Brian "Fox" Ellis doesn't walk into a classroom.

He bursts into the room like a streak of lightning in a thunderstorm.

Or screeeeeeeeches his fingernails across the blackboard as he enters.

Or maybe he tiptoes slowly and quietly into the room, glancing all around to see if he is alone, and then hides behind the teacher's desk.

At least, that's the sort of thing he'd like his students to write.

Ellis, a storyteller, author and educator, is the artist in residence this week at Washington-Monroe School.

One of the lessons he's trying to instill in the school's third-and fourth-graders is how to get rid of "booooooring" verbs when they write.

"You want spicy verbs - verbs that dance - verbs that sing," he tells them. "Stand up and act out your story. Use your hands and face and mind to help you be a better writer.

"Act it out, then sit down and write all those actions. Turn the verbs into paragraphs."

Ellis is pumping up imaginations, teaching the kids to write and tell about events in their lives in an exciting manner.

Besides that, he's preparing them to share stories with seniors in the community through a pen pal project.

"Grandparents have been asked to correspond and tell what life was like when they were kids," said fourth-grade teacher Bev Wunderland, one of the instigators.

When the kids write back, the teachers want them to have something interesting to say.

by Nancy Rollings Saul,
The Courier
January 31, 2002