so. this week i'm supposed to tell you what i did in the hopes of furthering my question. well, i guess i've taken a closer look at what the heck i actually DO. this is what i have so far. tell me if there's something missing or if this is not at all what is helpful to someone at our conference.
for poetry in the 3rd quarter, i begin convincing the kids that they can do poetry during the first week of school with a little creative writing, most of which i have shamelessly stolen from hundreds of unsuspecting colleagues over the course of several years. nice. the kids do all sorts of writing about themselves and what they think about things for about 1-2 weeks. already, having no rules upsets many of them. when drawing something, they panic and blurt out random things like, "what does it have to look like? what color? which way should my paper go? can i color it in?" these are poetry questions pretending to be writing questions. a poetry question would sound like, "how many comments do you want me to make in the margins? how many metaphors should there be? does it have to rhyme? (gag)" and the ever dreaded, "what is this poem about?" YOU TELL ME! already so much panic all over the place. so i guess i start off with the kind of abstract thinking required 3-4 months down the road right off the bat. (it's also kind of fun to freak them out with no rules about writing....fun to see their faces try to figure out what you secretly MEAN by that.....hahahahahahaha!). sorry. obviously, it's been a long day.
so throughout the year, we vote on answers as a class tries to agree on the climax of a story/movie, we debate about censorship, we write a lot of weirdo abstract daily pages and about art, we yell, we draw, sometimes we sit and take notes (yucky, but reality), we move around a bit here and there and eventually, magically, thinking happens. boundaries are formed (redirecting what is appropriate banter in a debate might sound like, "ok. no. you can't call him stupid an ugly and throw a pen at him just because he thinks censorship is a good idea. that's a no. try this......")
i don't know how it happens. i think i may have to really pour over some lesson plans (sticky notes and lists all over the place) to see what we're doing cognitively. this year, since we're kind of required to use curriculum maps, some of this is set for us, so i'm supposed to be covering certain things in preparation for poetry during 3rd quarter. maybe i'll look those maps over. maybe i'll just ask some kids....though it might be too late for the conference to direct my questions at poetry in isolation....maybe i'll just ask about the pace, set up, and expectations of the class in terms of the things we read and do and write about in here? interest poll?
not very detailed, i'm afraid. but, there is some direction in terms of reviewing past lessons, calendars, and notes i've taken over the last few years to see what exactly prepares some of the kids to think for themselves in poetry settings. overall, i try to brainwash them into believing they know a lot and ought to use it and use it often....i may have to think more about how that happens. it's just something i always do, i think. this is a good metacognition activity! (so, now it's been a long day AND i'm having a irreversible nerd moment. sorry.)
any suggestions? what would be helpful if YOU were sitting in my session (good luck there! ha!)....? what kinds of things are helpful? should i include all the crazy data, data, data i pour over to see where the kids are with reading and writing, etc., sort of? hmmmmmmm........
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Steph, although I can't answer the 'sitting in the presentation' question - other than to say that you...alone...are highly entertaining so that would be worth their time right there :), but what you're talking about strikes me as an experience I've had myself several times. I think, just maybe, the reason you connect with the skills kids is because you believe in your heart that there are no "right" answers, just questions to face. I can't tell you the number of times some of my "best" kids, you know the straight A students, would get frustrated in my class. They'd get frustrated BECAUSE there were no right answers. They would whine and lament and beg me to "just TELL me what you want me to do." They had trouble with the idea that what I wanted them to do, was NOT what I wanted them to do but what they wanted to do (okay, now it become blatantly clear WHY I'm not an English teacher). The skills kids already feel they can't reach what you want so that barrier is not there for them. This dynamic carries all the way through I can tell you. Some of my most frustrated college students are the honors students. Lack of structure is a scary place - but maybe the skills kids live in that scary place all the time so it's no big deal to them. I'd be interested in a companion exploration of how your teaching style changes the high-achieving students as well as the skills kiddos. Hmmmm, by George I think you've made me think about my thinking -- metacognition and I've not even had my morning coffee!
So I always think that the really cool thing about data is collecting it. I love seeing those stacks accumulate like proof that I am actually doing something.
And the really scary thing about collecting data is that you can turn it into a never-ending process. It multiplies like baby rabbits (though sometimes I leave the stacks alone so long that mine turns into dust bunnies), and I get overwhelmed and lose my enthusiasm for the research. When that happens, procrastination is my new best friend. Then comes self-loathing...and, well, you get the picture.
I breathed a sigh of relief a couple of years ago, though, when I read a big-time researcher (Anne Haas Dyson) sort of "come clean" and reveal in her book _On the Case_ that she doesn't use every single piece of data she collects. When she transcribes discussions, for instance, she doesn't transcribe every word; instead, she listens to her tapes enough times that she gets a sense of what the really significant passages are in terms of her research questions, and she only transcribes those excerpts. So ever since then, I've been using that same process as I review my data because it pares things down to make the process of organization and analysis far more manageable.
So as you're going back through all the stuff you've got so far, do you have a sense of what's really important as far as your research questions are concerned?
Hello!
Sorry to have been gone for all of your posts, but I must admit to being highly entertained in my almost sleep induced coma at 10:20pm!
You're so on task! Good observations and thought provoking questions. I'm still curious what you do though. What pieces of poetry do you begin with? What does explication look like to you? How do you get kids to think about the poetry? What background information do you give them?
From there, what do you have them do? Write their own poetry? Find poetry? How much music to you bring in? Do you look at lyrics?
I think you'll reach a broader audience if you show how these kinds of activities [the what you do part] can help all kids access poetry. Heck, poetry is on CSAP. [I know, the bad word, but it is!]
I also think you need to help teachers get over the difficulty of poetry. You made me do that with the House on Mango Street poems. Understanding the poetry really isn't as hard as I thought it would be, but I needed to be pushed into using it. I also let go the idea that there was one right answer. Only an interpretation.
BTW, I loooooooooove the poems you have paired with House on Mango Street. They are amazing, and the kids get it. Stuff I didn't think I would get, I'm getting because they are getting it. I'm totally pretending that I get it, but then they get it and then I go "Ohh, now I get it!"
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