by Darrell E Phillips

Created on: April 02, 2008

In a scene from the 2007 movie, "August Rush," our young musical prodigy finds himself in a church dormitory, sitting at a piano with his new friend, a little orphan girl, named Hope. She is showing August, how to understand the nuances of music notes, and scales, and how to read music. Moments later, August uses his newfound understanding of music to begin scoring the world around, writing frantically, as at last he has found out how to communicate what he has been hearing all of his young life.

This is truly one of the most exquisite examples of creative writing I have ever witnessed.

Inside every one of us, there is a unique scribe, who has the amazing ability to record and process within our unique understanding, every sound, sight, touch, taste, smell, that accompanies every experience of our existence. Every person is a reservoir that, though never filled to capacity, holds a sea of wonders, and ponders, dreams, and desires.

All we need is someone who is willing to help us find our ladle, with which to draw it out.

More than just an average writing project, what I am proposing is called, "The Book of Our Year." whereby each student becomes a co-author of a continuing work of short stories, that encompasses the entire semester. A story is begun, but not your average once upon a time. It is a collection of stories about students, their intertwining lives, as they are brought into a parallel existence, with the class doing the project.

In the beginning of, "The Book of Our Year," the first periods are used to determine the settings, the characters, and their personalities, all by group consensus. Then, the class is broken into groups, and each group is assigned a character. The goal here is for the character to become a composite of each of the students withing the group. Then the writing assignments are given. Each group will be responsible for providing stories about the character. The stories can be about anything, but the only catch is that the students cannot sign their names, only indicate which group it came from.

At the end of the "semester" there will be many stories, about all the characters that have been chosen. They will range from serious to hilarious, depressing to inspiring. All or a selection of these stories may be bound into a book.

All the students will be listed as the authors, for the class time will have been used for brainstorming, allowing the students to interact with one another, developing their characters, what settings and plots might be worth exploring. Everyone contributes in some manner.

This project will do for the students, just what Hope did for August Rush, provide them with the vehicle, and a means that may transport them into the incredible world of creative writing. It will be a ladle will draw out the creativity that lies within each of them.

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