Life's Meaning is in the Margins

Everybody's busy.

Everybody's page is full lists and notes and additions and deletions with smudged erasures and dark cross-outs and scribbles and doodles in cursive and print and symbols and numbers with so many annotations that if you tried to take in all at once, you wouldn't be able to read a single word.

But it's not just the words on the paper that are important, much of the meaning lies in the pages margins.  These often overlooked annotations are what life is really about.

It's those small, common, everyday notations that we take for granted and do not recognize the value and the astonishing greatness in such small things.

Try washing the dishes deliberately.  Focus on each caress of each plate or bowl or platter or spoon or for or pan.  Feel the fine smoothness of the plastic; feel the dragging studder of the clean wet glass.  Realize that these are the tools of the meal, the mainstay of the family unit which is all too often marginalized by our busy schedules.

Life is in the margins.

Everybody's busy.

I am Merging my Family

Company mergers are nothing new, but I have recently become convinced that merging must be more than a mere mercantile roll in the corporate hay.  There really must be something to this merger thing or industrial giants would never consider it.  So, I figure, if it’s good enough for corporate America, it must be good enough for me.  That’s why I’ve decided it’s time to follow their lead.  I’ve decided to merge my family with the family down the street.

Merging is nothing new to my family.  We’ve already managed to merge the dining room with the living room so breakfast, cartoons, kids and mom may coexist peacefully and the bathroom and the family room must have merged because every time I’m up there, a sudden family run on the plumbing arises.

Now, as to the merger -- first of all, the family down the street has a far larger house, that is, physical plant, than I have.  Their two and a half baths combined with my one will improve employee as well as customer satisfaction by a whopping 250%! 

As one large single-family unit, I can drop my health insurance coverage and accept a generous buy-out check (adding fuel to the tax-your-benefits debate) resulting in an increase of liquid assets while utilizing the family down the street’s insurance more efficiently.  Even though the family down the street’s insurance may not be as good, it’s cheaper.

We will file our taxes jointly giving us a total of seven children and two stay-at-home moms guaranteeing us virtually tax-free status for at least the next 21 years.  That’s better than any old tax moratorium or shelter.

Instead of being a two-car family, we will now boast a fleet of four vehicles which, even though we may never actually need them all, must be a good thing because we’re bigger and have more stuff and can buy car wax by the bulk. 

Of course, as in any merger, there is bound to be a duplication of services that, as difficult as it may be, must be dwelt with.  Although years of devoted, faithful, loyal, productive service have been provided, it is with sincere and deepest regret that, in order to maintain an even greater profit margin, certain family members’ positions must be dissolved.  The position of father will be named by the family with the most assets brought to the table.  A position will be created for the other father with the job title of great uncle visiting from a Midwestern state to be named at a later date.  The position of mother will be maintained by the mothers from both families.  The said mothers will create their own job descriptions.  At first, an early retirement option was proposed for one of the mothers, but after realizing both mothers wanted it, the offer was quickly withdrawn.  Some children may have to be let go.  If there weight as a tax deduction is less than their benefit to the family, they can and will be pink slipped.  Please note that it is not the responsibility of the family to place them elsewhere.  It doesn’t matter how long they’ve been with the family.  They’ve picked up skills.  They’ll land on their feet.  We’ll give them a right jolly letter of recommendation.  Besides, there are plenty of programs out there to retrain them as adorable orphans.

As for any family pets:  any and all will be stored in a warehouse in Piscataway, New Jersey for no longer than five years and, if no use is found for them, they can and will be sold at auction along with any unused furniture, fixture or appliance.  What is not sold at auction will be abandoned.

When we are one large, functioning family, we will begin to eye up other families on the block for hostile takeovers.  Since we can now buy higher, sell lower, work faster and more efficiently; other small families haven’t a chance at survival.  After we’ve acquired the block, we’ll market an aggressive expansion program into the next block and then the next until anti-trust laws stop us or our competition is merely a handful of other larger-than-life families who will work with us to keep everyone’s prices and wages even and “fair.”

As businesses begin to meld into larger and larger institutions, the smaller, middle-of-the-road businesses have less of a chance of success let alone survival.  If this trend continues, society will be split into two classes:  the laboring class and the executive class.  History tells us what happens next.

They Don't Call It a Number Two for Nothing

Every great society throughout history has had its vulnerabilities.  The Trojans had their horse.  The Romans had their hedonistic excesses.  The Russians had their inequality of classes and the French had all their heavy sauces and thick creamy pastries.  It seems that one of America's vulnerabilities has been under our noses all along, but no one seemed to notice:  the number 2 pencil.

The first writing implement handed to a child is generally the crayon -- that colorful extension of an unbridled imagination and that great waxy smell.  With the crayon the sky can be green, grass can be purple and smiles can be larger than the faces that hold them.  Maybe people would be a little happier if they colored at least once or twice a week.  It's fun.  And don't worry about staying within the lines.  Too many people get hung up on coloring within the lines.  A teacher once told my parents that I had trouble coloring in the lines, but my original artwork was brilliant.

The first pencil most kids use is that thick blue one that makes those wonderfully broad soft lines on green paper with the wide spaces between the lines for big capital letters and numbers.  Suddenly the child's work is grayed a little and the lines within which they colored have become rigid and taught and highly structured so the letter "E" will always and forever have only three lines sticking out of one and not four or five or eight.  This shift from creative openness to unbending lines will, to many, be associated with the pencil.

Without warning the thick blue pencil that felt like something of substance in your hand is ripped away.  The child is told that it is now pass to use big blue.  I have even teachers "actively ignore" kids ridiculing their peers for holding onto the big blue pencil.  Now it is the thin, mousy yellow number two that is introduced.  And like a virus, it grows into the consciousness of society that this by which you will be tried, assessed, judged, measured, quantified, discriminated, condemned.

Thanks to the “No Child Left Behind” act, by third grade the number two pencil is used for the standardized test that will assess little more than the ability of an eight or nine year old to take a test.  It begins the conditioning process that fools our society into believing that standardized tests actually reflect knowledge and predict future academic success.

If it wasn't for the number two pencil, our school curriculums wouldn't be destroyed by being "aligned" to state and national tests.  By changing curriculums to what is being tested sends the message that anything taught that is not covered on the state tests is irrelevant and unimportant. 

If it wasn't for the number two pencil, kids who have vision and drive, but were not lucky enough to live in an affluent area where schools could afford to give them enrichment classes on the tricks to taking standardized tests, could get into better colleges.

If it wasn't for the number two pencil, people could be judged on ability and authentic knowledge and aptitude and not word games and numbers play.

The day I see a standard child is the day I will agree that standardized tests are good for more than just keeping testing services in business, school administrators in excuses and the less fortunate in repression.

The more we rely on the number two, the less likely we will be to find number one.

The Coffee Level

­Living in an area where commuting is not only essential to earn a living but also necessary to buy a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk, most frequent drivers have become especially sensitive to road rage. 

To safely survive jaunts about our highways, it is wise to keep more than just a level head.  The poet Seamus Heaney, in his book, “The Spirit Level,” tells his son to run “And tell your mother to try/ To find me a bubble for the spirit level...”  Literally, a spirit level is what the Irish call a carpenter’s level, but what Heaney is referring to is more of a state of mind.  However, if drivers cannot find a “bubble” for their spirit level, then I have another solution:  simply maintain a coffee level.

I like most of my commuter counterparts, drink coffee in the car.  (Please note acceptable substitutions:  tea (green or otherwise), hot cocoa, soda, or any other staining liquid.)  Keeping the coffee at an even keel will act as a good barometer for friendly driving, although it’s imperative for me to have a cup or three prior to departure. Before my first cup, I can barely speak, let alone think straight enough to find my car in the driveway.  Herein lies a paradox:  I need coffee to think straight and I need to think straight to make coffee. 

The other morning, while making coffee, another paradox hit me right in the forehead.  I was reaching up in the cabinet for the stack of filters for the electric drip coffee machine.  Half the stack tumbled and I was plummeted with coffee filters parachuting down looking like an invasion of a tiny army.  After picking up the mess, I tried to separate two filters so I could make the coffee.  The paradox:  It takes the dexterity of a neurosurgeon to pull these things apart and it takes at least a cup and a half of coffee for me to have the dexterity to pick my nose.

No matter whether it’s in a $20 travel mug or a convenience store paper cup, by observing the coffee level, commuters will have no choice but to maintain proper vehicular etiquette.  Sudden moves like merging into a space that couldn’t fit a tricycle or changing lanes without signaling can upset the coffee level. 

Flying past as many cars as possible until the merging lane ends forcing traffic to halt just to let in a car that is now riding on the shoulder of the road instead of merging when there is a space available tips the coffee level of several. 

A gaper, one who stares with mouth wide open, is never good for the coffee level of commuters on the road and those who haven’t even left home yet.  Innocently cutting someone off without the apologetic wave is a serious disruption to the coffee level as is not offering the “thank you” wave after someone has slowed to let a car in.

 Other pointers for maintaining the coffee level:  listen to music, leave talk radio to the unemployed; put in a tape or CD before departure, not doing 68 mph while changing lanes in time to merge; leave the other half of the doughnut on the floor, it’s not the dirt that’s unhealthy; and, for goodness sake, shut off the cell phone, the possible price of the call is just not worth it!

People of the highways, let’s preserve our coffee levels.  Let’s keep our papers free from dirty brown spots.  Let’s have our pants and ties stainless.  Let’s keep our cars free from the smell of old spilled coffee.  Just think, if the smallest spot of coffee on a freshly pressed white shirt is enough to spoil a person’s entire day, imagine what blood can do.

When Alternate Route Becomes Routine

Living in a state where your alternate route needs an alternate route, one must not let a little highway congestion develop into a serious road condition which is easier said than done when studies show that we New Jerseyans sit in traffic for over thirty hours a year. 

Nevertheless, we commuters cherish our alternate routes even when they, too, back up longer than the line at the convenience store when winning lottery amounts are up while all you want is a gallon of milk.  Our alternate routes are so valued in fact that we are scarce to let anyone in on them.  I was once at an early morning meeting that was supposed to start at eight.  As people drifted in around eight-twenty, many looked at me and asked if I had hit the back-up on the highway.  I shrugged my shoulders.  “How did you get around it?”  They asked.  I plastered the dumbest expression I could muster on my face, shrugged again and shook my head because everyone knows that the less people know about an alternate route, the more effective the route.

And then, one morning, for no reason at all, I took my alternate route to work.  There was no accident, no wet roadways, no gaper delays, no on-going construction, no police or fire activity.  In fact, it was moderate to light traffic.  But I exited nonetheless.  When I arrived at work, it was really no sooner or later than when I usually arrived.  And then, the next day, I did it again.  Before I knew it, I was taking my alternate route to work more often than my main route.

Suddenly my commute was a calmer, gentler ride and I started noticing things.

A man in slippers walking his dog and I remembered Tammy, the beagle of my childhood.  I remembered running with her in the back yard when she was only a puppy.  I remembered when I was a senior in high school, gently placing her paralyzed body in a box, wrapped warm with the yellow blanket that she’d had for as long as I could remember, and carrying her into the vet’s office and saying good-bye.

Children waiting for a school bus – the younger ones with enthusiasm in their eyes, the older with sleep in theirs and I remembered picking little purple wildflowers for Miss Lalama, my second grade teacher with whom I was madly in love.  I remembered waiting for the bus for the last time in high school.

A deer nibbling tender sprouts of grass at the edge of the woods and I remembered the woods that we kids once ruled.  The trails, the forts, the make-believe hunting with pop guns.  I remembered going back there later, after my parents had passed away, walking along that path I had known so well, disoriented by its overgrowth, etching it in my mind, knowing that, in all probability, I would never find my way back there again.

A woman in a robe holding a baby, both waving bye-bye to Daddy and all I wanted to do was turn the car around and give my wife and kids one more good-bye hug and kiss.

I also noticed how people behind you react when you actually go twenty-five in a twenty-five miles per hour zone.  Try it sometime.  See just how slow twenty-five can feel.  People swerve across the white lines to see if they can pass, they veer into the shoulder to see if something in front of you is slowing you down.  You can actually read their lips as they yell for you to speed up because no one really goes twenty-five miles an hour anymore.

And right before I was about to give in to the urge to go faster, I noticed a man in a suit sitting on the steps in front of his house, his briefcase on one side and a little boy on the other and I remembered mornings with my dad.  I remembered him putting down his briefcase and picking me up, telling me to be a good boy and he was there with me, next to me and he told me that I was doing the best I could, and that being a father was like commuting to work:  While traffic jams were inevitable, there were always ways around them.

By taking my alternate route more often than not, now I am slowing down, yet not losing any time.  I am somehow gaining time, and more than that, I am getting some lost time back.  Not a bad way to start a day.

Smoking Images, Part 1

Old pictures have a way of stoking smoldering embers into flares of memory.  I was rummaging through a shoebox filled with old pictures.  The pictures weren’t the yellowed-edged, faded color of my childhood; they were the modish black and white of a ring-a-ding-ding couple before they were my parents.

Two pictures stood out for me:  one of my father kneeling in a snow bank with a dog I’d never met, the other of my mother looking like a young Lauren Bacall, lips pursed around a slim cigarette while ribbons of smoke wreathe her head – the laurels of prowess and independence.

Looking at that image of my mother made me wonder about old movies and if actors, actresses and the movie industry could be held as accountable for smoking related illnesses as the tobacco companies have been because of images they create.  Images are powerful and ambiguous and pliable, bending so that they often validate our decisions.

Every night after dinner when I couldn’t have been more than six or seven, my mother and father would lounge on the couch and match a cigarette.  I remember watching them and feeling a little envious.  It was like they were having another desert.  They seemed to enjoy it so thoroughly that with every exhale came the stresses of their day.

They looked so good doing it, too.  They are young in this image, their hair still dark, their faces still smooth, their bodies slender and strong.  They looked like the commercials I longed to be in.  I remember sitting on the floor, just watching them, anxious for the day when I would be allowed to smoke.

When no one was looking, I once took two cigarettes from my dad’s pack.  My best friend Chuck and I ran down into the woods and lit up.  The menthol taste was so offensive to us that we could not get beyond a few puffs.  “Let’s try my dad’s,” Chuck suggested, and he pulled out two regular cigarettes.  “Mmmmm.  Now that’s a cigarette,” I said like a seasoned connoisseur.  

Chuck and I continued sneaking cigarettes from his dad as often as possible.  We even, upon occasion, bought our own packs.  Since both our fathers used to send us to the store to pick up a pack of cigarettes for them like our moms would send us for a loaf of bread, it was easy and there were no questions asked.

When I was in sixth grade, my mother stopped smoking.  She told my brothers and me that it was bad for you.  “But Dad smokes,” we said.  It’s bad for him too, she said. I never remember seeing my mother with a cigarette in her hand again.

My father continued smoking – one to two packs a day.  Chuck and I continued our smoking as well.  It had such delicious adult flavor and smooth social significance in the world of bubblegum and skinned knee, it would have been senseless to stop.  I continued smoking off and on from about the fifth grade through college.

When my father died of bladder cancer at 56, it was clear that his smoking was a direct cause of his early demise.  The nicotine concentrates in the bladder, the doctors explained, bathing it with the richness of cool carcinogens.

Another Ruin of a Life in Progress

A few weeks ago, as I was taking my family to a corn maze, hayride, and pumpkin picking, we drove past Kessler Memorial Hospital, a small country hospital in Hammonton, NJ, that was closed down a couple of years ago. Seeing this remnant of my childhood jogged loose a memory that had been left crinkled in the bottom of a file tagged “childhood.” 

I was a patient there twice between 1971 and 1972 when I was in second grade. 

I had been experiencing chronic sore throats and ear infections.  So, in the fall of 1971, like many others my age during that era, I had my tonsils taken out.  I also had my adenoids scrapped which back then I likened to falling off my bike and scrapping my knees.  That summer I had tubes put in my ears to help open up the ear canal.  I wished that those two procedures could have been flip-flopped because I wasn’t allowed to go swimming while the tubes were still in my ears.  I remember the doctor telling my mom that I could use ear plugs, but Mom was way too cautious for that, and so I dryly sat on the sandy sideline of summer fun.

Though I know I was at Kessler twice, the experiences have blended themselves into one recollection.  Memory has a way of condensing time.  It’s like having one file drawer that will only fit so many manila folders.  At some point your folders labeled gas and electric are pulled and filed together under utilities.

Days before being admitted, I remember telling people at school about my impending dilemma.  I received encouragement from my teacher, Miss Lalama, who touted the ice cream benefit of the tonsillectomy.  Then there were the condolences from my friends and the “better-you-than-me” looks. 

In the hospital I had a roommate named Tommy who is probably a composite of the two roommates I had with a little bit of the playground set thrown in, and his name may not have even been Tommy, but that’s how I remember him. 

Tommy was having the same procedure I was having.  I remember watching our parents talking to each other at the foot of our beds during most of the time they were there.  There was a large window at the end of the hallway that looked over a lake and further out toward the White Horse Pike.  I stood at that window after my parents left that first night, trying to see their car on the highway.  After watching for a long while, I picked a set of red rear lights that looked like what I thought might be on our car and decided that was Mom and Dad on their way home.  Knowing how my father hated highway driving, they probably took some back road home.

As I stood at the window, a nurse asked me if I wanted to take a ride in a wheelchair.  Sure, I said.  Tommy was also taking this joyride with us, and we both climbed into one wheelchair anticipating the fun.  After rolling through several corridors that all looked alike, we ended in a large room where we were given chest x-rays and had vials of blood taken from us.  This wasn’t a joyride at all.  Tommy and I both felt a little duped.  Later on the nurse asked us again if we wanted to take a ride.  We both declined afraid that she was planning on taking us to some diabolical experiments that would leave us looking like the sons of Frankenstein.

The morning of our surgery, I was awakened when it was still dark outside and given a shot.  The nurse said it was to relax me before I was taken to the operating room.  She gave one to Tommy, too.  Tommy and I didn’t talk much that morning.  I guess we were both lying in our beds that resembled oversized cribs, deep in our own thoughts about the meaning of it all or, more important, what flavor ice cream would be waiting for us in the end.

The shot was making me feel a different kind of drowsy I was used to feeling lying on the floor watching TV.  I asked Tommy if he felt it, too, but he was sound asleep.  I considered surrendering to the feeling, but decided to fight it because I wanted to see what was going to happen.

Soon an orderly came in the room to roll me to the operating room.  He seemed surprised I was still awake.

Once in the operating room I was scooted onto the table.  There was a lot of commotion around me, doctors, nurses, talking in what seemed another language, and certainly not the English I was used to.

A man held what looked to me like an athletic cup up to my face and asked me to count backwards from one hundred.  Not much past ninety-eight, I woke up with a sore throat.  And Mom and Dad were there.

While Kessler Hospital becomes another ruin of a life in progress, like the old neighborhoods and open fields, it’s the remembered stories, true to the teller, simple or severe, that will keep its doors open for generations to come.

Extreme Makeover: Writing Edition, or Out, Damned Jot!

“Behold where stands the usurper’s cursed head,” Macduff shouts, holding high the severed head of Macbeth.

The play’s end brought a few sighs from the class, some perhaps for the impeding test and others, I am certain, out of sheer relief.

Sitting in traffic on the way home I keep thinking about Macbeth.  We had had a good time with the play.  We acted out some scenes, translated other scenes into modern teen vernacular language, discussed contemporary political examples of ambition gone amuck, and tragic heroes.  But we ended the play with a sigh. 

I didn’t want them to leave Shakespeare fatigued, I thought as I flipped through the one hundred plus channels, my shoeless feet up on the coffee table. I wanted them energized.  I wanted them feeling like I did when I was in high school and walked out of the movie theatre after seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time.  I wanted them feeling energized, inspired, like they could take over the world. 

By the third time passing Judge Judy lambasting a man about something he should or should not have done – I really couldn’t tell the which – I shut off the TV and tossed the remote aside marveling at how popular and numerous these court shows were:  Judge Judy, Judge Mathis, Judge Hatchett, Judge Joe Brown, and so on and so on. 

That was it! 

I grabbed the remote and turned the television back on.  The screen was nothing but a big blue dot which happens when you turn my TV off and then right back on again.  I’d have to shut it off and wait at least ten minutes for a clear picture, just enough time to run to the kitchen to get a before dinner snack. 

With some cheddar cheese and crackers I watched plaintiffs and defendants give testimonies and argue evidence, and judges render decisions.  Yes, that was it.  I would put Macbeth on trial; we’ll have our very own Judge Juliet in the classroom.

The next day we started class discussing the variety of court/judge/law television shows that were out there.  They were all eager to tell stories of episodes they’ve seen.  We then discussed the parameters for the activity:  Students will be assigned the role of a specific character.  They will have to carefully read and analyze that particular character’s role in the play and develop notes on what they would say if called to be a witness, material, character or otherwise.  We also created prosecution and defense teams.  The students enthusiastically took to their task.

As I watched the students delve back into the play with purpose, I wondered how I could apply this – using popular culture as classroom motivation – to writing tasks.  Not the fun kind of writing where we can be wildly expressive and creative, but the kind of writing students and teachers abhor:  standardized test on-demand writing.

So it was back to the TV, first stop:  MTV.  As I watched I pined for the days when MTV actually showed music videos.  Nowadays it seems that students watch more videos on the Internet than they do on television.

Off to the web I went, and after watching videos by the likes of Alicia Keys, Daddy Yankee, Beyonce, Nickelback, and the like, I had a plan.  I went out and bought a DVD of music videos, put it in my computer, and was able to print a still shot from somewhere around the middle of the video.

I showed a video to my class.  We discussed the narrative structure of the video – there was a beginning, a middle, and an end; characters were introduced; there was a problem; attempts to solve the problem; and finally a resolution.  I then handed out a still shot from the video.  We talked about at what point in the video the still shot came from, what had happened before the still shot, and what had happened after.  Then I asked them to write out the story of the video.  I then handed them a still shot from the middle of another video and asked them to write out the narrative they way they imagined it.  After which we watched the video.  This activity gave them another approach to the narrative picture prompt and really motivated them to write.

One of the most challenging aspects of writing for students seems to be revision.  Once a piece it done, it’s done.  Many students greet the idea of revision with, “Just tell me what’s wrong with it, and I’ll fix it.”  I explain to them how revision does not necessarily imply error.  We’re looking to improve on what is already good.  This response more times than not leads to suspicious looks that says Mr. Johnson just wants us to do more work.

“You’ve been watching an awful lot of television lately,” my wife said to me.  I don’t normally watch television on Sunday nights, which are generally reserved for some lesson planning, reading or writing.

“I’m doing research,” I told her.  This response led to suspicious looks that said Mr. Johnson wants to be a couch potato.

But I had found my answer.

I video taped an episode of Extreme Makeover:  Home Edition.  I took it into class and we watched a good portion of the show zapping away the commercials.  We discussed the roles of each person on the makeover team, how each had his or her own personal responsibility, how each was an expert in his or her field.

Here’s what we do.  Students are placed in groups.  Each group is assigned a particular component to revising a piece of writing:  use of rhetoric, attention to form, grammatical structures, supporting details, etc.  The members of the group then become “experts” at their topic through collective research so that each member comes out with identical information. 

The class then gets broken up into new groups made up the various “experts.”  One member of each team is named project coordinator and serves not only as the expert in the writing component he or she was trained in, but also as project coordinator which requires high energy cheerleading. 

We choose one student essay that is in need of improvement and make copies for each group.  The students are given one class period to completely renovate the essay.  The next day in class, with a document camera and an LCD projector, we have the unveiling of the renovated…I mean revised essay.  Each member of the team explains what changes were made and why they were made.  Each group gets a turn.  It is amazing how by the end of the class the students are debating each other on whose opening was most effective, whose transitions worked better, whose closings had the most impact.  It’s a beautiful thing.

For many teachers like me, reflection is incessant.  We can hardly go to a movie, listen to the radio, read a book, or watch TV without thinking how we can incorporate that experience into our classrooms to help further motivate students to challenge themselves, to learn, to achieve.

Oh, by the way, my class acquitted Macbeth.  They felt that the witches, who were being naughty messing around with Macbeth in the first place, had cast a spell that completely controlled the general’s behavior.  That, coupled with Lady Macbeth’s insanity which they found traces of even from the start of the play, was enough to cause a shadow of a doubt.

Revision Does Not Imply Error!

Getting students excited about revision is like grabbing another handful of cheese doodles right after you washed the orange off your hands.  But in revision lies much brilliance. 

A common reply to any request of students to revise their writing is “What’s wrong with it?”  This is a very good question because often there is very little if anything “wrong” with the piece of writing.

 

We as writers must get away from the idea that revision necessarily implies error.  Here is an analogy that I have found has helped middle school students.

In the early 1970s, Atari released a revolutionary interactive video game called PONG.   It was a very simple ping-pong or tennis game that had two small vertical lines on either side of the video screen serving as rackets or paddles. These lines could only be moved up and down turning a knob control.  The object of the game was to align your “paddle” with a little white square “ball” that drifted across the screen, “hitting” it back to your opponent.  If someone missed the “ball,” the opponent scored a point.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with PONG.  However, revisions to the technology were made, and as the technology improved, so did the quality and quantity of video games. 

In 1978, Atari came out with a video football game that, for the first time, allowed a video image to scroll up and down beyond the borders of a television screen.  The game used Xs and Os as game pieces manipulated by joysticks to simulate very simple football plays.  It was fun, and, again, there was nothing wrong with the game.

The early 1980s brought on more revision to video game technology.  Japanese game designer Moru Iwatani created Pac-Man, the most popular video game of all time.

Atari released a home version of Pac-Man.  The home version was very boxy as the technology did not allow for curves.  The sound was tinny and the game board was a basic maze.  It was fun at the time.

By the late 1980s, Atari was surpassed by Nintendo whose flagship game, Super Mario Bros. sold more copies than any other home video game in history. 

From the late 1990s into the 21^st century, Sony PlayStation, PlayStation 2,  PlayStation 3, XBox, etc. have topped the home video game market with brand new games as well as revisions of classic games like Pac-Man.

No sooner is one game finished being created when its revisions begin.  Graphics, sounds, backgrounds are all improved upon making the games more exciting, more vivid, more interesting.  Imagine if no one ever felt like revision the early video games.

 

Below is an activity that exemplifies the video game revision analogy as well as produce student writing. 

Go on the Internet and find a picture of the old Atari Pac-Man game and one of the new Sony version of Pac-Man World game.  Hand out the pictures of the two versions of Pac-Man.  Have the students make a list of all the things that are the same about them.  Then have them make a list of all the things that are different about them.  When they are done their lists, ask them to decide which version they’d prefer to play.  With a partner, have them talk about which version they chose and prepare to tell the class about at least three specific reasons why they chose the version they did.  Remind the students to use their lists to help them explain the reasons for their choice.  Finally, have the students write an essay that tells what version they chose, the reasons why they chose it, why those reasons are important to them and convince the reader that their choice is the best one.  (For a more detailed written response, have the students play the two versions of the game and then write an essay that convinces the reader which version is best using specific details from the game as support.)

Remember, there was nothing wrong with the previous games, we, the game-playing public, simply want better games.  We have to revise because, as writers, there is often not much wrong with our early drafts; we, the reading public, simply want better writing.