Constructing Trust

open to interpretation

As I browse through The Annotated Emma, Jane Austen’s novel annotated and edited by David M. Shepard, I pause longer than usual over his Notes to the Reader, where he signals plot disclosures and literary interpretations. He explains that Austen “developed … with great skill” several “mysteries … crucial to the story”, and I lean in to listen more carefully, because I have settled on this novel for an upcoming high school English course. Then I come to a complete halt, since I need to see him face to face as he tells me this: “Comments on the techniques and themes of the novel … represent the personal views and interpretations of the editor.” I realize that such a disclosure may be one of the most helpful aspects of my own instruction that I can offer to my students.

open to question

I have mentioned elsewhere how as a sophomore I asked my own teacher “How do you know?” What I was really wondering was, “What tools can I use myself to construct meaning, notice an author’s craft, or spy a symbol embedded in a landscape of detail?” I may have been curious about how much of what had been placed before us was open to question. As I design my course, it may be beneficial to students if I publish similar disclosures at the outset. I appreciate the way Shepard expresses himself, stating that while his views will “provoke disagreement”, he hopes that “in such cases the opinions expressed [will] provide useful food for thought”. And I sincerely trust that my students desire to think critically, needing only to be shown both where and how such questioning can be most productive; their questioning demands my openness to disagreements.

out of a job

I am describing a process by which students learn to be resistant readers. A full menu of theory and procedures for care and feeding of confident and resistant readers may be explored in Gordon Pradl’s Literature for Democracy. What I glean from Pradl’s work, including his NCTE session several years ago on a texts’ authority and context, is that authority, whether of a text, a teacher, or an interpretation, must be allowed to withstand scrutiny.

In a classroom, what would it look like for the teacher to invite questions about her, his, or their own interpretive process? When does a young reader become confident enough, feel free enough, to enquire of the instructor or tutor? It happens best when the younger apprentice sees themself supported by the tutor who guides, but who necessarily does not do all the leading.

Photo by Breakingpic on Pexels.com

I have heard it said that teachers hope to become obsolete – once our students think, write, and read independently, there is no longer any need for us. I want to revise this commonplace. There shall always be a need for experienced readers in a community of readers. If we press toward ensuring shared authority of both co-leaders and co-learners in our interpretive communities, anyone might feel not only welcome at the conversation table, but also enfranchised: having a sense that their full participation as members of such a community is worthwhile. The conversation should feel so lively, unplanned, visceral, and thrilling that no one wants to miss the new revelations or discoveries that might happen there.

a shift in control

Where discussions are thought-provoking and texts are inviting, according to Judith A. Langer, students learn literary language, with support of a teacher, from their involvement in “discussions that matter”. The focus of the course must be on readers developing their own changing perspectives and interpretations; she argues that “a shift in control from teacher to student is a necessary first step for the social interactions to shift from recitation and guesswork (What is it the teacher wants?) to substantive thought and discussion that can extend students’ range of understanding.”

Learning to listen to students’ ideas and to base instruction on students’ responses is a difficult shift to make. (99)

What can I do in September this year to make the shift easier for my own students?

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

For one thing, I can take a lesson from Shepard and demystify my own interpretive processes, by being transparent at the outset of year that my own analysis of a book such as Emma is not the content of the class; rather, their own emerging understandings will be.  I can focus less on homework and grading policies and be more upfront about shifting toward assessments and feedback designed with student thinking, social contexts, and multiple readings and texts in mind.

trust and voice

I have felt at my most vulnerable before students when sharing my writing with them: writing before them, or reading a poem or homework assignment I have written alongside them. Such openness to criticism was presumably a signal of my trust in them to be respectful of my fragile creations and ego. Yet a stronger and more intentional invitation of their trust in me would be issued by course disclosure of expectations at the outset.

A Star Is Born 2018 Trailer – at smooth.com

You have a voice. The opinions expressed here are open to question, provoking disagreements, providing food for thought. Your thoughts matters. I will support your learning purposes. The texts we explore are avenues down which we walk together. There are also some great stories here. And we will get to know some people; and wherever avenues are explored, we’ll encounter more mysteries – “mysteries crucial” to our stories.

Recommended Reading

Fish, Stanley. Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. 1980. Harvard University Press.

Langer, Judith A.  Envisioning Literature 2011. Teachers College (Second Edition).

Pradl, Gordon. Literature for Democracy Reading as a Social Act. 1996. Boynton/Cook [Heinemann] .

 

 

run away! ! !

Yes, I am obsessed with, and keep returning to Monty Python.

As inspiration, as nostalgia, as poultice; as philosophy.

Thanks in no small part to the gift of the COMPLETE Python collection on DVD, courtesy of best friend and science educator extraordinaire, Susan Berrend. Beneath a shared love of British gardens, humor, and baking shows (and no small affection for Oxford commas and Anglican prayers) resides an even deeper shared commitment to pedagogy, an unwavering interest in discerning student needs and experimenting with new ways to meet those needs.

Which brings me to the force of my allusion to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. King Arthur and his knights are on a quest, but when nearing a treasure horde which may yield the coveted grail, they are frightened by a rampant rabbit.

avoidance strategy

This year I have seen students avoid reading. Some practice what Kelly Gallagher describes in Readicide – where students get assignments done without actually reading. This is ascribed to teacher expectations. One of my students, fascinated by problem-solving, is absolutely convinced that by dedicating time and energy to memorizing punctuation rules and grammar definitions she will inch her way forward and improve her standardized testing score.

Why?

running from or running toward?

Lest I forget that learning is social, and that literacy processes do not occur in a vacuum, these avoidance strategies serve to alert me to the motivating factors in my learners’ worlds.

One learner is driven to complete tasks as quickly as possible in order to move on to the social interactions they look forward to that day. Therefore they will do precisely what the teacher demands, in order to prove to their parent that their calendar is now open to schedule play dates and plan parties. My skill set allows me to integrate even those plans into journaling, research, organizing, and writing-to-learn; I can also involve cooking, makeup, and executive function lessons in authentic and meaningful ways.

For such a student, part of my challenge is to de-school the learner, who will benefit when they see learning as something one does for oneself, as opposed to what one does for others in authority. True, there are wonderful social benefits to the greater community when individuals grow intellectually and acquire wisdom; but one does not learn to love reading just to complete a checklist whose goal is to free one FROM reading.*

race to the finish

Today’s Preakness Stakes reminds me that other learners, like my prescriptive grammarian pupil, run headlong toward a clear goal they have set for themselves, which motivates them. Even if I do not understand the full enticements of these goals, I must acknowledge their power in putting a student in charge of her own learning.

My student can tell me how she learns best, what I should focus on, and how quickly she is improving; she can also relate which fall semester class she wants to qualify for, and how many minutes a day she will dedicate to this finish line. Now, I am no genius, but if you don’t like reading I am not sure why you would want to get into a course that expects you to do a ton of it. The challenge? Actually, I suspect that, like thoroughbreds, the air of competition somehow drives them to top performance.

Yet what role do I play as a democratic instructor who advocates for student voice and shared authority? As a trusted teacher and coach, I can offer advice and exercises that stretch the reader, inviting her take up a text and enjoy it.

I suspect that my I do not fully understand my influence at this time.

A couple of nights ago a school parent from the past recognized me at a concert, and made a point of telling me “Mr. Hultberg got me to like Shakespeare!” The parent also said that our production of King Lear made Shakespeare clear to them. This was poignant, since the performer on stage was Michael Bigelow, a jazz arranger and saxophonist, who had played Lear in that show, which I stage directed and Berrend tech directed.

I have also received a printed invitation to an upcoming ceremony at my current school, and I R.S.V.P.-ed in person to the preteen who had handed me the slip. She said, “I knew you would dress nice, because you always show … respect for people.”

At this moment I simply want to show my respect for the learning choices my students make, and to honor the freedom I claim to value.

When it is most important in their lives, I have to trust that my role as an engaged reader and lifelong learner will exert its due influence some day.

rabbit rampant

So the next time you are frightened by a rampant rabbit, or notice students running quicky in the opposite direction from which you wish to lead them, P A U S E. Remember that they are on a personal quest of their own, and nothing you can do will alter its course. Confide in your trusted friend as I do in mine; value your relationships with students and colleagues, knowing that others will be inspired by your commitment. Trust that what is most important to you – a garden, music – will not fail to exert its due influence in its time.

*Checklists: As I write this post, many of my students are actively engaged in reading ten books this summer in order to win free passes to the state fair!

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Image at http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7FAsUT6FePU/SWOhlsoMZgI/AAAAAAAAAdA/1Emq5jvchOc/s1600-h/Holy-Grail-Killer-Rabbit-Posters.jpg cited in Moviedeaths.blogspot.com

Degas painting public domain

Photo by GH pradlfan 5/17/2018

your teacher is right

I recently tutored a student online as he prepared for the AP English exam.

“Have you done any preparation in your English class?” I ask.

“My teacher feels that the class should be enough. What we learn in English will prepare us to do well on any exams we choose to take.”

Well, that’s right, I think. So why the choice for online tutoring to prep for the AP Lit exam?

I did not ask this question directly.

I know the signs.

Parental orchestration. Weak knees in the days leading up to the annual May exam seating. A gripping awareness that other people take this test seriously – maybe they know something I don’t.

Leaving aside for now the whole question of The College Board, the value of AP, tests in general; acknowledging that a quick survey of 3o minutes will suffice to acquaint one with the type of questions to expect and the time and attention to allot; I agree with that teacher.

I am that teacher.

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A slightly different angle, though, complicates my clear vision: my student’s personal goal is to gain confidence as a writer of AP exam essays. Under the umbrella of Writing Hope Works, I have chosen to subscribe to the mandate to coach writers toward their goals, so that they become more confident and resistant writers who write with clarity and force.

Combine this student goal with my belief that English class (and tutoring) exists to serve student learning purposes, and I do feel I can be of service. My writing conference format works well enough here, except for the urgency of time: it is days before the exam; and I charge an hourly rate for my tutoring time. In the normal writing workshop a revision process recurs, terminating with editing conferences. The student’s role is to do a lot of talking about her/his own writing; mine is to listen, encourage, ask a productive question.

Student choice is very important here. If this student CHOSE to sign up for the AP exam, great. If she/he CHOSE to set a goal and find a writing/literature coach, also great. This particular coach is a co-learner: I prepare (reviewing) major works in my personal time along with my tutee, who does it separately while on spring break. I create charts, analyze text, and outline my own response to pst prompts to the open question. I won’t simply lay out strategies – instead we need to learn alongside each other [the physical limitations of online learning notwithstanding].

Me with Penny Kittle, author of “Write Beside Them”  

Yes, this is like English class. I even hear this response sometimes from my pupils, or from others in the background during my online sessions. I harbor a secret delight in their comment: in solidarity with all English teachers I know, the test is not the point. The point is two learners engaging in dialogue with the best minds of all time, both of us finding our voices, choosing how to respond, listening, shaping replies…

I can’t not be who I am called to be as a teacher.

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And my pupil responds very positively to this. The young writer initiates and chooses activity. Behind the scenes lurk motivating forces beyond our control; but the writer is in control.

And the AP written exam is primarily an opportunity for a young writer to demonstrate control of language. Each prompt imposes specific constraints whose purpose is to draw out the best in each writer, to allow the writer to flourish. It is not much different from The British Baking Show, when it imposes a time and ingredient constraint such as “three chocolates in three hours — B-A-K-E!” The contestants CHOSE to be there in that tent; they CHOSE to work on their baking at home during the week.

detail of a novel preparation chart for Gatsby

So today I am resigned in my position. I will use my experience with writing conferences, literature workshops, and oral exams [with my St. John’s tutors] to inquire with my pupil, dialogue about texts, and solve problems together.

I will enjoy the process of co-learning and co-leading, and will value the goal because it is my AP student’s own goal. If I truly trust the system (Writing Hope Works, whose aim is learner agency; writing conferences, whose aim is writers solving their own problems) then my young writer will set new goals tomorrow. When tests are done, today’s short-term goals are rewritten, and new long-term goals are imagined.

Even in the creation of new goals can I identify with all my learners. My writing goal in the coming weeks is to write a scholarly essay on novelist George Eliot as a critical educator. My teaching goal is to observe a local school model of student-initiated activity.

My goals have “real-world” constraints, such as a June 1st deadline and particular genre requirements for the written one, including submission to an audience of peers and professors. My own goal mirrors that of my tutee in its imminent deadline, highly qualified audience, and specialized genre. Observing the school demands fingerprinting, arranging hours, and understanding the rules (e.g. “No one will suggest to a child that one activity should take academic precedence over another.”).

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A common theme runs through the posts I have written lately – not all of them published — every teaching moment is also a learning moment for me. And when my own interests, such as playing cards or piano or reading Victorian novels, put me in the shoes of a learner and student, I appreciate once more how difficult and rewarding learning can be. There is no substitute for the personal relationships formed within small groups learning together and the individualized help from a more experienced teacher. Anyone of any age can be a teacher.

Time and again, analog schools and teachers have proven not only better at teaching students, but  they can actually present more innovative solutions for education’s future.

from “The Revenge of School”, in The Revenge of Analog: Real Things And Why They Matter by David Sax

 

 

Will this be on the test?

I was momentarily stunned last week when a student voiced the desire for me to teach only what was necessary to pass the end-of-year (standardized? common assessment?) test. Because of Obama’s recent discovery that children are being over-tested, I am choosing to concentrate for a moment on this student’s request. What does it mean? 

1. Students have been brainwashed to think of learning as acquisition of facts or skills to serve as an arsenal against the day of judgment, arrows in their quiver for the last days of the year. The purpose of learning is to pass a test the teacher has neither designed nor seen. In the rare instance where I know the specific content of an end-of-year exam, I am ethically bound not to teach to that specific prompt and its text. 

2. Students have not changed since I was in college. I still recall my British History professor, Dr. Arthur Mejia, at San Francisco State, responding mid-lecture to a student’s question, “Will this be on the test?” with a well-considered look of dismay. “It’s all ONE HISTORY.” How I hope I too can shape a response with the same power. “It’s all one literature”? “It’s all one story.”? 

3. Education has reverted to the Gradgrind School of Charles Dickens’s Hard Times. I am Sissy Jupe (see photo) and my students are the schoolmasters driving imagination out of the classroom. Evidently the rewards have been great enough for responding with the rote answer that a horse is a quadruped (denotative meaning) that they have bypassed any love for bread, circuses, and horses as beautiful creatures with a host of connotative resonances. [Me sneaking a photo in Dickens’s kitchen at Doughty Street] 

 Just when I thought the US-UK push for creativity, innovation, imagination, flexible mindset, individualized learning, curiosity, and inquiry must necessarily have produced a generation of young learners unique in the annals of education, I am forced to rethink my task. 

I need to acknowledge the voices filled with hope that I can prepare them for tests. But I want fill them with hope beyond tests, beyond this year, and into a distant future where they see themselves as dreamers, makers, community members, readers, writers and thinkers. 

I need to remind them that English Language Arts is a humanities class; we read and write about human beings, because people are inherently valuable. Reading, writing, and thinking about people both real and imagined offers us contact with and contemplation of lives that matter. We become more valuable, interesting, and effective persons by coming into contact with them: we are changed. 

I need to continue this conversation with colleagues at the NCTE convention in Minneapolis, including the CEL workshop. When I speak at roundtables and sessions on writing hope, establishing empathy, and close reading for “wonder and awe”, I await suggestions from participants that redeem our students from a culture of pragmatism and restore a sense of awe at beautiful language, strong characters, and words that evoke lasting imaginative impressions, whether “Fourscore and seven” or “Call me Ishmael.”

full frontal

At the first whiff of plagiarism, I am quick to launch a full frontal assault. Check the plot summary or, for my student, uncharacteristic phrase against its occurrences online; assign a zero for the assignment, request a meeting, send a parent/guardian email, deliver the offending evidence to an administrator who can track other screw-ups by the same perp.

These are all in my arsenal of responses to the Demon Plagiarism. From there it is a short walk to sending a herd of pigs off the cliff, and having the teachers-only job satisfaction of seeing a student crumple into tears as years of bad behavior are repented of, and finally wading into the water with him, emerging with faces to the sun, both knowing that Creative Commons has our allegiance forevermore, and the laws of copyright shall remain inviolate. “from this day to the ending of the world.”

But today yesterday I brought out a new weapon; a kinder gentler means by which to assert my dominance over the spirit that bedevils young writers. In my feedback to the writer I referred not once to the “P” word. I made no mention of credit. I appealed to the writer’s sense of authority, personhood, audience and purpose. [See images below of writers at my school creating and sharing their work for a variety of authentic purposes and audiences in secondary English and science, also second-grade/tenth-grade collaboration.]

Because of my recent focus on expressing “what the words do to the reader” — both in peer and teacher response to student writing as well as mentor/class texts — my vocabulary and tools have been enlarged for responding to cutting and pasting of another’s work.

my vocabulary and tools have been enlarged

Rather than corner the student with an awkward out-of-class confrontation, I took a different approach by responding just as I would to any electronically submitted draft. Instead of using the authority of our student handbook and its policy, I appealed to the authority of the reader.

➡️Will your reader know these big words?
➡️Where does the reader hear your voice?
️➡️Why should your reader be interested?
➡️Which class discussion or personal inquiry question got you thinking about exploring this topic? If the reader can see your thinking process, you might persuade her to thoughtfully consider your point of view.

Although I have slightly modified these to protect the anonymity of the writer, they differ drastically from my typical frontal assault: Is this your own work? Where did you get it? Why didn’t you cite the source? What did you think was the goal of the assignment?

All of which are mere pretenses and preamble to the often unstated Big Gun: Whatever could have possessed you to think I, all-knowing, would not recognize this as another writer’s work? You have insulted me, broken our trust, and demonstrated that you do not value the deities of the writing process (insert constellation of choice, for me Bay Area Writing Project, Penny Kittle, Kelly Gallagher, Sheridan Blau, Tom Romano, Dons Murray and Graves to infinity and beyond)?

As I often remark, I am the one doing the learning here. Because of my interest in authority in the classroom, I see this as an opportunity to wait and observe the outcome — just as I do with every other paper at this later drafting stage. By turning the focus inward, I am able to monitor my own problem-solving process, identify the place where my own ego gets in the way, and try an innovative or at least creative solution that eases the burden for the student in one way by subtly shifting it.

The student’s responsibility would have been to justify himself (his cheating behavior) to me and to his parent, at least; but now it becomes more about justifying his writing choices to his readers. If the writer is willing to assume creative control over this writing task, the finished written product will communicate a chosen purpose clearly and strongly to a specific chosen audience, which it does not yet do.

The paper will have voice and the student will exercise choice. This is my first blog entry ending with the term “Voices and Choices.”

Strangers on a plane

How would you describe the CEL (Conference on English Leadership) and NCTE convention to others? As I traveled home, I found myself explaining it to Alphonso, a D.C. pedi-cab driver who toured me past the monuments; to strangers on a plane, a mother and daughter returning from a trip to Puerto Rico; and to a shopgirl a perfume fragrance counter saleswoman at Macy’s. Notice, I already monitored my phrase and revised it because of my audience. In what ways do we self monitor and alter our messages for specific audiences?

During the conference itself, I used persuasive terms with a college professor who was at the contemporaneous ALAN conference, and beforehand I chose humorous analogies to give my students a picture of where I was heading. For my parents and sisters, who know a lot about my 25 year teaching career, and have attended professional conferences themselves, I wrote a letter detailing particulars of my personal involvement that would distinguish this year’s conference from those of previous years.

As I had the privilege of visiting a New York publishing house office this week, I noticed this sign on an editor’s desk: “I am silently correcting your grammar”, which was hilarious to me because both English teachers and editors, whose complex roles cannot be distilled into a single phrase, are frequently oversimplified and misunderstood as grammar police. This becomes evident whenever we meet strangers on a plane or train, who suddenly feel the need to excuse themselves for speaking improperly, or for not being readers or writers.

Since all writing is language choice, we choose language to suit the occasions of our dialogue. I have never had the chance to use these words in a sentence before, but CEL made it happen: “THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE.” Can you picture me, waving my bill under the ticket window of the National Harbor Ferris Wheel, contradicting their devil-may-care no cash policy?

Tailoring our tongues to meet particular situations involves knowing something about our audience. Kylene Beers and Bob Probst insisted on this as one of the keys to adolescents understanding complex non-fiction, as they shared recent collaborative work with us on Tuesday at CEL’s closing session. “What does the author assume I know already?”

Learning to listen
As I planned this blog post, I expected to present you with a fun challenge to write about a recent event you attended — conference, performance, holiday celebration, service opportunity — for several different audiences, say: children, peers, strangers and administrators (the Oxford comma debate matters here).

“I went out to dinner with some new friends, and we rode the Ferris wheel together…”

“I spent several days with high-powered speakers on cutting-edge topics…”

“I got to go to Washington, D.C. to tell researchers about the exciting writing you guys are doing…”

But as I relive each of my actual conversations, I realize they involve not so much constructing a stance, but rather listening to the person I am interacting with. I found out from Nadine at Macy’s that she was an English major, but could not stand the thought of her love of books such as Jane Eyre being dehydrated by dry analysis; that Alphonso, a D.C. native, used to be a bike messenger and has never been to California, and will have to find different work when weather prohibits operation of his pedi-cab for the season; that the mother-daughter love reading books, which were stolen the second day of their two week vacation; that the visitor from Paris at the Blue Note jazz club believes Paris is “not what is used to be”; that the airport shuttle driver works seven days at peak travel seasons; that Audrey, a session attendee, believes collaboration can lead to shared values and assumptions about writing.

We not only enrich a conversation by knowing the people we speak with, but I learn and grow myself by hearing them. The difficulty comes now, when I ask myself if I can be as diligent, open-eared, and knowing of those in my inner circle as I am with strangers or acquaintances.

All the “out-of-town” practice, as David Perkins calls it in learning, has to be brought to bear on the big games: our marriages, families, significant friendships, and career.

What good is it if I carry on inconsequential small talk with someone I meet once a year or once in a lifetime, if I don’t apply more careful listening in my most dear relationships?

Because of this,

Sara, I want to be the best listener I can; please be patient with me. I love you more each day, and want to know you even better.

Susan, I want to be a better friend and colleague, to keep asking the right questions.

Patrick, I want to be a better friend, to offer support where you need it and receive your input when you offer it.

Tyler, I want to be the kind of encourager you are to me.

Judi and Janice, I hope to be the brother you can depend on to celebrate your triumphs and share in your disappointments.

Evan, I hope I can be a better mentor; please help me know the ways I can support you this year in your teaching.

Writing is important, and conferences are helpful; but relationships and love are essential, necessary, foundational. The purpose for communicating is understanding, empathizing, knowing and loving people: communion and community themselves.

So go ahead, know your audience. Don’t just be a clanging cymbal, Gordon; “though I speak with tongues of men and of angels…[without] charity…I am nothing.” My plea: reduce me to Love.

(me on the left, Chris Bronke on right)

Elementary: a realm apart

I worked as a learning partner with a freshman student on Thursday and Friday as we read “The Red-Headed League”, a Sherlock Holmes story by A. C. Doyle. Although I had read the short story numerous times, this was my first time reading and hearing it read aloud most of the way through. One paragraph especially stood out.

Watson’s narrator writes about feeling mystified at the ease with which Holmes sees clearly, in the midst of the “confusing” and “grotesque” details of the case.

I equated Dr. Watson’s wonderment at Holmes’s mastery to the way students are mystified at our expert interpretive “performances” of English classroom texts. They likely see as magical our detection of hidden symbolism, analysis of setting, understanding of internalized conflicts. The apprentice James Watson stands in awe of the Master Sherlock Holmes, whose idiosyncratic reading of persons, situation, and detail is phenomenal, unattainable.

Even Holmes would have him believe that if Watson only becomes an astute observer he, too, will perpetrate astonishing feats of detection.

We ELA teachers fall into the trap of suggesting that a few meager degrees on an Expert-Novice continuum separate the gurus from the gurees. Is it really true that by demystifying the reading process

we equip readers to perform readings such as we arrive at after years of literature study, curiosity, and attention to fine detail?

Holmes cites ridiculously minute bits of data, such as awareness of the pigmentation of Chinese tattoos. to support his reasoning. No strategy other than obsessive observation might offer Watson a hope of rivaling his friend’s competency for crime detection and problem-solving; Holmes’s wide experience provides him rare entree to the gathering of such trivial data. Which of us, finding herself on a visit to China, would consume the hours in making a study of variations among local tattoos?

Watson tells us “I was always oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity” in his dealings with the Master.

These Sidney Paget illustrations from the original Strand Magazine facsimile reveal Sherlock doing the thinking and work as Watson tags along. His disciple, James, feels as inadequate to the task as Jesus’ disciples must have felt when the Master sent them out in pairs to practice. Similarly mystified, when encountering stubborn demons, they marvel at Christ’s ability. They admit, as Watson must, that their teacher is in a realm apart.

If there is any place our students have an advantage over us at their age, it is in their insatiable curiosity: such curiosity drives Holmes to fasten upon minutiae, and presumably prompts Watson to write memoirs about his master teacher.

Since 2001 when I attended an AP Institute and first understood the importance of student questions, through recent years when Judith Langer in her description of Envisionment Learning suggests “asking relevant questions” as a class goal, and The Right Question website, Essential Questions, and Socratic seminar questions (and Victor Mueller’s prepared follow-up questions), I have explored the ways students come to appreciate their own questioning role as necessary to learning and problem-solving. When they do the work of asking better questions, they feed natural curiosity and train it expand into all areas of lilfe, like a Halloween night horror movie creature, The Blob, which takes over the whole town.

Mysteries and horror are not that far removed. Holmes borders on the monstrous–isolated, obsessive, so calculating he can appear inhuman. Elana Gomel points out that the cool, unemotional criminal Stapleton from Hound of the Baskervilles is a mirror of Holmes, to whose “cold, precise” mind “emotion” is “abhorrent” (“A Scandal in Bohemia”, quoted in “Bloodscripts: Writing the Violent Subject”). Gomel stresses that the reader of mysteries feels comforted by them, for readers desire to know that the world and other people make sense.

It is a wild stretch of imagination for a non reader to believe how much pleasure in a lifetime may be derived from the inky marks on a virtual or paper page. How much more imagination and faith is required to trust that a full length work provides even more pleasure!

In order to read the world and other people, experience and observation certainly help, but a sense of initial curiosity and deep wonder are readily available to a learner at any age.

I fear, however, that curiosity slips noiselessly away some time during late adolescence. What can we do to foster curiosity?

At Utah’s first #EdCamp last month I attended a session on Curiosity, which made me more keenly aware of its silent departure from the purple room of pedagogy. We participants were like party goers on the eve of Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death”, dancing from room to symbolic room pretending that education can thrive even while a plague of indifference gathers its army at the castle doors.

I found curiosity alive and well this week as my 10th grade students led 2nd graders through the editing process on a collaborative story.

Wonder is not gone. Children can be inspired by teens; teens can be reminded of their impulsively curious younger selves; and we their experienced, obsessive, compulsively curious teachers can model a reading life; we must not tyrannize nor oppress them with a sense of their own stupidity. Rather, we might show them how their own sense of curiosity can lead to hypotheses, solutions, and deep and satisfying reading experiences. They, like us, are only trying to make sense of the complex text of the world and its people.

no bad days

Most of my blog posts are shunted to “drafts” because of incomplete thought. I hope to state up front, today, that the reality is I will not develop this one as much as I could, but rather, like each class each day, call it “good for one day”.

Like many school days, this one had ups and downs. One class saw volunteers either form committees, who set paper deadlines and established principles for fair grading practices, or prepare to model an editing conference. Another class interacted with a younger grade level class as they co-wrote stories. But along with their sparkle came some mud: some students handed in last week’s work incomplete carelessly done, or took a devil-may care attitude to free reading books or writing tasks.

My students who are usually engaged in class were distracted by SSR — sustained surreptitious reading, and those usually wrapped in personal books or reading ahead projected themselves into the class activities.
Absences of key students in pre-assigned roles meant that others shared more than they otherwise might have, while also filling a gap left by less prepared students.

Although during third and sixth periods I did not have time to share my fiction prompt by Ursula Le Guin, nor my sample attempts at her writing exercise, my students did decide on our next steps in class reading, writing, and performance.

I know that tomorrow I will hold numerous writing conferences, receive forty letters from students about their free reading books, listen to discussions of Shakespeare, Hardy, and Wilde, and wonder whether to wrest control from their hands. This, you see, is the most difficult of all decisions, for upon it depends so much.

Democratic, student-centered learning opens the door of a room that exists to serve student learning purposes. At the high school level in English this means some uncomfortable minutes spent every day as I listen to learners and wait for the processing of ideas — the second draft thought that inevitably will follow their initial draft thinking aloud. It must be an uneasy time for the students, too; today that came out effectively when mavericks spoke out in contrast to the majority, swerving the reigns of the whole cartload and helping true consensus, compromise, and accommodation to occur.

I don’t always need a refined, revised draft as a blogger. Taking you to the room I actually reside in immediately following the intertidal flood and ebb that is the end of my school day, before the effluvia settle, is not telling you how my day has gone. It is still a fresh impression on my mind; it will be hours before I can evaluate my own silences and interjections.

It was not at all a bad day.

Melodious Monday

A good Monday – (Thankfully!) – It began in second period with our Romeo and Juliet introduction to the rhythm of the sonnet – which for the first time I equated to “the old soft-shoe” [“Tea for Two”]. Everyone had a hat, and choreographed her/his own Chorus Line-style moves (arms straight out; foot-kicks). Then we got down to business with a quick-write.

Later, in third period, American Lit, my Grapes of Wrath Unit really took off (the Joads are at the government camp) as “families” comprised of 2-3 smaller reading groups met and began discussing human rights. Fur flew further than off a jack-rabbit crossin’ Route 66. Then, to complete our block period, students modeled a democratic process in decision-making about how to establish criteria for journal entries. They have selected themes and essential questions pertaining to the American Dream and Order vs. Chaos, and I was somewhat surprised at how effectively today’s all-class meeting was facilitated, and at the high standards students seemed to aim at, desiring both autonomy and skills that will help them prepare for college. Good job, AmLit!

Finally, my Pride and Prejudice sophomore class split into two groups last week, based on personal preference as to pace, and today met and demonstrated almost total engagement as they shared journal entries, collaborated on vocabulary words they selected from the reading, responded to the prior reading and worked to set future goals. It is about the first time I have seen students reach for my new dictionary and thesaurus on their own. Great things are happening 🙂

The night i first heard laura nyro

…I met a fellow traveler. I was seated at Joe’s Pub on the Lower East Side. A stranger was put at the same table, and soon we were introduced by a mutual friend. “I’ll let you all figure out what you have in common,” Louis said as he left to meet others. Ha, before the lights went down and we were all held spellbound, electrified for seventy-five minutes by theater magic, all I had learned was that David teaches.

2007 reading, Kate and Louis, One Child Born website.

As we listened to the gospel as sung by Laura Nyro, a miracle was in progress. Somehow David and I had been immersed in a process or authorship, experiential learning that honors creativity.

At the end of the performance, when we really had time to visit, it turned out that David in his teaching had been pioneering ideas about teaching and learning that will move students from ownership of their learning experience to authorship of their own learning. Music has this capacity to bring people together; theater has this charm, to gather strangers, unite them through story; both are engines of empathy, generating an experience that leads to greater understanding of others and of oneself.

The performance, featuring Laura Nyro’s songs performed adoringly, beltingly, and bluesily on the piano by Kate Ferber, is a scripted tapestry woven of original monologues by distinct characters all brought under the charm of Nyro’s music, life, and persona. It is also molded and shaped by the metanarrative of Kate’s appreciation for the music.

Louis Greenstein and Kate Ferber can’t know directly how each audience member is affected by the monologues and music that we hear and see, or through our communal theater experience. But they and the director must know that for each person brought to life on stage last night, we each supplied our own concert and place memories, recalling ourselves. Director Adrienne Campbell-Holt tutors us in a beautiful reversal that honors her former teacher, David. There is something poetic about educators being taught by past students, as exemplified in this public performance before a rapt audience.

Kate Ferber in performance

The reversal is the same one he and I look for every day in our classes, a moment where the student moves from asking the authority figure for permission to “wonder and wander”, as David Dunbar puts it in his blog entry, toward assuming authority for learning. At that point, she or he might decide to share her wondering with the whole group, and ask for help with a new idea; bring a text to the table for discussion; or propose that the best way to explore an issue is to write and perform a play about it. When it is equally possible that in the classroom the learner will be the leader, and the tutor the listener, what you have is authentic dialogue, a productive and yearned-for ambiguity. Such a dialogue seems to be carried on between the audience and the show: during the actual performance I saw it in the give and take; over the years this show has been developed it is apparent in the sequencing and the truthfulness of each section.

I think the secret to effective learning is listening: teachers who listen to students, students who listen to their own minds and worlds, and writers, directors, and performers who listen to the voices around them. Louis said he keeps tinkering with the script, and I am certain that means he wants to learn by listening to what his characters are teaching him about themselves, as well as about structure, writing. You don’t play and sing as authentically and passionately as Kate Ferber does without internalizing the songs, empathizing with the person whose story is told in each song. She has listened to those voices; she has become a conduit for them.

He and I were privileged to listen last night. We were taught; we were changed.
One Child Born: The Music of Laura Nyro

David Dunbar’s blog