… 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.“