All of us know how it feels to be in a place that's familiar. Such a place might be your own home, in your neighborhood, or hanging out with friends or relatives. In these situations, you can relax, let down your guard, laugh out loud, tell stories that you don't have to explain, and know that the people around you understand your gestures and feelings.
We've all had experiences in which we feel like a stranger—someone who doesn't quite belong. This can happen in a new school, when you move from one place to another, or when you get lost in a neighborhood you've never seen. In these situations, you might feel shy or tense. You may feel misunderstood. Maybe you worry about having an accent. You wonder if people are staring at you, if you look odd. Or maybe the customs in this place seem weird and the food tastes funny. Think about those times and places in which you feel at home, and when and where you feel like a stranger. Here are a few examples.
In
Home to Medicine Mountain, Benny Len feels at home when he's snug in his grandmother's bed, eating bean and flapjack sandwiches for breakfast, and running barefoot. He feels like a stranger in the boarding school, where the children sleep alone, eat cereal, and wear hard shoes and scratchy overalls.
When I thought about how Benny Len must have felt, I thought about everyday differences in the things around us, such as food, clothes and living habits. In addition to these physical differences, I thought about customs - the ways we behave in different situations.
For example, Indian people tend to move in circles. They gather in a roundhouse. They do the bear dance in a circle. Even when they're just sitting on the porch, they'll sit where they can see each other's faces. At the boarding school, the children, the desks and the beds are in rows. It's hard for the children to see each other's faces in class or while marching. How would this make them feel?
Now that you're thinking about the places where you're at home or a stranger, write a paragraph or more about each one. Make sure to give examples to show why you feel the way you do. Details make your writing rich. Here are three ideas you can use to help you get started thinking about details.
- Use your senses. Think about sights, smells, tastes, or the way people move their hands. Instead of saying "The new school was strange," tell me about its color and shape. Describe the halls. How did it smell? What sounds did you hear?
- Use comparisons. Go ahead and be as wild as you like. Did the building look like a toad crouching with its mouth open? Or a spaceship about to take off? What words can you use to make a picture in the reader's mind?
- Use your emotions. Think about how you felt. Tell us if you felt angry, proud, nervous, frightened, silly, or rebellious. We all like to read about real-life experiences, especially when they mirror our own feelings. Make yourself a character in your story.
Let's take a look at how we can change that sentence "The new school was strange," using these tools. It will take more than one sentence to give these details: "Paint was peeling off the old concrete walls. At the top of a mountain of stairs, the door looked like a mouth waiting to swallow me. Inside, the halls smelled like vinegar. Voices flowed around me like a river. I couldn't understand what they were saying. I wanted to hide inside my coat as if I was a turtle in a shell."
