A big thank you to everyone for your support over the past two years. Realizing that this blog keeps growing and that the options for making it navigable with blogger are diminishing week by week, I've moved over to WordPress. I hope this doesn't cause any unnecessary inconvenience.
The original article you are looking for is below this short message. After reading, if you have a moment to check out the new (and hardly changed) "The Other Things Matter", please drop in. Would love to hear from you.
The following is a collection of the first four short stories I wrote and posted to this blog to use with ELLs. Each story starts with the title, followed by GLS (General Service List) information, grade level, ease of reading and finally the body of the story itself. I started writing these stories because I couldn't find any short (under 1000 words) stories which I felt were complete in and of themselves, interesting for my students, and could be used in one or two class periods as stand alone material. Feel free to use these stories however you would like in class. If you have any suggestions for novel ways to use them, I would love to hear about it. There are four more stories scattered around the blog. As soon as I have a minute, I'll put together a Short Fiction for ELLs Page 2.
①
Measurements
I like to measure things. I know exactly when it started. It was July 16, 2002. I was 7 years, 214 days, 3 hours and 6 seconds old. I was looking at an old wall clock in the living room. I said to my mother, “I’m hungry.” She pointed to the clock. She said, “Dinner is in 10 minutes.”
I watched the second hand move. 600 seconds later, I sat down at the dinner table. 34 seconds after that, I began to eat. I don’t remember what we ate. But I do remember that it took me 1022 seconds to finish my meal. At the time, I was only 239,252,406 seconds old, but I knew something important. If you could measure time, time which you cannot see, or hear, or touch, or taste, you could measure everything. And I did.
I measured myself twice daily (currently 174 centimeters), how fast my mother talked (210 words per minutes), and how slowly my father walked up the stairs (1.3 kilometers per hour). It was after I entered high school that I began to measure things most people claimed could not be measured. For example, loneliness. Loneliness can be measured in eye contact. An average person who only looks into another person’s eyes 37 times per day will feel lonely. When I was fourteen, I spent 62% of my days in loneliness. And fear, fear is when your heart beats 21.3% faster than average. I spent one month in fear, studying for my high school entrance examinations.
I had an old friend. Her name was Tammy. She used to hold my hand with 30 kilograms of force or 7 kilograms more than the average girl her age. Her eyes were blue. Color is a wave. The blue of her eyes was 472 nanometers long, which is the same as the ocean on an August afternoon. She told me that really, I could not measure anything. She said that 1 centimeter, 1 second, 1 kilogram were just ideas and did not really mean anything.
The day before we left for our separate universities, we ate in the best restaurant in town. We ate cake topped with gold leaf. The cake had 248 calories, enough to keep a body running for 3218.69 meters. She said goodbye to me 19 times. The last time she said goodbye, she looked down at a 37.4 degree angle. She did not look up when I said I would see her again soon.
At university, I learned to measure the electrical force of surprise, the speed of memory, and the time loss of confusion. I wrote papers which my friends did not read, but still said were wonderful. I moved into my own office on the first floor with a big window. But lately I think that maybe Tammy was right. Maybe measurements do not mean quite so much as I think. When Tammy used to talk to me, her breath smelled almost sweet. It was a special kind of smell. I think it might have been vanilla. But I cannot be sure. And I have no idea of how to measure a thing forgotten.
②
Learning to Call Something from Nothing
436 words total
96.33% within GSL
Flesch Reading Ease Score: 90
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 3.1
There was a girl who loved to blow bubbles. Every morning before she went to school she ran into the garden and blew bubbles. In the winter, she wore a heavy coat. In the summer, she didn’t wear shoes and her hair was cut short. Every afternoon, when school ended, she ran home and blew bubbles again. Her mother was worried. She said, “It’s strange.” The girl’s father said, “What’s wrong with bubbles?” The girl’s father and mother did not understand each other very well.
One day the girl blew a bubble, but there was something different about it. The girl looked at it floating in front of her. It was square. That whole summer, the girl blew square bubbles. As she got older, she learned to blow triangles and half circles. By the time she was in high school, she could put the shapes together and make trees and houses, cars and buses. She could make whole little towns floating through the air.
The girl didn’t join clubs. She didn’t play sports. Her mother was still worried, but the girl studied enough to keep her teachers happy. And she kept her bubbles a secret. She couldn’t say why she kept it a secret. The girl became a woman. She could now blow bubbles of cats, dogs, and horses that ran through the air. She worked as a designer at a small clothing company. Her clothes were simple, clean, and very popular.
Years later, she sat in her own garden, with her own children, and her own husband. Her daughter was holding a small green wand in one hand and a small bottle of soap in the other. The woman reached out and took the bottle and wand from her daughter. It was a late spring day. The sky was darkening. The woman dipped the wand in the soap and held it to her mouth. She whispered something. It sounded like a prayer. One perfect butterfly, purple against the evening sky floated free and up. The butterfly waved its wings slowly. It passed in front of a white moon. It disappeared in an instant. Her son, a boy of three who liked to break things, asked his mother to teach him how to make a butterfly. The woman’s daughter, who was a quiet girl and understood more than her brother, did not ask anything. She already knew. You did not make anything in this world. You worked until you found the right way to call for what you needed. If you were lucky, the call was answered.
96.33% within GSL
Flesch Reading Ease Score: 90
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 3.1
There was a girl who loved to blow bubbles. Every morning before she went to school she ran into the garden and blew bubbles. In the winter, she wore a heavy coat. In the summer, she didn’t wear shoes and her hair was cut short. Every afternoon, when school ended, she ran home and blew bubbles again. Her mother was worried. She said, “It’s strange.” The girl’s father said, “What’s wrong with bubbles?” The girl’s father and mother did not understand each other very well.One day the girl blew a bubble, but there was something different about it. The girl looked at it floating in front of her. It was square. That whole summer, the girl blew square bubbles. As she got older, she learned to blow triangles and half circles. By the time she was in high school, she could put the shapes together and make trees and houses, cars and buses. She could make whole little towns floating through the air.
The girl didn’t join clubs. She didn’t play sports. Her mother was still worried, but the girl studied enough to keep her teachers happy. And she kept her bubbles a secret. She couldn’t say why she kept it a secret. The girl became a woman. She could now blow bubbles of cats, dogs, and horses that ran through the air. She worked as a designer at a small clothing company. Her clothes were simple, clean, and very popular.
Years later, she sat in her own garden, with her own children, and her own husband. Her daughter was holding a small green wand in one hand and a small bottle of soap in the other. The woman reached out and took the bottle and wand from her daughter. It was a late spring day. The sky was darkening. The woman dipped the wand in the soap and held it to her mouth. She whispered something. It sounded like a prayer. One perfect butterfly, purple against the evening sky floated free and up. The butterfly waved its wings slowly. It passed in front of a white moon. It disappeared in an instant. Her son, a boy of three who liked to break things, asked his mother to teach him how to make a butterfly. The woman’s daughter, who was a quiet girl and understood more than her brother, did not ask anything. She already knew. You did not make anything in this world. You worked until you found the right way to call for what you needed. If you were lucky, the call was answered.
③
④
Strawberry Girl
670 words total
93.3% of words within GSL. (97.9% excluding proper nouns)
Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease Score: 93.2
Flesch Kincaid Grade Level: 2.7
Her name was Mari, but everyone in town called her Strawberry Girl. She had a small face and her nose wrinkled when she got angry. As a child, she had picked strawberries freely from the neighbors’ fields. She had eaten until her lips were a deep red. Most of the people in town were farmers, but Mari’s family did not grow anything. Her father was a high school teacher. Her mother was a nurse. And from Monday, Mari was going to live in Tokyo and start her life as a university student.
When Mari had turned eleven years old, she had started working on the neighbor’s farm in the summer. She had helped pick strawberries. She had been careful with the fruit, twisting and pulling it from the plant gently. At the end of the day, Mari’s ankles had been stained green and her face deep brown from the sun. She had worked every summer until she had turned fifteen. That summer, her parents had sent her to a special school so she could study for the university entrance examinations. At the time, Mari had thought it had been a kind of punishment. She had not been able to see what a test, so far in the future, had to do with her summers in the fields.
On the Saturday before Mari left for university, Mr. Yamada, the neighbor, was waiting for Mari and her mother at the gate. His hair was white. He had small lines all around his eyes. It was early morning, but the sun was already hot. Mari wore long white gloves to protect her skin. She and her mother wore large straw hats. Mr. Yamada smiled and handed them each a large basket. Mari’s mother tried to give him some money, but Mr. Yamada just laughed until Mari’s mother put the money back in her pocket. He said, “Our Strawberry Girl’s going away.”
Mari showed her mother how to pick the strawberries, but her mother was no good at it. Her mother pulled hard and the fruit broke free of the stem. Mari explained how the fruit ripened too quickly with no stem. Her mother called her, “Professor Strawberry Girl.” Her mother bent from the waste to pick the fruit. She ate more strawberries than she picked. Mari never bent over. Instead, she kneeled down in front of a plant and picked only the largest, reddest fruit. She slowly filled her basket. The sun warmed her head through her hat. Somewhere, two birds were singing to each other. She thought about the cake she was going to make in the evening.
Someone called her name. No, not her name. Someone called out, “Strawberry Girl, Strawberry Girl.” It was Mr. Yamada’s youngest son. He ran easily across the field. He stopped in front of Mari and her mother and held something out to them. It was a red and white can of condensed milk. The boy was wearing an old blue hat. His skin was very dark. His teeth were very white. He told Mari’s mother to put the condensed milk on the strawberries if she liked sweet things. The boy swept his hand out across the field. “Eat as many as you like,” he said. He ran off. Mari waited for him to look back, but he just kept running.
Mari poured some milk onto a strawberry for her mother. The white of the cream was shocking against the deep red of the fruit. Her mother tasted it and clapped her hands in delight. Mari put a drop of white onto a strawberry for herself. She took a bite. But it tasted sour. It was the taste of something still green inside. The taste of something not quite ready.
Mari didn’t make a cake that night. She said she felt tired from being out in the sun for so long. She went to Tokyo on Saturday, a day earlier than planned. She left all the strawberries on the kitchen table. There were too many for her mother to eat. Some went bad in an early April heat wave.
93.3% of words within GSL. (97.9% excluding proper nouns)
Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease Score: 93.2
Flesch Kincaid Grade Level: 2.7
Her name was Mari, but everyone in town called her Strawberry Girl. She had a small face and her nose wrinkled when she got angry. As a child, she had picked strawberries freely from the neighbors’ fields. She had eaten until her lips were a deep red. Most of the people in town were farmers, but Mari’s family did not grow anything. Her father was a high school teacher. Her mother was a nurse. And from Monday, Mari was going to live in Tokyo and start her life as a university student.
When Mari had turned eleven years old, she had started working on the neighbor’s farm in the summer. She had helped pick strawberries. She had been careful with the fruit, twisting and pulling it from the plant gently. At the end of the day, Mari’s ankles had been stained green and her face deep brown from the sun. She had worked every summer until she had turned fifteen. That summer, her parents had sent her to a special school so she could study for the university entrance examinations. At the time, Mari had thought it had been a kind of punishment. She had not been able to see what a test, so far in the future, had to do with her summers in the fields.
On the Saturday before Mari left for university, Mr. Yamada, the neighbor, was waiting for Mari and her mother at the gate. His hair was white. He had small lines all around his eyes. It was early morning, but the sun was already hot. Mari wore long white gloves to protect her skin. She and her mother wore large straw hats. Mr. Yamada smiled and handed them each a large basket. Mari’s mother tried to give him some money, but Mr. Yamada just laughed until Mari’s mother put the money back in her pocket. He said, “Our Strawberry Girl’s going away.”
Mari showed her mother how to pick the strawberries, but her mother was no good at it. Her mother pulled hard and the fruit broke free of the stem. Mari explained how the fruit ripened too quickly with no stem. Her mother called her, “Professor Strawberry Girl.” Her mother bent from the waste to pick the fruit. She ate more strawberries than she picked. Mari never bent over. Instead, she kneeled down in front of a plant and picked only the largest, reddest fruit. She slowly filled her basket. The sun warmed her head through her hat. Somewhere, two birds were singing to each other. She thought about the cake she was going to make in the evening.
Someone called her name. No, not her name. Someone called out, “Strawberry Girl, Strawberry Girl.” It was Mr. Yamada’s youngest son. He ran easily across the field. He stopped in front of Mari and her mother and held something out to them. It was a red and white can of condensed milk. The boy was wearing an old blue hat. His skin was very dark. His teeth were very white. He told Mari’s mother to put the condensed milk on the strawberries if she liked sweet things. The boy swept his hand out across the field. “Eat as many as you like,” he said. He ran off. Mari waited for him to look back, but he just kept running.
Mari poured some milk onto a strawberry for her mother. The white of the cream was shocking against the deep red of the fruit. Her mother tasted it and clapped her hands in delight. Mari put a drop of white onto a strawberry for herself. She took a bite. But it tasted sour. It was the taste of something still green inside. The taste of something not quite ready.
Mari didn’t make a cake that night. She said she felt tired from being out in the sun for so long. She went to Tokyo on Saturday, a day earlier than planned. She left all the strawberries on the kitchen table. There were too many for her mother to eat. Some went bad in an early April heat wave.
④
How To Float
96.88% of words within GSL. (97.9% excluding proper nouns)
Flesh-Kincaid grade level: 4
Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease Score: 81
There is a town I know. It is not a big town. Actually, it is quite small. In every way, it is a very ordinary town. There are 2 convenience stores. There is a library with a large collection of thick and serious books. There is an old handmade ice-cream shop. And the people who live in the town seem ordinary when you first meet them. They smile and say, “Good morning,” in the morning. They wave and say, “See you later,” at the end of the day. They wear blue jeans and t-shirts and laugh at jokes. But for all of that, they are quite different from you and me. The people in the town are always floating an inch or two off the ground. They float, but the people of the town cannot fly. At least I have never seen them fly. They just float above the sidewalk. And only a little. It is very easy to notice them floating when they get on a bus. Instead of climbing the stairs, they just float up into the bus. I lived in the town for one year. I was a science teacher at the high school. Every day I went to school and taught my science classes. One day, I asked my best student, Chad, why all the people in town floated. He was a clever boy with light brown hair and lots of freckles on his nose. He laughed and said he didn’t know. I hoped that if I lived in the town, if I drank the town’s water, if I made friends with people in the town, I would start to float, too. But I never did. After one year my girlfriend and I decided to get married. She lived in New York. So I moved. Before I moved, Chad gave me a letter, but said I shouldn’t open it until I was married. The day after my wedding I pulled out the letter and read it. It said, “We float, because we know this town is our only home. We float because we know that we will never leave. That is the secret.” I looked across the table at my new wife. I thought about my new life. I knew just what Chad meant.
