Jack and The Cheese Stalk--A story written by Archie

Being involved in a group has it's advantages.  Back in the fall, a few homeschoolers got together and hired a writing teacher to teach a class for some of us in the group.  The guy would've been way out of our price range on an individual basis otherwise. We started meeting every other week.  It has actually been quite nice for me.  I've made some new friends who I really enjoy conversing with and Archie has made some new friends as well.

I feel like my job as a homeschool parent is not to teach my kids everything they ever need to know, although that would be nice.  I still don't know everything I'll ever need to know, and much of what I need to know didn't come from a school.  Mostly, I want my children to come away as adults with the confidence that if they need to know something, they will know how to go about getting the knowledge.  What steps to take.  For me, writing is one of the more important steps.  A poorly written resume can make you look like a moron.  An email with spelling errors to your boss doesn't do you any favors.  Knowing the purpose for which you are writing and using the correct style.  Conversational writing in a research paper probably isn't a good idea.  So yes, I have a writing focus in our homeschool.

Throughout the fall, I struggled and fought with Archie about doing his writing.  It usually involved me telling him to sit down and make some writing progress.  Archie's definition of progress and mine were two different things.  My definition was well thought out words on page.  His was thinking.  Just staring at the ceiling, or playing with papers on the table or doing magic tricks with coins or cards, anything at all except for words on a page.

We've talked about why good writing is important, the various uses of writing (including my blogging our family 'story' and the resulting books which he really enjoys), and how important a tool it is for communication--particularly now that computing is king.  It made no difference in his motivation at all.  We tried writing by hand, by computer, then dictation while I type. It was like pulling teeth, as they say. 

His writing teacher has a different approach and different teaching philosophy than I have ever run across in my experience with my own schooling.  Just because I wasn't seeing my expectation of the result yet didn't mean that progress wasn't being made.  He told a story that illustrated this beautifully.  It has stayed with me and has changed the way I have thought about my role as Archie's 'teacher'.  

The short in-my-own-words version is this:  A boy was to learn to dive.  Week one--he watched the parent dive.  He got in the water, but didn't dive.  Week two--parent was diving, but not the kid.  He swam around.  Week three--no diving, more swimming around.  Week four--he jumped into the pool and swam around.  Week five--he watched other people diving as he swam around.  Week six--perfect dive right into the pool!  So the question is:  If you were giving a 'grade' for dive class, what 'grade' does the kid get for learning to dive?  Do you give the kid a zero for all the weeks he didn't dive?   Didn't he eventually accomplish the goal of learning to dive?  Was progress being made during those five weeks he wasn't diving toward the goal of his eventual dive?  Absolutely.  If he had four weeks of zeros to contend with, would he have just given up after week four and never dove at all?  Possibly.  

So all fall, Archie was just swimming around, much to my frustration.  His teacher advised to just wait.  It would happen and I needed to relax.  We finally got a story out just before Christmas.  It was a very painful process and I was very close to dropping the class altogether. The guy told the diving story at the last class before Christmas, which mostly changed my mind.  Ultimately, I thought I'd give it one more shot.

The class changed just a bit as well.  It got smaller and we began meeting every week after the new year instead of every two weeks.  Also, the teacher told the class that he expected something on or before every Friday from them in his email box. Didn't matter if it was the story they were working on, a poem of some sort, a letter, just something.  All of this has helped me and Archie tremendously.

This week, Archie finished his story he began toward the end of January.  He dictated most of it and had handwritten just a little.  He got some prompting from his typist (me) like, "What does the giant look like?  What does he smell like", etc.  Sometimes he has a problem being more descriptive because he already has a vision of the giant, but I suspect he doesn't realize that the reader needs some descriptive words to see his vision.  Anyway, here is his story.  He made some illustrations to go with it as well, but I don't have those scanned in just yet.

He did a great job and I am very proud of his effort!    The story is very funny and very Archie.  He said his target audience was Lawrence's age group or just a little older.  I think we have diving progress!!!!!  Hurray!

Jack and the Cheese Stalk 

By Archie Dutton

Chapter Prologue

All right everybody.  Narrator here and I say put this book down right now.  You won’t like it.  No kidding. Put this book down right now!!!! 

And trust me, this book won’t have any weird codes in it.  ZI**(()$#@!  WHAT THE HECK IS THIS!!!  Did you put it there???  No no write on books!!!  Anyway here is the actual story.  Oh yeah, give me thirty bucks to turn the page!

Chapter 1

Once upon a time there was a boy named Jack,  who lived with his Mom. They were very poor. They had a cow, the best milker in town--moo. Hey go away! I am trying to tell a story here, cow! 

--But eventually they had to sell the cow. (Oh boo hoo. Wink wink!)

Jack’s mom (named Sally) sent Jack to sell the cow.  Along the way, Jack met a weird looking man.  He was dressed in a pink tutu  and he looked ridiculous. 

“I’ll trade your cow for six pieces of this here magic cheese.” Said the weird man.

“No way,” Jack said. 

“Tell ya what,” the man said.  “If the magic doesn’t happen, you can have your cow back.” 

“It’s a deal!”  Jack said.

Jack went happily home with six pieces of cheese.  When he got home and showed his Mom, she was furious.  “JACK!  HOW COULD YOU TRADE OUR COW FOR SIX PIECES OF CHEESE???  We could have made our own cheese with the milk from the cow!” 

“Well, you see, it is magic cheese.” Jack said.

“Our cow was a magic cow!  She made the best milk in the country!  And now all we have are these lousy pieces of cheese!” Jack’s mom yelled. She angrily snatched the six pieces of cheese and chucked them out the window.

Whenever Jack was sleeping, three mice crept up to the cheese outside.  The three mice each took one piece, ate it and grew bigger than you.  Then the giant mice rushed off into the trees. 

When Jack woke up and looked out the window, he realized that the remaining pieces of cheese had grown into a giant cheese stalk.  It had holes all in it and was very yellow.  Jack ran outside to climb up the cheese stalk.  But first he took a little nibble.  “Mmmm…fresh cheese,” he said.  Then he climbed up.  As he got a little over half-way up, the wind got very cold on his face.  Suddenly, a bird pooped on his head.  “Ewwww!” he exclaimed.  Then he kept climbing. 

After thirty more minutes, he finally got to the top.  Jack suddenly realized something.  He could stand on the clouds!  He looked to the cloud on his right and saw a mansion.  And he saw a tall woman out on the front porch.  She was carrying some gold.  “Gee, I could really use some of that!” thought Jack. 

So he went up to the woman and he said, “Hello, Ma’am.  This house looks awesome!  Could I come in and have a look around?” 

“Sure.  Here, I’ll be your tour guide.”  She replied.  And off they went to look around the house. 

After about ten minutes, they heard a humongous stomping sound.  “FEE FI FO FUNNY!  LET ME COUNT MY MONEY!!  Oh, and I’m kind of hungry too.  Do you happen to have grilled girl sandwiches?” In stomped the stinkiest giant you could ever think of.    

Chapter two

The giant smelled horrible!  He smelled like rotten eggs.  This was because he was a very messy eater.  Whenever he ate his eggs, he would get them all over his shirt and not notice.  The giant hardly ever changed his shirt.  That is why he smelled so horrible.  He was about fifteen feet tall and he had a wart on his chin.  He had a humongous club sandwich that he dragged everywhere.  The giant had a huge body, but a very puny head.  Oh, yeah.  He was wearing an orange suit with purple pants.  He had on a pink undershirt and a red tie.  If you put all of that together, you would look rather weird. 

“Actually, forget the grilled girl sandwiches!  I smell a boy in here!” bellowed the giant.

“What do you mean, my dear?”  questioned the tall woman. 

“Just bring me my gold so I can count it!”  demanded the giant.

Jack noticed that there was a really large, inflated whoopee cushion on the chair where the giant was just about to sit.  Then the giant sat down with a “PPPHHHHHBBBBTTTT!”  The giant leapt up as the wife roared with laughter.  Jack could hardly contain his laughter.  The giant was furious!  “I’M GOING TO BED!!!”

Once Jack heard the giant snoring, he crept up onto the very large chair and grabbed the whoopee cushion.  The whoopee cushion was the size of the biggest blanket you have ever seen!  When Jack touched the whoopee cushion, it magically inflated again.  “This is going to be a problem!” thought Jack.  He held on to the whoopee cushion and jumped onto it.  “PPPHHHHBBBBBTTTT”, went the whoopee cushion.  Jack and the whoopee cushion were propelled through the air by the whoopee cushion.  The giant woke up with a start.  Jack landed right outside the door. The giant came running at Jack.  Fortunately, Jack managed to get all the way to the cheese stalk.  He quickly threw down the whoopee cushion.  Then he climbed down the cheese stalk as fast as he could. 

Chapter 3

When Jack got to the bottom, he exclaimed, “See, mom! The cheese was magical! I went up there and took a HUGE whoopee cushion!”

Only then did Jack’s mom notice the whoopee cushion at her feet. “Wow,” she said flatly. “Of all the stuff that was in there you chose a whoopee cushion!!??” she yelled, her voice rising greatly.

“Bbbbut its golden….” stuttered Jack.

“It’s golden????”  she said in surprise.  Suddenly, three giant mice came running out of the woods. 

“Eeeeeeek!!!!” Jack and his Mom screamed.  Then they ran inside the house. 

“We’ll be safe in here!” breathed Jack’s mom. 

What Jack didn’t realize was that they were trying to get some cheese.  It takes a whole lot of cheese to feed three hungry giant mice! 

The mice barged in the house.  Jack grabbed a large wedge of cheese and told them to stop.  Then he gave them the cheese.  The mice sat down and nibbled gratefully on the cheese.  It was gone within five seconds.   

“Mom, can I please have them for a pet?  Please?”  pleaded Jack.  She took a look at the size of those mice and thought of the amount of cheese it would take to feed them.  “How would we feed them?  We don’t have that much cheese!” 

“Hey!  I know!  What about the giant cheese stalk in the back yard?  They could eat that, right?”  exclaimed Jack.

“Wellllll….okay,” sighed Jack’s Mom.  One mouse burped loudly.  She sighed again.  This was going to be a long seven years.

The End.