Brooklyn Community High School of Communications, Arts & Media (BCAM), Arts & Media, Bedford-Stuyvesant, District 13

Isamu Fukui, Truancy: A fiction writing workshop.

Visit 1: March 3, 2010
Visit 2: March 17, 2010

During a unit on dystopian societies, a 12th-grade class read Truancy by Isamu Fukui. Truancy is the story of Tack, a 15 year old boy living in a society governed by corruption and oppression, in which every system, especially the education system, is designed to oppress, brainwash and keep citizens in line. Tack joins a group of extremely skilled rebel teens who call themselves the Truancy and fight the government in an attempt to create a free world.

In a two part writing workshop, students wrote dystopian short stories using scaffolded writing prompts. Mr. Fukui, who wrote Truancy while he was attending high school in NYC, went through the process of writing a short story along with the students, working on a laptop which was projected onto the whiteboard. The students were able to observe Mr. Fukui's writing process, complete with erasing, re-writing, correcting and editing. He then self-critiqued his story: it needed another couple of rewrites. Students also shared the stories they had written and gave each other feedback. The teacher reported that the stories were the best written work he had seen from his students this year.

BCAM Students's Short Stories

Choice, by Jasmine

P.A.I.N. AND P.E.N.A.N.C.E., by George

Trader, by Jamika

Isamu Fukui talks with a budding writer about the art of writing.		Classroom teacher Mr. Kevin Greer discusses the different components of a story.
Isamu Fukui signs copies of Truancy for these BCAM students.		The class poses after workshopping stories with Mr. Fukui and with one another.

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