Hello, World!

If you’re an educator navigating our Covid-pocked school year, bless you. You’re tuckered out–like a lemon squeezed of its last drops of juice. More than likely, you’ve spent more hours in front of a computer than most computer programmers or engineers. Since I have one of each in my family, I know this fact to be indisputable. So, despite mourning the fact that I’ll never see the faces of most of my students, I’m carving out time to celebrate the moments of light that burst through the clouds.

Today, I introduced all four English classes to the 100 Word Challenge, something I’ve been participating in for half the year with my Communications students. It was an uplifting, beautiful, freeing experience in creative writing. Students were given one partial phrase – a flash of light, and, then, darkness – that they had to include in their 100-word micro-story. When most of your students are invisible, only avatars on a computer screen, you need a way to build community, to all feel like you’re sharing one space, one writing mission together. This year, I’m especially grateful for rediscovering Padlet, a technological godsend I’ve used every week to build a community of writers. In ten minutes (or less, in some cases), students poured out imagery-laden writing that gave me goosebumps when shared aloud. On Padlet, we come together to comment, to obliterate writer’s block, to find our unique writer’s voice in a customizable space that helps this teacher feel connected to her students.

Padlet, thank you. Students, thank you. I’ve shared a few stories below…but there are so many more that were written. Next Sunday, another 100 Word Challenge posts from New Zealand. You can bet we’ll be writing together again. That’s ten minutes of guaranteed unity in a classroom precariously connected by wi-fi. Lucky for all of us, the One Word Challenge will run all summer long. Share it with the young writers in your classroom, neighborhood, or household.

Be strong, teachers and students. We’re almost there–together!

Mrs. Rombach

Proud Commenter for the Team 100 Word Challenge

From Sophie S. –

Finally, the new horror game. I’ve been waiting to play it for so long. I start it up, excited for what it’s going to contain. I’m brought into a white room, with a large mirror on one wall. There’s a couple paintings in the room, some… unsettling. Above the mirror, there’s a grey timer, slowly counting up with quiet ticks, counting the time I’ve been there. I sit in front of the mirror, and simply wait. That’s what the game’s about, isn’t it? Just waiting. A couple minutes go by, I look up at the timer to see it’s been about 10 minutes. I’m about to give up, about to leave, nothings happening anyways. I check the timer once more, and realize. Is it just me, or did the timer get lighter? No, the room’s getting darker, slowly fading with a red light appearing in the middle. I get slightly nervous, but keep waiting. It keeps getting darker, the red light is more prominent now, the timer’s at 29 minutes, so close to half an hour. I watch the timer count up, “29:56”, “29:57”, “29:58”, “29:59”. A flash of light, then, darkness.

From Troy H. –

Bright lights point at me, as sirens wail, I can feel air whooshing by rapidly. A helicopter lands, and a man climbs out. He carries me to safety while right behind me gets engulfed with flames. All I can remember is a flash of light, then, darkness. I feel the gravel on my hands; the cuts make me cry in pain. I see the officer look in fear as he sees a plane over head. I think the end is near, but the plane explodes as planes with red white and blue pass by. I could feel the explosion from here. Could this be an all out war?  I guess in the future we will see.

From Eva M. –

My eyes suddenly jerk open, “..What happened…?” I ask the nurse next to me. I look around and it seems I’m in a hospital. I cover my eyes because the lights blaring down at me are causing a headache. The nurse looks up at me, startled, “We think you fainted but we need to run more tests to make sure.” I watch as she scrambles out of the room. The last thing I remember was being on a trampoline in my friends backyard. I tried doing a new trick and then I saw a flash of light and then darkness.

From Seth E. –

As the last flashlight lost battery, there was a flash of light, then, darkness. Surrounded entirely by rock, the miners were completely and entirely in darkness. The darkness was a dense fog, and down there nobody dared light a match. I uselessly clawed at the 7 foot thick slab of solid granite that had covered our escape. Over two miles of rock hung over our heads. Our pickaxes were broken to the look of more like a deformed hammer. Our shovels uselessly bent. Every metal tool we had lay in in a pile of scrap wood handles, and metal dust by the slab of granite.