I’m trying to teach my students the whole show-don’t-tell thing so I wrote this little story…can YOU tell how I was feeling?\u00a0 (I know it’s vanilla, but remember, my audience was 9-year-olds.)<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s go on that one,\u201d said my friend Geoff, pointing at a metal tower that stretched about a hundred twenty feet in the air.\u00a0 We had decided to spend our last day of freedom before the school year started at Carowinds, wringing every ounce of fun out of our summer vacation.\u00a0 The sign in front of us said \u2018Drop Zone\u2019, which pretty much summed up the ride.\u00a0 Surrounding the giant pole were sixteen outward-facing seats.\u00a0 The passengers were pulled slowly up to the top of the ride and then released to fall sixty miles per hour toward Earth before the airbrakes screamed on.\u00a0 Geoff and I had had a discussion in the car on the way to the amusement park about rides.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t understand people who don\u2019t like roller coasters,\u201d I had said.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re so much fun.\u201d\u00a0 Now as we stood in front of this towering colossus, I was having second thoughts. <\/em><\/p>\n My brain didn’t work fast enough, and I found myself sliding back into the hard seat.\u00a0 The u-shaped brace lowered itself toward my belly button.\u00a0 I grabbed onto it and felt it click into place.\u00a0 There was no turning back.\u00a0 The operator’s voice droned a welcome and some safety instructions, but all I could hear was a rushing roar like a space shuttle engine.\u00a0 The seats raised about two feet and stopped.\u00a0 My legs dangled like a kindergartener’s in a big chair.\u00a0 I pushed myself back into the seat and grasped tightly to the safety bar. <\/em>No, no, no.\u00a0 This was a bad idea.\u00a0 I turned my head to the side.\u00a0 Geoff was staring straight ahead and smiling. The seats began to rise steadily.\u00a0 First, I saw the tops of people’s heads, then the roofs of the ride pavillions, next the tops of trees, and finally the skyline of Charlotte in the distance.\u00a0 I could see for miles.\u00a0 I had a vision of my safety bar popping up. <\/em>Don’t think about that, Amy.\u00a0 I squeezed my eyes shut.\u00a0 That made things worse because all the swooning in my head shot to my stomach.\u00a0 My eyes slammed back open. And then it happened.\u00a0 The brakes were released.\u00a0 Geoff laughed loudly.\u00a0 My arms and legs stiffened, but my hair shot skyward as we hurtled toward the ground.\u00a0 Tears blew upward to my hairline, and a silent scream erupted from my throat. <\/em>Make it stop.\u00a0 Eons passed. The brakes finally screeched on.\u00a0 We coasted the last 15 feet and stopped with a jerk.\u00a0 The shoulder braces popped up, and I tumbled forward out of the seat.\u00a0 My arms and legs had no bones; I wobbled toward the exit.\u00a0 Geoff was smiling and exclaiming that he wanted to go again.\u00a0 \u201cNo way,\u201d I said.\u00a0 Never again would I question people who didn’t like roller coasters.\u00a0 Now I knew how they felt.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m trying to teach my students the whole show-don’t-tell thing so I wrote this little story…can YOU tell how I was feeling?\u00a0 (I know it’s vanilla, but remember, my audience was 9-year-olds.) \u201cLet\u2019s go on that one,\u201d said my friend Geoff, pointing at a metal tower that stretched about a hundred twenty feet in the … Continue reading Show, Don’t Tell<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":467,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions\/467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avidbruxist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFor all the previous rides, I had shifted from foot to foot, sat on the handrail, and urged the line on quietly, \u201cCome on.\u00a0 Come on.\u201d\u00a0 I couldn’t wait to get to the front.\u00a0 Now I found myself dragging my feet, whispering, \u201cSlow down.\u201d\u00a0 In no time at all, we were at the gate.\u00a0 It swung open, and Geoff and I stepped through.\u00a0 I let my eyes wander up the shaft and almost fell over backwards.\u00a0 Could I tell Geoff I didn’t want to go?\u00a0 Could I lie and say I wasn’t feeling well?\u00a0 Come to think of it, I wasn’t feeling well.
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