House on the Rock

 "Please take out your composition notebooks," I say almost robotically. It comes as automatically as hello and how are you because every day, at the beginning of every class, we journal. Students open up that black and white sort of splatter-paint surface and unleash the depths of their preadolescent imaginations. The inside, I must presume, is bursting with ideas and dreams, brainstormed lists, colored memories. Vocabulary words in every margin, I'm certain of it. And stories. Oh, the stories. The questions and revelations as they come of age in a world marked by a seemingly endless cycle of unprecedented news. "Dream, my little writers." Or, on days I'm feeling especially ambitious: "Write, my little dreamers." So you can probably imagine my surprise when, with these awe-inspiring prompts and persuasions, I walk by a student and find them on the first page of the notebook. My initial reaction is always best-assuming: They must write from the bac...