Project by: Anna (10th Grade)

Faculty Advisor: Jane Belton

My initial idea for my piece was much different than what it turned out to be. When I signed up to write a short story, all I had in mind were a few different themes that I wanted to look into incorporating into my piece. I didn’t have any specific plot ideas, but I knew I wanted to focus on relationships between family members because it’s something that I am familiar with. I wasn’t sure about the format either, and I ended up writing it in a relatively unique way. I wrote it in the form of emails that were sent between four people. 

During my meetings with Jane, we discussed the plot of the story and the characters. I would go home after each meeting with a new task for the next week, and at first it was coming up with important roots for the story, and as the project progressed, I began to get more into the writing. I had to do a bit of character development as well, though I mostly did that while I wrote it. Initially I had my mind set on writing a creative piece that was based off of my own family, but through the writing and discussing of the project, I realized that it would be more open and allow for more detail if I just loosely based it off of them rather than completely. That way I was able to come up with my own story with characters that I already had made up. 

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Here is the piece:

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To: Clover Wilson, Luke Wilson, Tobias Wilson

From: Liam Martin

Subject: Hello

Hi all,

As you may know, I am a journalist in Canmore. In an upcoming issue of the Canmore Herald, I am including pieces written by “exemplary” families who grew up here and have moved away. The Wilson family has always contributed greatly to our town, whether it be donations to school funds or just being friendly to everyone.

I was hoping that the each of the three of you would take some time to think about your lives growing up here in Canmore. Since your parents still live in Canmore, I will not be asking them to send me anything, so it’s all up to you!

So, if you could all send me a page or so of writing about your life when you lived here and how you grew up it would be much appreciated. Once you write them, you may send them as a reply to this email, and feel free to ask me questions if you have any.

Thanks,

Liam Martin

Journalist at the Canmore Herald

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To: Luke Wilson, Tobias Wilson, Liam Martin

From: Clover Wilson

Subject: Hello

Hey friends,

I just think this is such a wonderful idea! Here is my piece:

When I think back to the sunny, crisp days of Canmore winters, I smile. I was the oldest of the three children. Stereotypically, it is the youngest child who is favoured by the parents, but I think my parents thought of us equally. However, there was one part of growing up that I remember changing as soon as my brother was born. When I was the only child, my parents gave me all of their attention, and of course they didn’t forget about me once my brothers were born. But they did devote much less time to me. I now know it was only because my brothers were too young and they needed guidance. Still, sometimes I felt alone.

Overall, my life in Canmore was great. I loved growing up in such a quaint, small town where everybody knew one another. It made it feel very home-like, and it was home. It was the only home I knew. When I’d walk home from school I’d wave to all the neighbours, and I’d make small talk with them. I knew who everyone was and they all knew who I was, too.

I remember the day in tenth grade that I had to turn in my essay for English class. I was very anxious about this because it counted for a large portion of our grade. At the end of the day, I was invited to go hang out with my friends, and I was relieved to be able to say yes for the first time in such a long time. For the past few weeks I had respectfully declined each time I was invited, and instead I went home to work on my essay. Now, all I had to do was go home and do my chores and then I could go meet my friends.

When I arrived at home, I saw the list of my chores pinned to the fridge. There had to be at least eight things on there and I knew that I definitely wouldn’t be able to complete them all and still see my friends. So I begged my parents to let me put them off until the next day so that I could make the most of my free day. I genuinely thought they would understand because they knew how hard I worked on that essay. But they still said no and that I’d have to find a way to do those chores.

I was just about to phone my friend to tell her I wouldn’t be able to come over, but then I had an idea. I crept down the hallway and knocked on my youngest brother’s door. Luke yelled for me to come in. I opened the door and smiled. He gave a me a confused look at first, but then smiled back. I walked in, and nicely asked him if he would please do my chores for me. He said no, that he’d already done his chores. He said that since they were my chores, I had to do them.

I asked him if he would be willing to do my chores if I bought him a chocolate bar. He took a moment to consider this offer, and then he looked at me and nodded. I thanked him and told him I’d give him the chocolate bar the next time I went to the store. He went into the kitchen to start washing the dishes, and I went out to meet my friends.

I ended up forgetting to buy my brother the chocolate bar, but it worked out because he didn’t seem to remember. Somehow I got away with it. I had sworn him to secrecy because I knew they would want me to do my own chores and they wouldn’t be impressed by the fact that I bribed my brother. After this I knew that in the future I would be able to use this tactic to take advantage of my free time. All I had to do was tell my brother I’d buy him a chocolate bar. I could get out of doing the dishes, vacuuming or laundry. And the best part is that nobody knew about our secret deals, including our parents and brother.  

Looking back now, it was silly that we made those agreements, but I’m still impressed with myself for coming up with that idea. It is kind of typical of the older sibling to manipulate the younger one, and while I tried to avoid doing so, the chocolate bar tactic definitely counted as manipulation. I remember the mixture of feeling happy for my success, as well as sad for my brother. He was too young to be fully aware of what was happening and he just didn’t understand. And that’s why, for my little brother’s next birthday, he will be getting a giant box of chocolate bars to finally pay him back.

Looking back, it is clear that our family was far from perfect. But really, whose family is? The idea that a “perfect” and “exemplary” family exists is an illusion. When multiple people play a large role in each others lives, they face problems and conflicts. And since no individual is perfect, why would a group of them be perfect?

Hope this works for the paper!

Clover Wilson

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To: Clover Wilson, Luke Wilson, Liam Martin

From: Tobias Wilson

Subject: Hello

Here is my piece:

Growing up in the small town of Canmore I always wondered what it would be like to live in a big city. A place where you’d meet new people everyday and you could give Starbucks a fake name without getting caught. In Canmore, everyone knows everyone, well enough that they refer to each other by name. Now, don’t get me wrong, I loved living in Canmore, and I love going back there to visit once and awhile, but it wasn’t the place I’d plan to live forever. And that’s the reason I left as soon as I could.

Our house was not large, but had plenty of space for the five of us. Unfortunately I had to share a room with my younger brother, Luke, for years. It wasn’t too bad most of the time although he had a lot of tantrums when he was young. I remember hiding out at the library to get some peace and quiet, to escape his painful cries.

The worst part about living in Canmore was the fact that we were so far away from all our family. We would only see my grandparents once or twice a year since they lived in Philadelphia. At Christmas, we would usually stay at home, but they always sent us a big package with lots of American treats. One year they sent us individually packaged gifts with an assortment of treats. One year, they sent us all a stuffed animal. All of them were bears, same size and colour, only mine had a small tear at the back. I really didn’t want it to have a hole in it, and I guessed that if I told my parents, they’d just sew it up. But then it would have a weird mark at the back and it wasn’t like it was out of sight. I saw that my brother’s bear did not have a hole in it and I considered asking him to trade without telling him, but I knew he’d notice afterwards.

One night, after he had gone to bed, I snuck into his room and grabbed his bag of gifts. I tried to be as quiet as possible so as to not wake him. I reached my hand into the bag, but I decided it would be best to do it outside of the room because the paper bag made a lot of noise. I looked inside and caught a glimpse of the fluffy bear. I grabbed it and carefully pulled it from the bag. I smiled as I looked down at it. I had a moment of panic because I was standing in the hallway and if my parents saw me I would be caught so I slipped the bear under my sweatshirt. I returned the bag to Luke’s room, and went to my room, But before I returned I quickly replaced his stuffed bear with mine.

The next day it was clear that my brother had no idea that I took his bear. He pulled it out of his bag and cuddled with it all day. I went to sleep worried that he would somehow know, but inside I knew that he hadn’t paid enough attention to the details.

I didn’t want to tell anyone because I knew I would get in trouble. At the time I was worried that if my parents found out, they would tell my grandparents and then they would be disappointed that I didn’t like their gift. I felt kind of ashamed, but I didn’t regret my decision. My parents would have been unhappy that I put so much effort into trading our gift rather than just being grateful and polite. The thought I was too old for that kind of toy anyways.

I think that me always want something bigger and better is just part of my personality. I had always wanted to get out of Canmore so that I could go to a new place where I had more options and freedom. And when we were given stuffed animals, I had to have the “good” one, the one without any flaws. This says something about my family because if this had happened to one of my siblings, I’m sure they would have just told our parents so that they could fix it. In this aspect I was just different than them.

Thanks for including me to write this for your paper!

Tobias WIlson

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To: Clover Wilson, Tobias Wilson, Liam Martin

From: Luke Wilson

Subject: Hello

Alright here’s mine:

Canmore is a great place for those who like people. You can’t live here, not talk to everybody, and not be known as the “weird and creepy” person. It’s the same person who lives in the corner house and never comes out. I was thankfully not one of these people. Sometimes I’d like to walk one from school without having to greet everyone I see on my way. They’d always ask the same questions and yet somehow they knew everything about me. It was a lot of fun, though, because anytime I was bored and my siblings were busy, I could run across the street to the neighbours and ask them to play.

One thing I remember too well from growing up as a young child was the music my parents made us listen to. Anytime we were sitting in the living room, each doing our own thing, it would be accompanied by Abba. I swear my parents had every single song of theirs and it seemed to be all they played. The only bad part of it was that my brother and sister hated it with all their being. We had agreed that anytime they played it we would express our feelings towards the music using facial expression. Anytime Abba was played my siblings would become grumpy and would try to escape the room, and I followed, even though I actually liked it. I pretended to hate the music just so that I would fit in with my brother and sister. I thought if they knew I actually enjoyed listen to my parents’ music they wouldn’t like me.

In reality it was a very childish thing to hide it from them, but I was young and since I was the youngest I was the one who was still dependent on my parents. Of course, my siblings probably wouldn’t have hated me, but I would be considered less their friend and more that of my parents. I was torn because I wanted to please both of them but I wasn’t going to win either way.

Today, I would go back and I would probably not act any different than I did back then. It makes sense from a little kid’s point of view. I think that oftentimes people hide personal things from others to protect themselves. This is something that happens with families, too. And probably since we were a small community where people talked, it was more difficult to keep things unknown. The best option became keeping it to oneself. This was a very minor example of this, but it still shows something. I think that even though Canmore was a great place for little kids, once we grew to a certain age, we became more conscious of what other people think and that has control over us and our actions.

I don’t mean to be too negative, but realistically, the idea of a “perfect” or exemplary” family, not necessarily ours, is never going to be totally true. It is a question that will have different answers for different people.

I hope this suffices for your project, Liam. I can make adjustments if needed.

Sincerely,

Luke Wilson

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Please write a description of the project you are proposing. Why do you want to take this on, and what do you hope to learn?

I want to write a creative short story. I want to take this on because writing is one of my main interests and I want to improve as a writer.

What is your proposed outcome? How will you be able to demonstrate successful completion of this Project?

My proposed outcome is to have a clear picture and outline of the short story by the end of trimester 1 and by the end of the year, have the completed story written.