SchoolArts - February 2011

Excerpt from The Invention of Solitude, Paul Auster, 1982 He remembers that he gave himself a new name, John, because all cowboys were named John, and that each time his mother addressed him by his real name he would refuse to answer her. He remembers running out of the house and lying in the middle of the road with his eyes shut, waiting for a car to run him over. He remembers that his grandfather gave him a large photo of Gabby Hayes and that it sat in a place of honor on the top of his bureau. He remembers thinking the world was flat. He remembers learning how to tie his shoes. He remembers that his father’s clothes were kept in the closet in his room and that it was the noise of hangers clicking together in the morning that would wake him up. He remembers the sight of his father knotting his tie and saying to him, Rise and shine little boy. He remembers wanting to be a squirrel, because he wanted to be light like a squirrel and have a bushy tail and be able to jump from tree to tree as though he were flying. He remembers looking through the Venetian blinds and seeing his newborn sister coming home from the hospital in his mother’s arms. He remembers the nurse in a white dress who sat beside his baby sister and gave him little squares of Swiss chocolate. He remembers that she called them Swiss although he didn’t know what that meant. He remembers lying in his bed at dusk in midsummer and looking at the tree through his window and seeing different faces in the configuration of the branches. He remembers sitting in the bathtub and pretending that his knees were mountains and that the white soap was an ocean liner.

•;What;are;some;memories;(both good and bad) that stand out from your own early childhood?

Working from Memory
Have students write their own third-
person autobiographies about some-
thing remembered from childhood.
They might write a word web or a
mind map first, then write in para-
graph form. Finally, have students
create a collage based on their memo-
ries using a variety of colored papers,
different textures of cardboard, and
cut-up magazines.

Evaluation When all the artworks are complete, have each student share his or her autobiographical collage with the class, explaining the story that it tells.