Wonders never cease

Just after I finish ranting about this Comp II class, I have a student hand me an essay to read and help her revise. It's the story of her dad's last day. He died in a snowmobile accident.

She starts out describing that morning - her grandparents are over with her folks having coffee. She is sitting at the table watching them. She can even remember the exact outfit she's wearing.

Then her father takes her outside. He is getting ready to leave for a snowmobile trip. They have a few hours together, but he has to leave. She remembers an uncanny feeling, like something bad is going to happen. She begs him not to go, but he does - taking her into the house to her mother.

Then she describes the phone call and her mother's reaction and her bewilderment at her mother's fright. A family friend comes over to sit with her and her brother.

Then later she learns the news: her father was killed in a snowmobile accident on Highway 32.

I offered my suggestions as best I could - start with some kind of narrative describing driving along Highway 32 and thinking about the accident (she ended her rough draft with "Every time I drive by Highway 32, I think of the accident). I told her this was better than the cliché opening of - "I remember it like it was yesterday." Then I also suggested that she really describe and play up the emotional impact of that last morning with her grandparents and mother and father, the last time that unit as a family was intact. I told her the more she plays that up, the greater the impact will be on the reader when they get to that final paragraph - which without that canned summary conclusion - will hit like a warhead.

This is why I would teach personal narratives all damn year if I could. I was moved by that essay. I haven't yet been moved by a research paper or persuasive essay.

To go from just telling a student that writing about getting stopped by the cops with alcohol in the vehicle is probably not a good idea for an essay topic to reading this essay and having my heart ripped out is amazing. How can two kids pick such contrasting topics?