new ideas???

i was just talking to someone last night about our classes and i am wondering if i ought to change directions with my t-r. my thinking for this is that i should research something i am passionate about. honestly, in april and may, i'm passionate about finishing the year and preparing my students. like the author of this week's article mentioned, i, too, really get to know my students at this time of the year and research is the absolute last thing on my mind.

here's what i was talking about with my friend for almost 3 hours yesterday (also you should know that i talk about this all the time---the problem is: is it research-able?)....i have a personal theory (that sounds even sillier on the screen here than when i tell my friends out loud) that poetry is best taught in 8th grade. here's why: i think they are not "too cool" to do the weird things i ask them, but they are just mature enough to do the weird things i ask them. next year, they will be "low man on the totem pole in high school" and obsessed with appearing cool and finding their way around their new school building to worry about trying new things in class. i am upfront and honest with the kids about this. they seem to like the theory i have of them so they try really hard to do fun and weird things, like laying under a tree to write a transcendental poem about trees or life or whatever.

also---and here's where my passion is---i teach a "special ed" class where everyone hates paper: paper is the enemy. they don't like to read what is on it and hate hate hate to put anything on it. hate hate hate it. but they do it daily for me because there are no rules for what they write (morning/daily pages). lately they even like to read them out loud and try to out-do one another. they also reeeeeally dig poetry. it, too, has no rules or right answers in my class----as long as they can explain themselves and their opinions about it. so, for instance, if they read whitman or thoreau, they can say it's about their big toe as long as they have sustantial evidence for their reading of the work. so i give them shakespeare's sonnets and e.e. cummings and kerouac and they blow----my----mind with the things they say and think and even the resource II kid (a.k.a. "gain" in our school, which is a self-contained special ed class-----usually----but the teacher is a good friend of mine and she sends me some of her kids for social reasons, usually, but when we read cummings, this kid took OVER the discussion). she corrected other kids and defended her thoughts about a short poem. and just for background knowledge, this kid used to hide in her jacket or run away any time someone even said hello to her in the hall. this is 2 years later, i understand, but she dominated the discussion. really. other kids in her resource class are autistic or have down's syndrome, etc. she is identified as "speech language"....issues talking. not the other day.

and they all did that. i heard yelling and "no...it's this way because it says this and i can imagine this in my head and i think those letters are like that and that word is on its own line because of this...." what? they read (on average) 4 years below grade level and they are tearing APART cummings and kerouac. i told them i really could only explain maybe 3-4 poems out of a packet i gave them and it was their job to tell me the rest. my "average" classes try to do this, and usually do well, but not with the passion these kids showed me the other day. towards the end of it, i thought of recording it, but it was waaay too late. i give them art to look at and they ask me to turn it 90 degrees or upside down....different way of thinking.....but these are also kids who detest abstract ideas....but they get art and poetry???

then, instead of racing out the door or somewhere else in the room at the end of class, i saw their heads in their packets as i tried to tell them one more thing before they left. i stopped mid-sentence and just shut up and watched them----all of them---even the kid who butts heads with me daily----all at-risk kids-----all of them----reading and tuning me out.

who knows? it's may. maybe they just like the change of pace from the computerized reading program (yuck) that the district purchased for them to use ad-nauseum (sp?).....i don't know...but this seems to happen every year, though i don't have much to go on as far as statistical info....maybe it's the short text they like....or knowing i don't know all the answers....or it's my own passion for the genre....who knows....but is it researchable? i could get a survey together this week and ask the kids......

my point (and there is one somewhere) is....my at-risk kids (aren't they all?) really get into poetry....they amaze me with what they say and try.....can i research why that is? or is it just something that is and isn't something to prove or anything? it's on my mind a lot and therefore something i thought i should look into further, but how? thoughts?