Encapsulations

How are poems structured? And prose? And drama? Where does their strength lie? In the previous session we approached characters as the strongest element in a text. Now the focus is shifted to the structure itself: how the choice of the final word in a line, or the division between lines can make a poem affect the reader in a certain way. Although during this fifth session the girls worked with different poems, their final production was much freer. We played with intertextuality, identifying the central elements around which a text is constructed to create a whole different one. With the encapsulation technique, and following the example of the Greek myth of Icarus and Iron Maiden's song Flight of Icarus, two students created great pieces from ancient legends. Eugenia Stancich took the story of Hercules to write a poem, and Cristina Reyes imagined a dialogue out of the myth of Arachne. Read and enjoy!

Hercules was the Roman name for the greatest hero of Greek mythology -- Heracles. Like most authentic heroes, Heracles had a god as one of his parents, being the son of the supreme deity Zeus and a mortal woman. Zeus's queen Hera was jealous of Heracles, and when he was still an infant she sent two snakes to kill him in his crib. Heracles was found prattling delighted baby talk, a strangled serpent in each hand.

Reach out

Searching for something we haven’t found before,

Light fades away as the sound of his voice,

Darkness around the sun is all we could get,

Dancing around the boy who couldn’t forget.

Inocence may be the engine that moves him,

But soon he’ll find out the power inside him,

And none would dare his virtues ignore

As Hercules is what we are looking for.

Eugenia

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Arachne was a peasant girl who became an expert spinner and weaver of cloth. No human could spin or weave as well as Arachne or produce finer cloth. She became famous throughout Greece.

Arachne grew arrogant about her skill, boasting that she was better than Athena, the goddess of wisdom, who invented spinning and weaving. At first, Athena laughed off Arachne's claims. Then many people began to believe them and to stay away from Athena's temples and from festivals held in her honor. Athena decided she had to teach the boastful girl a lesson.

Disguised as an old woman, the goddess came to earth and challenged Arachne to a weaving contest. The cloth that Athena wove showed the power of the gods and the fate of humans who dared to challenge them. Arachne's tapestry contained scenes of the foolish romantic misadventures of the gods. Arachne's work was the equal of Athena's, and the goddess was impressed by its quality. However, Arachne could not resist boasting that her weaving surpassed that of Athena.

At that moment, the goddess revealed her true identity. She tore apart Arachne's weaving and beat her with the shuttle from her weaving loom. In despair, Arachne took a rope and hanged herself. Out of pity, Athena changed the rope into a web and turned Arachne into a spider, an animal known for its spinning and weaving skills.

Athena: So, you think you’re a better weaver than I? People have been commenting that you believe you’re better than I…

Arachne: Yes, of course! As you see, I’m not the only one who thinks that; many people have appreciated my beautiful work since I’m a better weaver than you.

Athena: How dare you say that?! I’m a talent goddess, everybody knows that!. You can’t compare yourself to me.

Arachne: I don’t need to be a goddess to have such talent.

Athena: Stop being so arrogant! Now, apology to me or you’ll regret it.

Arachne: Why should I do it? I’ll go on weaving better than you anyway.

Athena: OK. I won’t put up with your hubris any longer! If you want to weave, do it for the rest of your life…!!!

And Athena turned Arachne into a spider.

Cristina

In The Hotseat

In our fourth session we dealt with characters and characterisation, as the key element in both prose and poetry, often where their strength lies. We used Beverly Naidoo's hotseating technique to "interview" characters from two Oscar Wilde's tales the girls are reading in class: The Happy Prince and The Nightingale and the Rose. There is no written production to read, but we had fun nonetheless.

And then, what happened...?

The third session was devoted to stories and effects: How important beginnings, endings and meanings become when shaping a text with the intention of creating a certain effect on the readers' minds. We tell a story with a certain effect in mind, but what happens when your story is finished by somebody else? Can your intention be maintained when your creation changes hands? The girls' stories where begun, developed and ended by different people, and who knows what was on the original author's mind... Can you guess? Come and see for yourselves!

The wind was blowing so hard it was almost impossible to walk, it touched my face gently as leaves (Cecilia) fell on the ground creating a path into a dark, creepy house. “How strange” I thought. “Well, let’s go and take a look” I said.

While walking towards this old, abandoned house I kept telling myself “It’s just a house, there is nothing to be afraid of”. (Melisa González)

Suddenly, I heard a voice saying my name. I turned around and right behind there was an old lady staring at me. She had cruel eyes, big scars on her face and her hands were bloody. She had long grey hair and half her body was covered by mist.

I screamed loudly and ran away from that dreadful place. (Marianela)

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Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved singing and playing in the playground with her dogs. She was a beautiful, five-year-old girl with long, black, curly hair and grey eyes. (Marianela)

Some said she was the daughter of Satan, even though her actions proved them wrong. She had a lot of friends to play with and nobody cared about that rumour.

One day one of the boys that used to play with her started floating around, as if gravity had vanished, as if air had turned into water. The boy was paralysed, so he couldn’t explain what had happened thst day at the playground. Rumours started once again and this time the girl’s actions were carefully analysed. (Eugenia)

The experts reached the conclusion that she wasn’t in fact the daughter of Satan, on the contrary, what she had was a special gift. She had telekinesis, with the power of her mind she could move things around, but she could only use that power when she was extremely happy. That was the readon why one of the boys started to float, at that time she was so happy and laughing so much that suddenly her power kicked off.

After the strange incident was explained the rumours vanished, and the little girl went on living happily and working in a circus. (Betina)

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Once upon a time there was an elf who lived in a log cabin deep into the forest. He was a loner, red haired and pale skinned. Nobody was allowed to go near his territory… nobody would even dare to. Some said that Rolo (that was his name) used to grow his own vegetables near his cabin and distribute them among the poorest people from the village near the forest. (Eugenia)

But one day it happened that a young boy decided to go for a walk in the forest without paying attention to the warnings. After a while he discovered Rolo’s cabin and tried to go inside, but just at that moment Rolo appeared and in a deep strong voice said: “How could you dare to come to my place!!” The young boy, caught in desperation, tried to run away, but he couldn’t. Rolo (Betina) caught him and took him to his cabin at once. Rolo left him tied to a chair. A few hours went by, and the poor boy still remained on the chair. Suddenly, the elf appeared and told him “You are going to die now”. He took a knife in his hand and killed him. The elf went out of the cabin without knowing where to go. (Cristina)

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It was a windy day. The windows trembled as the wind rattled against them. The moon was shining bright at the top of the sky (Carla) and lighting a round pale face in front of me, as it was walking forward (Cecilia) to get me. I got really scared and screamed as hard as I could, hoping someone would hear me. I run faster than I had ever run. When I got to the corner of a restaurant I looked and looked but no one was around. I was by myself. In some way I felt relieved that the man wasn’t following me anymore but also scared. “Where is everyone?” I asked myself. I turned around to have another look and there he was. This pale, big man in front of me. Suddenly I woke up. Everything was over. (Melisa González)

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It was a beautiful morning. Birds were singing, dogs were barking, I could even hear children laughing. I was still in bed. I looked at my alarm clock believing it was still too early to get ready for work. At that moment I jumped out of bed and said out loud: “8:05, my boss is going to kill me!” (Melisa González)

So I got dressed in a hurry and rushed to work. When I arrived at the office, all my co-workers looked at me and started laughing endlessly. I couldn’t understand what was happening so I asked what they were laughing at and one of them answered: “Look at your shirt! It’s inside out”. I felt really embarrassed. (Marianela)

When my boss entered the room he was looking really angry because of the noise my co-workers were making and immediately asked for an explanation. Two seconds later he noticed my outfit and started to laugh. He laugh so much that his eyes filled with tears. With all that laughing my boss didn’t even notice I arrived late and I felt relieved. (Eugenia)

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Once upon a time there lived in a swamp a little frog, Fred, with his family. Although they had a nice house, he was very unhappy. (Marina)

One day, Fred found a big magic lamp covered in gold and diamonds, so he thought what he could do with it. Maybe he could use it to help his family or he could be more selfish and make his dreams to come true. In spite of the fact that he didn’t need anything material, he decided to use the lamp for himself (Celeste). There was something that he actually desired. He wanted to become a child for a day.

So he asked the magic lamp to fulfill his deep desire and the following day when he woke up in an unknown pretty house he realized he was no longer a frog but a 10-year-old child. He spent that day with his new family and he carried out all the activities a child was supposed to do: he went to school, he did the homework and he spent the afternoon playing with friends. He had a great time being a child. At night, when he went to sleep he felt sad because he knew that the spell was coming to an end and the following morning he would become Fred the frog again. After a few minutes in silence he came to the conclusion that being a frog was not so bad. In fact, he really missed his family and friends. Having been far away from them, he realized how much he loved them. And from that day onwards, he promised himself to appreciate what he had instead of complaining about all those things he didn’t have. The following morning Fred woke up as a frog in the beautiful swamp. Without hesitating, he hugged his parents tightly and he thanked life for having such a loving family. (Florencia)

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Maria thought the happiest day of her life would come. She was really enthusiastic because she had expected to travel to Italy all her life but what she didn’t know was that something dreadful would happen to her.

It was a sunny day when Maria got up to pack (Cristina) her things, she put everything she needed, she had her passport, all her savings and even she had someone who was going to pick her up as soon as the plane had landed in Italy. Everything was going okay until she got to the airport. There, she met a woman who was crying because she has lost the plane ticket and now she couldn’t travel to Italy to see her son and he was alone there and needed money. Maria felt so sad for that woman that she offered (Marina) to help her. As Maria had a really good and sentimental heart, she decided to give the woman her ticket so in that way she would be able to fly to Italy and meet her son. The woman could not believe how an strange person could be so good. (Celeste)

Wacky Similes

In our second session, we explored imaginery, we tried different ways of awakening our readers' five senses through the use of all kinds of images in our productions. After some exercises, the girls used this one: "Wacky Similes", to produce a free and brief text around the random combination of words they got when the exchange was over. This is what they came up with:

Nature is part of the judge of who is good and who is bad in this world. When you behave in a wrong way and you realise about that, winter and cold move into your life without leaving, birds don’t care about singing and trees forget to blossom. You feel lonely and a simple situation turns into a problem as big as a flake of snow. (Marianela)/

I don’t want to quarrel until tomorrow, so please stop!! (Yesica and Melisa Gaitán)/

As beautiful as your heart,

clouds pass by

and lonely I stay

while your love fades away (Melisa González)/

To cook as if he was a prisoner,

He feels trapped among piles of dirty pots.

He creates in his mind a different reality,

He waits for a miracle that could change his fate.

But he waits and waits and nothing ever happens. (Betina)/

To smile until the last day of spring, as our eyes meet and temperature rises, a day that seems eternal like our everlasting love. (Eugenia)/

Icy as my cat, but yet as lovely as a teddy bear. (Carla)/