The Visitor...(or oddity)

Pin It Each year my class puts together a newspaper.

In order to get ready for the task of interviewing, I usually invite a guest to come to the classroom, and give the students ample time to practice this skill. Additionally, the kids practice note-taking, summarization, and generally—all about being a professional.

However, on this particular Tuesday I had failed to find a suitable person to be interviewed. I had decided to instead let the students ask me questions to practice their newly-acquired skills. However, as I sent them back to their desks so we could begin, the classroom door opened and in walked a woman who was…how do I say this?

Odd.

I say odd in the best of ways. In fact, the best way you can use that word is how I choose to use it now.

She looked completely lost as she sauntered into the room—having come in completely on accident. Her eyes blinked slowly behind her oversized spectacles, ivory and silver accordion in tow. I immediately thought about calling the office for help. Then a thought struck me…this could be a silver lining to a proverbial black cloud. After all, I was in need of a subject to be interviewed and—quite conveniently—this woman happened to come by. Surely there would be no shortage of interesting things about her.

So instead of calling the principal, I asked if she would consent to be interviewed by my fifth graders. She smiled, somewhat confusedly, and whispered that that would be fine.

I could tell that many of the students were unsure what to make of this woman who looked somewhat like a flower power child gone gypsy. However, when I said they’d be practicing their interviewing skills, the room was a flurry of paper and pencils, blank pages appeared on desks, fluttering like pigeon wings.

I must say that I was impressed with my students…they were polite and asked excellent questions, however, I think the kids were more in a state of shock than awe. Some of them looked nervously around the room as she strode to the front as if she were taking her position center stage at Woodstock itself.

We soon learned that her name was Mary Sunshine—though, hating this name, she changed it to Lieannaconnanaannaconnadonna, and she was a world traveler in search of the perfect donut.

Before long, she decided to dazzle the kids with a little polka which she promptly began to play on the accordion she’d surnamed, “Baby.” I feel pretty bad though, Joey really gets nervous around new people—especially people he isn’t comfortable with. I hope she didn’t notice that he started crying because he was scared.

When she was finished, the kids began to ask her a few more questions. Though the questions were very appropriate and well thought out; many of the students were confused at her answers. When she said she was born on a little island off the coast of Iowa. One or two of them exchanged wary glances—I could see little cogs turning in their minds…was there a coast off of Iowa?

I could tell that the kids were just being nice…and most of them weren’t sure what to make of Mary Sunshine. When one of the boys was asked if he’d rather have a car or an accordion, I knew he was being polite when he said that he’d rather have the accordion. Poor kid, having to lie to a complete stranger.

Before I knew it our time was up, and now was moment for little Mary Sunshine to make her way back to wherever she was going. I couldn’t say that I was sad to see her go…having her leave lifted a huge weight off my shoulders.

Yeah, I guess she thought that she was really something…I mean, she wrote about it on the internet…you could read more about that here.

P.S. By the way...today my class learned about writing different kinds of leads. These are the leads they came up with when writing about their experience yesterday with Mary Sunshine. I hope you enjoy them…

• The donut-eating, world-traveling, accordion-playing girl actually turned out to be pretty cool.
  

• Just imagine a girl playing her accordion in the streets; she has no job, no shelter, and hardly any money. Her income comes from her accordion…
  
  
• Kids, how would your parents feel if you moved out at 14 and changed your name to Lieannaconnanaannaconnadonna?
  
  
• “Don’t take yourself too seriously,” Said Lieannaconnanaannaconnadonna. Good advice from a woman who travels the world in search of perfect pastries…
  
  
• A five year-old woman who travels the world playing the accordion searching for the perfect donut?
  
  
• What would you do if a crazy lady comes and tells you, “I’m searching the world for the perfect donut?” If you’re anything like our fifth-grade class, you’d be shocked.
  
  
• Crazy. It was a crazy afternoon in Mr. Z’s fifth grade class when Lieannaconnanaannaconnadonna came into the room toting her accordion with a smile as big as Christmas.
  

And my personal favorite:

• Lieannaconnanaannaconnadonna. No, it’s not a disease. It’s not an animal. It’s not even a real word, that is, unless you’re her.

In-Z-News

Pin It For the past seven years my students have worked on a classroom newspaper which is called In-Z-News. This newspaper is the collaboration of 24-30 students per year, and has articles which encompass a vast variety of topics.

My students write book reviews, movie critiques, teacher spotlights, jokes and tongue twisters, real-life stores, breaking news, and recaps of school events. In fact, when we first started out, we even contacted United Syndicate and got permission to run “Calvin and Hobbes” cartoons in each issue.

However, before a paper can be put together, there are things I need to teach the kids about; things like interviewing others. I train my students how to summarize, I teach them about writing good hooks, and rewriting their articles until they are good enough to be run in In-Z-News. Our paper is then distributed throughout the school as well as online (I still need to get that page back up and running on my other website…with my new principal’s permission, the older editions will be made available once-again to the general public).

However, one of the most important things I have the kids do is to learn to ask good questions, ask follow-up questions, and take good notes. For many years, my good friend, cjane, has taken on various and sundry roles—she would come each year to my classroom as a different character for the kids to interview. However, these are not your typical personalities…but are a little more…

Unique.

I’ve not made myself clear, have I?

The word ‘unique’ can carry so many different connotations that I should elaborate…and so I shall…

Cjane would come as a vast variety of characters such as that of Dominique, a princess who lived on a distant island where her father was king. She was touring the United States to see about purchasing it. She talked about her sister who was only born with only one leg and how when running in their island’s national 3-legged race (their version of the Olympics), she and her sister would always take first.


She came one year as Grizelda, the little-known stepsister of Cinderella; yes, she was a little bitter because she ended up with the short end of the slipper and did not get to live in the castle. She gave us an earful, and told us all about the true Cinderella who didn’t do any work at all but sat around lazily each and every day while she, Grizelda, did all of the work. She then let everyone know how wonderful she really was, and how the prince should have really chosen her to be his bride...


The kids were enchanted with Melancholy, the girl who—despite having such a sad name—was bright and full of life. She made it a point to talk about how beautiful she was, and to let several of the sixth-grade boys know that she was indeed, single...much to the embarrassment of one boy whom I'll call, ‘Joey.’


The final year cjane came to be interviewed, she came as Zen4, the space traveler from the distant planet Zen. She had come from ‘the mother planet’ in hopes of finding others from her home world. She was met with success because, while in our classroom, she was able to make contact with a fellow planeteer, whom I’ll Christian as ‘Joey4.’

As you can see, practicing interviewing was a lot more fun with these characters, and the kids had a great time. The final articles they wrote were not only interesting, but full of excellent word choice and information.

Now, you’re probably wondering…just why is Teachinfourth writing about all of this? Yes, it’s interesting, but exactly what is his purpose?

I’ll make it simple…

I made a request that cjane make another appearance this year, however, with her life changes over the past year, I don’t know as if this would be feasible. Therefore, my next question is…if she is unable to make an appearance after all this year, are there any other takers for Monday or Tuesday of this week?

It’ll be mostly painless…I promise.