… sind eine besondere Form von Competitions, die oft den Abschluss einer creative writing Aufgabe bilden.
Das einfachste Verfahren für einen Literaturwettbewerb (das allerdings nur in kleineren Klassen bzw. Kursen vernünftig funktioniert) geht so: Alle Schüler setzen sich in einen Kreis und geben ihre Arbeit im Uhrzeigersinn an den nächsten Nachbarn weiter. Auf diese Art zirkulieren alle Texte solange, bis jeder jeden gelesen hat. Die Schüler sollen sich während der Lektüre Notizen machen, wenn ihnen etwas besonders auffällt (witziger Titel, gelungene Einleitung, spannende Handlung etc.). Am Ende der Besprechung kann man dann (in geheimer Wahl) den besten Text wählen lassen.
Etwas aufwändiger für den Lehrer ist das folgende Verfahren: Alle Schüler schicken mir ihre Geschichte als Datei. Aus allen Schülerarbeiten wähle ich die besten fünf aus und korrigiere, falls nötig, die gröbsten Fehler. Anschließend kopiere ich die Texte (ohne Verfassernamen) in eine neue Datei und konvertiere sie zu einem PDF Dokument. Diese PDF Datei bekommen alle Schüler wieder per Mail. Falls ich Zeit habe, korrigiere ich noch die restlichen Texte, falls nicht, dann halt nicht.
Jeder Schüler muss nun seine persönliche „Hitparade“ erstellen. Der seiner Meinung nach beste Text bekommt 5 Punkte, der zweitbeste 4 Punkte usw. Die Identifizierung der Texte geschieht über die Überschrift. Von jedem Schüler bekomme ich dann einen Zettel (oder ein Mail) nach folgendem Muster:
Funeral for a Friend 5
Outbound Train 2
Prejudice 4
Sharing Fate 3
Voices 1
Diese Punkte übertrage ich in eine Excel-Tabelle, die automatisch die Summe berechnet.
Bequemer geht die Auswertung mit einem Google Formular.
Der Gewinner bekommt 4 MOs, der zweite 3 und alle weiteren 2 MOs.
Mit diesen kleinen Wettbewerben möchte ich u.A. nach dem Motto „Literatur ist MACHbar, Herr Nachbar!“ vermitteln, dass Literatur nicht etwas Abgehobenes, in höheren Sphären Schwebendes ist, sondern mit entsprechendem Wissen, Arbeit und natürlich Talent auch von Schülern „machbar“ ist. Schüler sollen darüberhinaus erkennen, dass man in vielen Fällen durchaus begründen kann, warum ein Text besser als ein anderer ist, wobei andererseits auch das schlichte, ganz subjektive „I simply don’t like it“ seine Berechtigung hat.
Im Folgenden ein Beispiel aus meinem LK. Als erstes sollten die Schüler eine durcheinandergewürfelte Version von Michael Bullocks „The Head“ in die richtige Reihenfolge bringen. Als nächstes sollte ein Ende geschrieben werden.
Klarer Sieger wurde der Text von Neal Conway:
When her lover comes to visit her that evening he finds the door locked and the house in darkness and a deathly silence. He goes around the back, intending to use his back door key, only to find it already open. Going inside, he spots her, turned away from him, her left arm and shoulder concealed beneath some kind of blanket, but naked otherwise, in the door-opening of her dimly candle-lit bedroom. Wanting to surprise her he decides to creep up on her. His fingertips barely an inch from her waist, a croaking menacing voice makes him stop in his tracks. „Hello, Tommy“. Her cold but firm right hand takes hold of his startled one, and leads him to the large double bed. She lies down on her back, still making sure her left arm remains unseen, and prompts him to undress with her right. It is only after having nervously dispatched his clothes and climbed into bed, kneeling above her, that he looks her in the eyes. Paralysed by what he sees, he fails to stop the covered arm moving towards his groin like a great dark bird descending on it’s helpless prey. It takes all night for him to bleed to death.
Auf den zweiten Platz wurde das Ende von Angela Feldmann gewählt:
The lover walks around the house and tries to peek through the windows but he can’t see anything except the lonely living room. He begins to worry about the woman because she had never missed any date with him before. He decides to check if she’s alright and climbs up to the balcony where a door is slightly open. As soon as he steps inside the bedroom a ominous feeling crawls down his back and he shivers. He sneaks down into the living room but he still can’t find anyone. Suddenly he hears a cracking noise from the basement. While he’s walking towards the stairs carefully his fear and a horrible premonition are growing inside him. He reaches the door to the basement room and can now definitely hear the cracking sound again. He is breathing deeply and puts his fingers around the door handle. Slowly he pushes it down and opens the door a little bit. Red light streams out of the small crack and shines brightly on his face. He glances inside the room. The woman is standing in the middle of the room with a strange look upon her face. Her wrist is bleeding but she doesn’t seem to realize that. She is breaking a bunch of branches and throws them in a fire which is burning in a huge iron bowl on the ground. He steps towards her but before he can say anything she bows down and picks up something round which had been hidden behind the bowl. She throws it right on to him and as soon as it touches his neck it starts biting something pointy deeply into his flesh. He realizes that it is her husband’s head that starts to bite his head off his body. He tries to defend himself and pull the head out of his flesh but the darkness of the unbearable pain overwhelms him.
Mit nur einem einzigen Punkt ganz knapp geschlagen auf dem dritten Platz landete der Text von Elisabeth Weber:
He stands outside the house and looks through the window, but he can’t make out anything in the darkness. Inside, the woman is still fighting with the head, but soon the silent struggle comes to an end as the woman becomes tired. It is only then that she notices that all the lights went off. She is shivering now and longs for her lover to comfort her. She calls for help, but her words don’t penetrate the blackness that, thick as a blanket, presses on her heavily and makes everything numb. Since there is no mind control between them, the lover leaves to go home or to a bar or to a friend’s – we don’t follow him – and the woman is left with the head. When she has calmed herself down, she realizes she’s not shivering anymore because of her husband’s teeth which are still – dogged as he is – burrowed into the woman’s wrist. Along with the warmth a silent happiness spreads in her body, first in her left arm, then in her chest and in her head, and finally in the rest of her body. This new euphoria makes her forget all about the pain in her wrist, her lover, and even the head. She feels better than on her wedding day or any other day in her life and so it’s no wonder that she takes no notice of her feet that slowly begin to disappear. After a while, she can’t see or hear or smell anything because her head is all gone, but what was that to worry about when she felt just so fine. Her hand isn’t warm anymore, it is hot now and rather unpleasant, but luckily there is enough water in the bowl for both the woman’s hand and her husband’s head to cool them. They are very peaceful like this, a happy couple, you could call it, cozy togetherness, tête-à-tête.
An diesem Text gefällt mir vor allem der intrusive narrator („we don’t follow him“), der raffinierte Einsatz von reported thought („but what was that to worry about“) und natürlich das herrlich makabre „tête-à-tête“ Ende.
Auf den vierten Platz kam der Text von Evelyn Reiter:
The lover sneaks round the house twice before he lifts the doormat with goose-bumps all over his neck and moist palms. He knows that she keeps an “emergency key”, as she calls it, there. It sounds like a saw sliding over his spine when he sticks the key into the lock. Shht! He stops abruptly. There’s a sound! From the living room? Yeah, definitely! While he goes along the corridor, his whole face gets wet and the sweat runs into his eyes. Damn, that stings! But he just wipes it off and keeps on moving forward, as if his legs were controlled by some wires and he was just a puppet. The young man reaches the living room – much pleasure this room last weeks only yesterday pushed him sofa squeezed her lips over his all along strange round thing coffee table piece of black cloth over it wasn’t allowed to lift …
When the young man glances into the room, he sees the woman’s motionless body on the floor, illuminated by the almost shy light of two candles. It takes him some seconds to discover a head, lying next to her and making disgusting, loud smacks. Suddenly he loses control over his body, his eyes and his thoughts, as if his whole existence was absorbed by the scene. He stares at the head, which devours the woman’s arm and then bites with passionate hunger and hate into her belly. And while it is eating, a body starts growing downwards from that head. But before the young man can witness any more, he sinks into cold, soundless darkness.
An diesem Ende kann man schön demonstrieren wie die stream of consciousness Passage den Leser geradezu zwingt mental aktiv zu werden und zu spekulieren, was denn da jetzt genau passiert ist.
Schließlich hat sich Antonia Lang ein originelles, überraschendes Ende ausgedacht:
He manages to break open the door. When he walks into the kitchen he sees an envelope lying there. He opens it. It is from the woman.
„My dear,
I am gone, please don’t try to find me. I have found a way to bring back my husband from the dead. Looking back it was really easy but how could I have known that he just needed my blood to be able to grow a new body? Please leave us alone. I hope you understand.“
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