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Flash Fiction Assignment – Significant Objects

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , on March 25, 2026 by Mike

These past couple weeks we had our English IV students make an attempt at a (very) short story basing the assignment on Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn’s anthology, Significant Objects, where cheap, well, crap, had stories attached to them and then sold at auction. The question to be answered was whether those made-out-of-whole-cloth stories would increase the item’s perceived value.

Spoiler: they did. Though when one of the authors is Colson Whitehead I’m not sure it’s such a surprise.

Our idea was to have our students bring in some random trinket and write a 100-200 word story around the object. We presented David Gaffney’s Stories in Your Pocket: How to Write Flash Fiction rules to our students and guided them through the process over the past week: starting in the middle, few characters, the importance of the last line, etc. – we’ll see how it goes when they finish them up tomorrow.

To model the assignment, I brought in my own object: a Blanton’s Bourbon topper. It had been lying around in my library (whiskey den) and thought it’d be more interesting than some superhero knick-knack I might have found in a drawer somewhere. Sure, I had to explain to my class a bit about allocated whiskeys and the collectible nature of these toppers, but as of yet I haven’t heard from any upset admins or parents so I think I’m in the clear.

Here’s what I came up with over the past week:

His return to the hotel had surprised her. There had been talk–idle gossip in the laundry room on the fifth floor–of his retirement. Of a wife, her cancer. Her death.

She caught a glimpse of him as he entered the hotel. The freight elevator doors were closing as he approached the front desk, his bags in hand. The woman who had just checked in turned to him then the elevator doors closed.

***

He left the next day. She entered his room–818–and began removing the linens from the bed that had not been slept in, being sure to mind the shattered glass, mentally noting that the cushions needed replacing.

Her foot found the bottle. The glass globe had rolled under the bed frame and the carpet was damp from spilled bourbon. Her eyes darted to the overturned side table and on the floor she saw the whiskey bottle’s topper.

She picked it up, the weight of the brass heavy in her hand. The horse was in full gallop, never resting.

“For a moment, he held this,” she thought, and placed it in a pocket of her starched apron.

“Baba Yaga, may you soon find rest.“

So, yeah, by the end of the story it’s clear (to those familiar) that I’m riffing on the first John Wick movie. When I was writing this for the class I had told my students about the Blanton’s bottle seen in the movie – many of them had seen the movie so that gave my modeling a bit of an advantage as far as keeping their interest up. The second day I talked with them about how I wanted to keep the Wick tie-in close to my vest to better the impact of the last line. I’d be curious to know if those who happen to read this blog who are familiar with the movie immediately knew where I was going with the wife dying of cancer reference in the first line, or if the last line had the reaction I hoped for.

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Reading nerds: The Literature Draft

Posted in Entertainment, Novels, teaching, Vacation with tags , , , , , , , , , on June 1, 2014 by Mike

A few weeks ago I was watching the NFL draft waiting to see where Johnny Football would be drafted when I started thinking (it’s a problem – it usually leads to all sorts of work for me). My initial thought was what a literature draft would look like; that is, if a group of people were drafting works of literature, who would pick what first, and how would those choices be justified? I mean, James Joyce’s Ulysses is considered by many to be the single most important work of the 20th century, but I wouldn’t take it in a draft because it’s nigh-unreadable (I tried once). Okay, maybe that’s a little unfair to Joyce, but there are other novels higher on my list.

It was this thought that led me to, on a whim, post to my “Books” Facebook group (a cadre of English teachers who post about what they’ve been reading) the following:

Silly idea: let’s have a novel draft. We could use, say, Time’s Top 100 list (or something better) and compile our own squad of books, then read them (if we haven’t already).

This might have been the end of it, as it got only 4 “likes”, but then eLaffint commented with

Yes let’s do that. But please explain more.

So eLaffint forced me to think about this some more, and closer to the end of the school year I woke up one morning with the following rules in my head:

1) There’s a $10 entry fee – this will be important later.

2) We will each choose 4 works from one of two lists: either the AP title list or the “Top 100 Works in World Literature” (http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0934958.html).

3) The four works must include a) an American author b) a female author c) an author whose original language is not English and d) a play. None of the choices may be a work taught at the school or something you have already read (you’re on your honor).

4) The draft will be done by email – the order will be pre-determined and everyone in the group will “reply all” when it’s your turn. It doesn’t matter what order you “draft” your works, but no repeats are allowed.

5) Once your list (“team”) is complete, you have pretty much the rest of the year to read them.

6) Once finished, you must write a brief essay (3-5 pages) that reflects on what you’ve read. 10 point font, Times New Roman, double spaced.

7) These essays are due to me by December 12, 2014.

8) An independent panel of three judges (three people not in the draft) will read these essays and determine the winner. All essays will be published to this site, as well as to any blogs the participants might have, with the “winning” essay designated as such.

9) The winning essay’s writer will receive all the money collected from the entry fees. There is no second place. If we have 10 people enter, the winner will receive $100.

A couple notes: I decided on the AP list because it’s quality literature and diverse.  Selecting from that list could also benefit teachers who are looking for literature for their class libraries and want to branch out from young adult fiction and the more common works that most high schools already have on their reading lists (I’m looking at you, Gatsby).  Plus, it’s a pleasure to read. [bonus points for identifying the allusion]. The other list I found through Google, and thought it might help find works that help fulfill requirement “c” on number 3.

The essay requirement was a bit of a worry as I thought that might turn off possible participants, but I wanted something more to happen than “I read it, and it was _____” posts on Facebook. The opportunity to reflect on what you’ve read is an important part of the reading process, and I wanted to give everyone a chance to demonstrate their writing chops.  Hell, it’s something we ask of our students all the time, so, physician, heal thyself, IMO. Let’s put ourselves in our students’ shoes a bit, but also show off what we can do. We’re English teachers for a reason (okay, one of our group is not, but J-ROY’s a reader).

Eight of us decided to give this a shot.  We held our draft on Saturday, and, after a bit of delay due to J-ROY’s travelling, we each have our four works selected:

READER AMERICAN WOMAN NON-ENGLISH DRAMA
RAINY Invisible Man The Color Purple In the Time of Butterflies Glass Menagerie
E-E-RON House Made of Dawn When the Emperor was Divine History (Elsa Morante) Zoot Suit
JAX A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Handmaid’s Tale Purple Hibiscus Trifles
DEE-DEE Love Medicine Alias Grace A Thousand Splendid Suns Hamlet
eLaffint Cat on A Hot Tin Roof Wide Sargasso Sea Lysistrata Equus
J-ROY All the Pretty Horses Cat’s Eye The Trial Mother Courage and Her Children
BRP In the Lake of the Woods Member of the Wedding Gargantua and Pantagruel No Exit
ME Old School – Wolff God of Small Things Blindness Doctor Faustus

I think we’re all looking forward to reading our selections, but I’m particularly anxious to read their essays.

I’ll periodically post on my progress here.

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