How to Free a Naked Man from a Rock

High School Literary Anthology

The ideal text to get high school kids writing instead of texting

There’s a 17-foot-tall naked guy who lives in Florence, Italy. He spends most of his time being ogled by anyone who cares to look. He’s okay with this—he isn’t the least bit ashamed. He’s been doing this for over five hundred years, after all.

Come to think of it, maybe you’ve seen him before. His name is David. His picture’s on the cover of this book.

David began his life as a very large, very lonely, and very slightly mistreated block of rock. When David’s father, the legendary sculptor and all-around artistic genius Michelangelo, looked at the rock, however, he didn’t just see a simple piece of weathered marble—he saw the stone boy, the statue, trapped inside.

When you look at rocks, what do you see? What are the things you see in life that no one else sees? Chances are that you see some pretty cool, pretty wild stuff.