Workshop 1: January 6, 2010
Grades 11 and 12
Early in 2011, 11th and 12th graders at DeWitt Clinton High School read Ben Greenman’s collection of short stories entitled, What He’s Poised To Do. The stories focus on love, letter - writing, and relationships between men and women. All the stories are in letter form and explore communication through this format.
Mr. Greenman opened with a series of discussion questions about the book, including questions
regarding the differences between how people write in a letter versus in a diary and the significance of letter writing before many of our current communication technologies existed. After this discussion component, Mr. Greenman led the class in writing exercises that were related to the text. He had the students write in the same format– postcards and letters - as the book’s characters, create characters, and imagine the perspectives of noteworthy people.
After these two activities, Mr. Greenman advised the students on their writing and encouraged them to e-mail him other work so that he could critique it.
