Son to Mother Dear Mama, I have arrived safe and sound finally. It’s a long way from home and there was a lot of mud and dust along the way but it was an adventure. You should have seen the look on the men’s face that showed me around the factory. They were looking at me like I was too young to be there. You wouldn’t believe how big it is, and how noisy. It’s bigger than most of the farms back home. One machine is as big as my new room, and I share that with three other new workers. I don’t want to tell you about how dirty it is, because I don’t want to wake up and find you here with your mop and bucket. Maybe I might, because it’s so filthy and I know you would not stop until it was perfectly clean. I can imagine the look on your face when you used to tell me to “go on, get moving” when it was cleaning day at home. This thought just gave me my first bad feeling of homesickness. It’s like these boys never had a mother like you to teach them how to clean up after themselves. Don’t worry mama, I’ll be making sure to look as tidy as I can when I show up for work tomorrow. I hope you’re doing fine, I miss you. Dear Mama, I’m sorry that I haven’t been writing very much. I’ve been really busy, waking up really early and finishing late. I’m so tired every day. It is colder here than back at home and hard to work. I remember you working in the fields early in the spring and later in the winter times. You would do that and still sew the holes in my clothes. I’m thinking of saving up to buy myself a nice thick soup sometime in the winter. Maybe, I’ll even have it at one of those fancy restaurants. The boys think a poor boy like me will not know what to do in a fancy restaurant. Maybe they are right. I think I would like to try it at least once. But, that’s still a long way off, the way I’m going. I just don’t understand it. I work so hard and don’t eat much, but my pay hardly lasts me the week. I wish you’d tell me what I been doing wrong. I hope you are doing well. Mama, I miss you. No, I know want me to be grown up and I should make my own way in the world. Last week, I heard a factory downtown closed. Some of the men, they came here looking for jobs but we are full up and they was told so. Some of the men still stayed. I guess they are still hoping. Then, maybe they stopped hoping and became angry. Some of them were drunk too, I think. When I went to work, they’d be there and yelling at us. They’d yell at us to get back home where we belong and to stop stealing their jobs. They would call us names, throw rocks and spit at us when we went to work. Some of the boys have quit their jobs but not me. I’m still going to work every day, no matter what. I’m so tired. I miss you. Dear Mama, I received your letter. It was so good to read about everything from home. Your words make me with warm like the stove you always tried to keep on in the winter time. At the same time, I feel terrible about complaining to you. I never heard you complaining about your back when you were digging all day in the garden. You picked me up when I fell over or couldn’t walk very far. You just carried on no matter how hard the work was or how bad the weather was. I remember sometimes you would take a long time to finish your work because you had to look after me, but you finished it even if it was late at night. Then, I would see you early in the morning when I woke up, still doing more cleaning in the house and getting food ready for me. Now it is my time to work hard and keep climbing on, no matter what problems I have here. Mama, I won’t give up, stumble and fall. I’m going work hard. The steps may break sometimes, but I only need to look at you to be sure I will keep going even if it’s slow and difficult. I’ll keep on climbing my stairs and someday, I will be strong enough to carry you. Thanks for your draft. This is quite a nice descriptive piece- you write with very little technical errors which is a very good sign! I like your historical sense as well- very good! Mother to Son Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor — Bare. But all the time I’se been a-climbin’ on, And reachin’ landin’s, And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’ in the dark Where there ain’t been no light. So boy, don’t you turn back. Don’t you set down on the steps ‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard. Don’t you fall now — For I’se still goin’, honey, I’se still climbin’, And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. However, in Senior English one of the most important things is genre … and what you’ve produced is not quite a narrative. Narratives (even if they’re written in a series of letters like you have chosen to do) must have an Orientation, a Complication, a Climax and a Resolution (remember the short story mountain etc?) See if you can come up with a way to do this… could the problem be a man is picking on the boy and he must stand up for himself? Or more psychological- he realises that his mother has ill-equipped him for life (by being too involved or too distant etc) and he must forgive her or cut off all communication etc… TASK: You are to assume the role of a character in a poem of your choice (I recommend you email me the poem first!) and write a narrative that “fills a gap” in the narrative of the poem. You will need to use ideas, attitudes and values that are appropriate to both the character and context of the poem. In doing so, your text should provide deeper insight into the life and ideology of this person. You should use relevant aesthetic features to achieve your purpose. GENRE: Narrative ROLE: Student as a character from the poem AUDIENCE: Interested public PURPOSE: To create, to represent LENGTH: 600 – 1000 words
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