4. Next, join the conversation by clicking on the comment button and posting in the box that opens on the right. (Students 13 and older are invited to comment, although teachers of younger students are welcome to post what their students have to say.)
5. After you have posted, try reading back to see what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting another comment. Use the “Reply” button or the @ symbol to address that student directly.
6. To learn more, read the original Modern Love essay upon which the film is based, “Learning to Silence My Inner Editor.” The 2014 essay by Jessie Ren Marshall begins:
I am trained to be a critic. After several years of graduate school, I started to enjoy pointing out flaws in people’s writing, a ruthless activity with all the destructive pleasure of picking at a scab. The voice of my inner editor had become so powerful that it almost kept me from finding the love of my life.
The summer after graduation I had a temporary job teaching, but no idea of what to do next. Meanwhile, I lectured my writing students on the power of words: “Beware the thoughtless adjective. Beware the vague pronoun.”
I drew X’s over entire paragraphs. I pointed at their pages and said: “Imagine you’re the editor who pulled this from the slush pile. Is there a glaring typo in the first paragraph? Bam! Rejected.”
The students, a motley collection of high school juniors, stared back at me blankly. They enjoyed writing and saw no need for histrionics.
“You have to be vigilant,” I said. “Every cliché is a chance for the reader to leave you.”
I rescheduled my classes to attend a friend’s wedding in Hawaii. After a three-hour bus ride up the windward coast to the town of Laie, I had tangled hair but no brush, so I ran my fingers through the worst of the knots and walked up the hill to the ceremony.
James was the groom’s brother, the second oldest of five boys. All I knew was that he was single, attractive and didn’t care that my hair was a mess. We spun around on the grassy lawn, and afterward he took me to a bench overlooking the bay. Facing a sea too blue to be real, James held my hand and said I was beautiful.