3 super-short stories

by | Thursday, August 29, 2019

Students in my EDT180 class spent some time yesterday writing short stories. Super short stories, trying to tell a complete story in just 55 words! As it turns this (55 Fiction) is actually a thing – as a simple google search will reveal.

Seeing my students engage in this task reminded me that I had, a bunch of years ago, written a few such stories myself. But finding them wasn’t easy. Files and documents have fallen through the cracks as I switched jobs and computers over the years. It took a while, but I managed to dig them out. Enjoy.  

Creation
In the beginning was nothingness.
And then there was light. Designing a world, seeking order from chaos. Form and meaning intertwined. Traveling from alpha to omega.
At the end, he looked at what he had brought about, (in exactly in 55 words, no more no less) and he was pleased.
And then he rested.

Note: A self-referential piece on the act of writing 55 fiction.

Declaration of Independence
They argued late into the night, as they often did. Seemingly pointless ruminations on the meaning of life. What was the point of it all? At daybreak, suddenly someone wrote down the magic words. They were silent because they knew this was it. In hushed voices they read: “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Note: A fictionalized account of the drafting of the declaration of Independence.

A Twist in Time
The end: He lived happily ever after.
The middle: Pain. A metallic taste. And always, the screaming in the head.
The beginning: “Are these the books you give your students?” The judge asked, his voice shaking with anger. The verdict, guilty of subverting children’s minds, was no surprise. Neither was the punishment: Permanent cognitive reformatting.

Note: An upside-down narrative, in which the story starts with the ending; moves through the middle and ends with the beginning.

Topics related to this post: Art | ASU | Creativity | Design | Fun | Learning | Personal | Stories | Teaching | Worth Reading

A few randomly selected blog posts…

Celebrating 10 Years of Re-imagining Creativity, Technology & Learning

Celebrating 10 Years of Re-imagining Creativity, Technology & Learning

10 years ago, we, the Deep-Play Research Group (DPRG), were invited to write a series for the journal TechTrends around the broad and intersecting themes of reimagining creativity, technology, and learning. A decade is a significant chunk of time to devote to a series...

21st Century Learning: 2 Publications

I am in Paris as a part of EduSummIT: Building a Global Community of Policy-Makers, Educators, and Researchers to Move Education into the Digital Age. EduSummIT is organized by UNESCO (along with other partners) and brings together over 120 scholars, policy makers...

New course: Creativity in teaching & learning

Announcing a new online course for the fall semester 2008:Creativity in teaching and learning Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently… You can praise them, disagree...

Creativity & Courage

Creativity & Courage

Here is the next article in our series Rethinking Technology & Creativity in the 21st Century for the journal TechTrends. This article features an interview with Dr. Yong Zhao, Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at...

How does my browser know I am Indian?

Over the past few weeks I have noticed that some webpages I visit have banner ads that are targeted to me quite specifically - in particular to my Indian origin. For instance this page (a story about ipods being used by the army) contains a set of banner ads that seek...

TPACK Newsletter, Issue #12, October 2012

Welcome to the (long-awaited!) twelfth edition of the TPACK Newsletter! TPACK work is continuing worldwide, appearing in multiple publications, conferences, and professional development efforts. This document contains updates to that work that we hope will be...

How not to conduct research

Note: This post has been edited somewhat to (a) clearly hide the url, which I had not done a good job of before; and (b) to add a few suggestions in the last paragraph for some strategies to make it easier for the participants to take part in the study.  (September...

The reductive seduction of other people’s problems

The reductive seduction of other people’s problems

The reductive seduction of other people's problems, Illustration by Punya Mishra Anurag Behar forwarded an article: The Reductive Seduction of Other People’s Problems, which I really think is a must-read for any of us involved in education or development. The...

Too cool for school: Using the TPACK framework

Matt Koehler and I just published an article in Learning & Leading with Technology, the membership magazine of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). The complete citation is as follows: Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2009, May). Too Cool for...

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *