0000

“I listened carefully when they talked about the past, and I absorbed it and came to see it. Sometimes in dramatising a scene in a book or a story, I found myself in the rooms that these people – the one or two generations before mine – had been in, and was impelled, almost compelled, to conjure up what I knew must have happened, what was hardly ever mentioned but was half-known, half-understood. It was like working with ghosts rather than imagined characters, with dust and faded things as much as with words and sentences.”

Questions

ellen — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 19:21:24 +0000

Some of the most compelling personal narratives don’t answer all our questions. Patricia Brieschke’s “Cracking Open” is a fine example of this. And today, my senior-citizen student Fanny wrote about a “life lesson” she could identify with: “marry someone like you.” Yet she explored it from the flip side; what happens when you say no to one potential life partner (that “someone like you”) and yes to another? Her final sentences: “My marriage ended after 63 years when he became ill and died. Did I marry someone like me? Absolutely not. Had I married M—-, it would have been someone just like me.” The other seniors pondered this for a bit, and then Bea said, “Fanny, I think I’d like to go for a long walk with you now and talk about this.” Indeed.

Tips

ellen — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 01:27:13 +0000

How to write a “Lives” essay. (Good tips.)