The serendipity of the St. Petersburg trip
After a week in St. Petersburg, Florida, at the Poynter Institute and the Tampa Bay Times, sophomore Jaden Amos has finally found her career path.
We were sitting in a Poynter Institute conference room, chatting and waiting for our workshop to begin, when a man walked in.
He was wearing a hat and a pair of jeans. He set up a keyboard and put a Pee-wee Herman doll on the table next to him. Instantly, my phone started buzzing because everyone was posting in the GroupMe.
“Did he just bring in a ventriloquist dummy?”
“I highkey do not like this.”
“Does Poynter know this man is here? Is he an impersonator?”
We all watched, waiting for him to leave and for our instructor to come in.
Then, the mysterious keyboard man started playing, “Here Comes the Sun,” by the Beatles. Some sang along, and a lot of us just looked at him, confused.
After the song ended, he didn’t introduce himself as we expected him to. He invited us to play a game.
“I know a lot of rock ‘n’ roll and stuff from the ’50s and ’60s,” he said. “I know Billy Joel too, but if you ask me to play that I might pull a muscle. Well, come on. Yell out a song. Anything.”
He played us “Surfin’ U.S.A” by the Beach Boys and “My Girl” by the Temptations.
After a brief lesson in music theory, he finally introduced himself as Roy Peter Clark. Still, what does playing Stump the DJ have to do with teaching writing tools and finding your voice? Those were the two workshops he was supposed to teach us.
Turns out, a lot. He used music as analogies all throughout the workshops to help visualize and understand the content. During breaks, he played us more songs and at one point, the whole group was singing “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison together.
After the workshops were over, we all just wanted to talk about Roy. Not just because he is a famed writer and notable journalism teacher, but because he taught us journalism in a different way.
We sang songs, laughed, learned about the significance of his Pee-wee Herman doll and discovered new ways to write stronger. What made the experience memorable was his approach to the content.
Thanks to Roy Peter Clark, I have tools to be a better writer and also a sweet memory of sitting in a room and singing dad-rock songs with some of my closest friends.