In preparation for a poetry unit that looks at the role of the poet in society, I went searching for some poems about Ferguson, MO. The Google Doc I created is a work in progress, but it’s a start. Here it is in case you’re looking for resources.
Tag Archives: poetry
I Used to Be Afraid to Be Great
I had an early morning writing conference with a student this morning. Like, super early, so early that when I ducked into the dining hall, they weren’t even open at 7 a.m. I didn’t complain, though; that was an additional 20ish minutes I had to be consumed in this new book that probably doesn’t have much literary merit but that captivates me in ways that I love (the new Emily Giffin: LOVE HER!). And that reminds me, when one of the kids I had last year runs into me, precariously balancing a tray of breakfast options, she admits that she’s been reading. What?! She smiles, embarrassed. (I’m all kinds of astonished at that moment. This kid is so serious; I’m just stoked she seems to be taking things less so). She goes on to tell me that her teacher at school told her she should always analyze what she’s reading.
I told her that I disagreed with her teacher. I might have even said that her teacher was wrong. I read for pleasure all the time, and I only analyze something when I want to. Reading works on different levels, and if you’re going into the Hunger Games with the primary goal of analyzing, then you’re doomed. Hopefully, she keeps reading and finds enjoyment out of it. Why tell kids that if we ever want them to ENJOY anything?
Ugh.
Move backwards in time to the writing conference that commences promptly at 7:30. I’m approaching overcaffeinated, so I have to remind myself to focus only on what matters for this student. He has fantastic ideas, just needs some practice honing his focus, refining his thesis, making sure his topic sentences and body paragraphs are all working together. He LOVES this poem, Knock, Knock by Daniel Beatty. I tend to agree. It’s a fantastic poem to teach with students (again, another tip from Christensen).
First, I ask him what, exactly, he wants to say about this poem that he’s been tasked to analyze (remind me to rethink this assignment for sophomores next year; I think it’s too tough. Last year, I did it with juniors and that seems a more appropriate match). He tells me he’s interested in the speaker’s perseverance, and he’s interested in repetition, and word choice and imagery. Right? He’s got the makings of a fantastic paper. So, I do some dictation while he works through what he wants to say and eventually present him with a map, that works into a thesis, that allows us to move to the rest of the paper.
And what I realize, after some talking through the paper, is that he has buried the topic sentences within this body paragraphs. Eventually, I tell him so and make him identify the topic sentences. This kid’s got a way with words: he loves them, wants to use all kinds of them, even if they’re not the right ones. Even when simple, concise ones will do. I tell him as much (and even write “Practice an economy of words” on his paper and tell him what it means), and his face falls momentarily before I reassure him that there’s a time and place for a beautiful word, and that, as a writer, he’ll come to decide when it’s appropriate.
For now, though, I tell him, it doesn’t matter how lovely the word is if I can’t understand what it is you’re trying to tell me.
I want to get better, he admits. But I’m worried that time is running out (for the program). Will I pass?
You need to revise these papers, I reply. But sure. If you do the planning we did today, of first writing your thesis, then making sure your topic sentences are supporting your thesis, then yes, you can pass.
I wish I had more time in your class, he says. My writing is just starting to improve.
I tell him we are all works in progress as writers, so he can keep moving ahead, building on what he’s learned here. You’re gonna be even better next summer. Watch. The school year seems to work all kinds of magic on kids, I reassure him.
And then, because all the kids from the program tend to cluster in one area of the dining hall, and because I’m holding court in that corner, I stop another student who has been dodging me and is in danger of failing, too. I ask him where his revision is and he responds vaguely that he is going to get it to me. When I ask for an exact date, and if there’s anything confusing about what he needs to do, he mumbles something that I perceive as a yes.
I then go off on what might be one of my most effective rants about greatness and achievement and fear that I’ve mustered up in quite a while (it really was a beauty), I ask him several times if he’s afraid to be great. Silence. I wait. About a minute or so later, he says that yes, he is afraid to be great. That the only one preventing him from being great is him. I tell him that I had that same fear, but that I got over it when I was five (a lie; I still suffer from it–that fear of being great–but sometimes, you have to lie to the kids). Then, that student opens his computer and shows me his points of confusion. Turns out, it’s around analysis, so I open up one of our textbooks for the course, They Say, I Say by Graff and give him some references. We work through his narrative and I make suggestions about line breaks and spacing. I feel him growing more confident. By the end of that drive-by conference, he tells me I’m going to have both revisions by day’s end.
Being a warm demander has its perks.
Filed under Teaching Writing in the Summer
Take A Teacher to Lunch
At first glance, you’d think he’s not that interested in class. He is often trying to find his paper, but once he does, he’s at-the-ready, jotting down ideas, notes from the board, ideas for later. He sticks to meetings that you set up; I know, rare for a sophomore. Today, when I was in line in the dining hall, he came up to me and asked a question about his poetry analysis paper. He was worried about his thesis. I told him that I wasn’t having lunch with anyone, and that if he wanted to stop by and chat about it a bit, I was down.
I make that offer sometimes, and every now and then, students take me up on it. It was my lucky day today!
Talking about him abstractly is getting on my nerves, so let me attach a pseudonym to him: I’ll call him Michael. Today, Michael reads me the poem he’s selected, one by Cornelius Eady, “I’m a Fool to Love You,” a sad dirge about a Black woman who accepts her circumstances, decides that the lesser of the two evils is an abusive man who fathers her child. Deep. And Michael proceeds to lead me through an excellent close reading. He’s captivated by the repetition of “blues,” wants to follow it throughout the poem. He needs help articulating the why; can I help him make his thesis get the so what to what he’s trying to say?
This poem is so rich that I can’t help but ask him questions about it. Why the blues (“because it seems to take on different meanings for the mother, makes her seem to finally reach acceptance”) which leads to a bigger discussion of the meaning the blues hold for folks, particularly for, but not limited to, Blacks. Then we somehow get on a conversation about parents and he tells me his father was deported when he was five, but that his mother didn’t tell him the truth until he was nine. That his mother, herself, is undocumented and speaks no English, and sometimes he feels tired having to do all the translation. He wishes his sister wasn’t so shy so she could assume some of that burden, but she can’t even be brave enough to order a pizza. He wishes there was a poem for that, about how he feels about his sister (write one, I suggest).
“I want to be remembered for something,” he tells me. Then do something good for the world is my reply. He says he’s going to. He just doesn’t know what it is yet. We go back to the poem and pause to discuss why the speaker’s mother chooses the father, even though he’s no prize. “He’s the best of the worst,” Michael summarizes, and we go back to the poem, mine it a little deeper for specific words that capture her resignation. He reads them to me, and I savor them. And we point to lines in the poem and we read and reread them.
I cannot WAIT to read your analysis, I say. We talk more about his thesis and I ask him if he’s happy with what he has. No, he says, because we just talked about a whole lot more.
What do I do?
I explain that the beauty of a working thesis is that it can change. And given that it seems that there are now even more layers of the poem, opening the door to new layers of analysis, maybe it makes sense to revise the thesis. He seems incredulous that one can do that. Of course, I say. Working means you can change it!
We try out several different statements and eventually he decides to add a part to the end that speaks to the resignation of the speaker of the poem.
I tell Michael that I heard he applied 15 times to one charter school, the one he currently attends. Actually, I say 14 times and he corrects me with 15. I ask him why and he says he had researched the school, and all of its graduates went on to college. 100 percent. He said that’s his only goal: to get to college.
I told him he should have a different goal: getting there probably isn’t going to be a problem given what I already know about him, but he should train his mind and heart to think about getting THROUGH college and what comes after. That was even more important. He shrugged. Short-term goals are as important as the long term ones, I reckon.
What I found surprising, though, was that, given that he goes to a small school, was that he rarely talks to his teachers other than for extra help. “Teachers are busy,” he concluded.
Unacceptable. Why have small schools if you can’t have lunch with this dynamo?
There’s more to this story, mostly about how this conversation with Michael reminded me about what it means to teach students who are multilingual, who do much of–if not all of–the interpretation for their families, who are imbued with all of their parents’ hopes for the future, who are still, ultimately, young people who need to be kids, too.
Oh, and Junot Diaz. He makes a brilliant appearance to cap off why we read literature. Later, though.
Filed under Equity, Teaching Writing in the Summer
Dr. Kimberly N. Parker 