Use the writers’ stories of growing up in West Virginia as a creative writing springboard

                                                    Choose one of these eight writers, then choose from the writing activities.

 

• 1.  Irene McKinney grew up on a rural WV farm in Barbour County in the 1930s and 40s, when family farms. were common in West Virginia. She rambled the hills, spent hours in trees with books, picked sacks full of berries, took care of animals, hauled coal and water and slept in a house without heat. Her family was part a mountain farm culture, where neighbors knew each other and helped each other get the hay in or shuck corn or pull wagons out of ditches, etc. (Track 26).  “I loved my life,” Irene said. She also said it’s very hard today to tell young people today why it was wonderful, especially young people who have never lived in a rural area or in the mountains. This activity helps you look at that life.

  • Irene Activity: Write an imagined story about those 48 hours that starts with “I dreamed I lived on Irene McKinney’s family farm.” To get ready for it, first listen to Irene’s program. Tracks 2, 12-13, 16 and 26 are especially relevant.  Then do some internet research on Appalachian family farms.  Good sources include: http://129.71.204.160/history/journal_wvh/wvh51-4.html and  https://www.farmaid.org/blog/west-virginia-farmers-growing-together/  

    • Use details you learn from all sources, including Irene. You can make up what people say to you in the dream and what you do. In the dream, people act as if they know you. What were your interactions with people? With animals? What are your chores? Did you go wandering over the farm? What did you find hard? Did the family help (or get help) from a neighbor while you were there? What did you think when you woke up?

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• 2, Maggie Anderson lived in a New York City apartment with her West Virginia Mom and Dad in her early years, while her dad taught school in the city (Tracks 4 – 7).They grew tomatoes on the fire escape. They had no TV, so little Maggie pretended a stool was a TV. Maggie’s Mom took her to the city parks, and she learned to love plants and the out of doors.  Every summer, they drove to Preston County, West Virginia to visit their families. (Track XX) After her Mom died, she and her Dad moved back to live with relatives in Rowlesburg. It was a big difference, and Maggie loved it! (Tracks 7 and 9).

  • Maggie activity: Write a children’s story about young Maggie, using the information she gives you in Tracks 4 - 9. Write it with three parts: First, her life in NYC as a little girl, visiting parks, the stool game, eating vegetables from the fire escape, trips to WV. Then her mother died. Then, she and her dad moved back to West Virginia to Rowlesburg.

    • Read/listen to what Maggie said about her life in New York in tracks 4 – 7.  Write a first part that gives us glimpses of her life in New York City. The text of children’s picture books is sparse, so choose special details. Remember, a picture tells a lot.

    • The second part, about her mom’s death, can be as short or as long as you feel it should be. It can be one page, with a picture.

    • For the third part, write a few paragraphs that tell what she did after she and her dad moved back to Rowlesburg (Track 9). Tell some fun things she did with her cousins. 

    • While you write your first draft, stick to what Maggie said. If you decide to change details, give your character another name.

    • Decide if you want to tell that Maggie grew up to be a poet. If so, plant little clues as you go along so we’re not at all surprised.

    • Draw or paint pictures to go with your story, if you like. Or simply put (picture here) in the text and page numbers that let readers know how much text goes on each page.

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• 3.  Sandra Belton grew up in a segregated Beckley neighborhood, filled with children, black and white. The black kids and white kids did not play together, she said.  Her story tells young readers about that time (Tracks 3-4, 12, 14, 16-18, 20)

  • Activity 1: Listen to Sandra’s program. As you do, take notes on a downloaded transcript. Then write a paper to answer both of these questions. Write as if you were telling a friend about her. Where was she welcome and where could she not go? How did her experiences with segregation affect her as a writer? Mention details from her life in Beckley and at least two passages from her writing, as reprinted in her program.

  • Activity 2: Research the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s, in the United States Sandra Belton grew up before that movement. How might her life have been different if she had grown up today?

  • Creative writing: Write the beginning of a fictional story in which Sandra (or a character of your invention) falls through a time warp and wakes up on a Beckley street in a time when she is welcome at the pool, on the bus, etc. You will have to give us a glimpse of her 1950s life, then show us a couple of scenes in which she is puzzled by what she encounters and sees after she falls through the time warp.

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• 4.  Denise Giardina grew up in the 1950s in Black Wolf, a McDowell County coal camp. Her grandparents came to West Virginia from Italy. In Tracks 6-8, she tells about her life in the coal camp.  In Track 9,, she fondly remembers her grandparents, in detail.

  • Activity 1: Coal camp. Using details Denise supplies and details you find in other resources about coal camp life, write an opening scene for a story about a child living in a coal camp. For more details, type “coal camp life” into a search engine.

  • Activity 2: Italian family and roots. Write an opening scene about a young Italian girl living in a coal camp. Use details Denise supplied and find more y typing “Italians in coal camps” or “Ellis Island, trains to coal camps” into a search engine.

 

• 5.  Richard Currey grew up in Parkersburg. His parents had both moved away from the farm, into town. He had a grandfather who constantly encouraged him to be an artist.

  • Activity 1: His grandfather. Discuss the ways Richard’s grandfather supported him and encouraged his development as an artist. How important is that for a writer or any artist to have somebody who supports them. What can happen when you don’t?

  • Activity 2, for advanced students: West Virginia sent more people per capita to Vietnam than any other state. Maybe you know a Vietnam veteran who would be willing to talk with you.  Show that veteran Richard Currey’s passages about Vietnam. Ask them if his account matches their experience, then ask if you can talk with them about their experience for a school paper. Be respectful if they do not want to talk about it.

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​       6.   Mary Lee Settle says recorded history is not complete, because “the voiceless have no voice in it.” She aimed to give                  them a voice, she said, to put faces on West Virginia history, tracing back to the British Isles.  An example: Johnny                  Church, the main character of Prisons,  a young man who defies his father to join Cromwell’s army, in 1641,                              rebelling against the English King. “Prisons” is the first book in a five-book series, The Beulah Quintet, about West                  Virginia. In later books, Johnny’s descendants end up in West Virginia coal mines.

                  Activity 1: Listen to the whole Mary Lee Settle program, reading along on the script.  Describe two                                               characters Mary Lee “gave a voice.” Would people like these be mentioned in most history books? Discuss the way                   these "voiceless" people's stories weave with the history of West Virginia at the time.

                 Activity 2: Think of two events in West Virginia history.  For each event, list three possible characters for a story                    set during that event. They don't need to be the main characters or prominent people. 

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       7.  Davis Grubb wrote his stories through the eyes of people who would never show up in a history book.  Children,                      widows, prisoners.  His  books are rich in the sociology of the time: the 1930s - 50s, well before the Internet, in a time              when people on the lower rungs of society had little-to-no support. 

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        8.  Cynthia Rylant's mother had to leave her with her grandparents in Raleigh County while she went to nursing                           school, so she could support the two of them. In her conversation, she describes a loving family who stirred a love                 of stories in the little girl who was listening as they told stories around the kitchen table. She grew up to be oe of 

             the best-loved children's writers in the world. Her secret? She writes about what she knows. Books like When I Was                Young in the Mountains, The Relatives Came, Waiting to Waltz and Something Permanent - along with more than                100 other books - reflect her solid grounding in the language, the rhythm and the day-to-day dramas of ordinary                    West Virginians. 

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         ​​Do it again!  Choose another writer.

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