As a freshmen instructor at a college, the first week of classes stewarding new students into a strange environment can feel daunting for all of us. I want to inform them as much as I can without inundating them, while also keeping them engaged so they don’t check out immediately. I aim to be present and let each moment guide what happens next. That’s how we ended up writing about a dollar store rubber basketball and a single grimy earbud abandoned respectively in the classroom for two of my classes.
These objects greeted me at the start of class while I was reflecting on how to introduce the conversation around storytelling. They were challenged to write a story with their group about how either the baby basketball or the lone, right-sided AirPod ended up there. The improvised narratives were piled together in a blink and they were ready to share their writing processes, the key purpose of the exercise.
What they came up with was phenomenally imaginative. The tiny toy basketball had quite the journey, from what the class shared in their stories. It made its way across the Pacific Ocean to be found in a mystical shop. It helped a teenager come to terms with his sports injury and the loss of a promising career. It was even LeBron James incarnate, who had morphed into a basketball and returned to college as a sophisticated spherical student. In the other section, the arcs of the unpaired AirPod kept us all captivated — from being left there before the building was constructed (only to be carpeted over and cut out of the floor to find its new place on the desk) to a multimillion-year-old yarn still unravelling of a rage-gaming dinosaur who tossed it across time and space.
One story idea stood out to me. The earbud did not move at all. It sat still while the world moved around it. It witnessed the everyday comings and goings, helping the audience to have a clear fixed focal point on human experience. I pictured this as a short artistic film — the earbud still, silent, and stoic, fully in camera focus with bodies, voices, and emotions passing through.
This classroom connection to perspective started on the couch. I have a fascination with film that is fueled by academic YouTubers who break it down in intricate and thoughtful long form video essays. Over the past year, Sylvia and I have been chipping away at AFI’s Top 100 Movies of All Time (we are halfway there). In the movies I have watched recently, I have found myself fixated on the focus. A detail from the right perspective changes everything — noticing the rich orange fall leaves that frame the shot, contextualizing the environment and symbolizing a slow decay of friendships. I take time to observe the high shots, the low shots, the wide shots, the close-ups. There are objects in the frame, what are they trying to tell me as a viewer? There is so much more to a story than meets the eye. A perspective makes all the difference in how we see the story. I find myself looking through my own world like an old-timey director with two L-shaped hands (don’t worry I haven’t started to literally do this — yet).
As the quarter continues, I hope to keep this curious creative flame alive in these students. If I feel their attention waning as a sea of eyes glaze over into their computer screens, I might just take a few steps to the right to find a new perspective and see them deep in thought crafting their next impactful line.
I enjoyed reading your creative narrative and hearing about the creativity of your students. Are they pursuing degrees in film or writing, or do they take this course for other reasons?