Got it Covered

Conversations one never could anticipate, but that make getting up worthwhile:

One of the bright spots in my teaching assignment these days is a course called Write 298: Introduction to Writing Nonfiction.  Part of it is looking at how other writers deal with their topics, the genre choices, voices, etc. Part of it is practice for the students in generating topics for themselves, so they can also practice genre and voice, etc., on things that matter to them.
            Right now, the class is re-engaging with a project begun back in January, to write on the one topic they never find anything written about, because it's really their topic. The idea comes from Annie Dillard: "Why do you never find anything interesting written about that idiosyncratic thought you advert to, about your fascination with something no one else understands? Because it is up to you. There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment"  (“Push It”).

         We had gone through Sondra Perl's "guided writing" steps in mid-January, and returned once or twice since to feel out the boundaries, but now it's the last thing in the course, and time to focus. 
          One student this morning, his laptop broken so he really cannot participate in some idea-generating exercises (he has vision problems, and needs the super-large type font and voice synthesizer), sat there and twisted and turned and otherwise manipulated one of those plastic banana covers--the kind you put a real banana inside so that it will not get mushed and pulped in your lunch bag or back pack. I won't describe the scene, but it shouldn't be hard to imagine.
          Anyway, after a few minutes, he made his cautious way over to where I was standing, and asked if writing was all we would be doing in class today. I explained that it was, and he decided to leave, since he could not really produce much with no writing equipment. Then he said something about "I don't know why I thought this banana would be such a good topic." I chuckled an unhelpfully sympathetic reply: "Yeah--there can be only so much inspiration in a plastic banana."

           He came back towards the end of the class period to meet with one of the other students. He resumed his plaint: "I can't remember now why I thought it was such a good idea at the time." It seems he got this thing as a Christmas present, so in January it had been an item of fresh fascination and "astonishment." Not so much by mid-March. So I reversed my original position of about an hour earlier, because one should try to be positive about such choices. 
         After all, a couple of years ago, a student had fussed that after hours of exploration of her options, the only topic she had was that she did not like having brown eyes. And what kind of topic was that? I had answered: "I don't know, but it's yours. Go to it." And she did. The piece won a prize.
         So I tried this supportive gambit: "If there can be a universe in a grain of sand, there can be eight pages in a plastic banana." 
         Easy for me to say: I need only fill this window.