On the first day of our English class, Chalida was sitting in the front row, turned around in her seat talking to her friend in the row behind her, in Thai.
“English only,” I said.
She twisted a bit, looked at me and went back to chatting in Thai. That, and one other thing: she was dressed entirely in pink – pink T-shirt, pink jeans, pink tennis shoes. When I asked for her name to check enrollment, she said, “Call me Pinky.”
Usually, students studied in groups, but with Pinky, it was obvious that she wasn’t going to participate in the full class. I knew that at some point, I would have to break through her armor. The class required writing, group discussion and revising writing into finished form. During the second half of the semester, we watched the movie “Groundhog Day” to discuss character development, and many students wrote papers about the movie to contribute to our final project, a class magazine..
Everyone, that is, except Pinky. From her, I received nothing, not even a paragraph describing her topic.
“Pinky, this is an English Composition class,” I reminded her. “You have to write a final paper.”
“I CAN’T WRITE! I HATE WRITING!” she snapped.
“Maybe you have an idea from our class discussion?”
“NO!”
“Well… what do you talk about with your friend” I asked, fishing for something, anything.
“Don’t remember,” she said, turning away from me. Her friend was embarrassed, struggling to smile at me, hoping I wouldn’t hold her accountable for being Pinky’s distraction during the semester.
I thought for a moment, then remembered: When in doubt, ask the obvious.
“Pinky, why do you like pink?” I asked.
Pinky lit up and began talking excitedly to her friend in Thai. Aha! An opening!
“Pinky, tell your friend i
n Thai, she will write it down, and then you both can translate it into English, and give it to me, OK?”
Her friend understood my English, nodded in relief and explained to Pinky in Thai.
A week later, I received Pinky’s draft and after some editing for grammatical mistakes and revision, the following story was Pinky’s contribution to our magazine, “What Happened on Groundhog Day?”
It’s one of the best pieces of writing I’ve ever received. Three paragraphs. All pure Pinky.
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