Get to work. Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair.
- Annie Dillard
- Annie Dillard
Reading, Writing, and as Little 'Rithing as Possible
This is the story of a boy who loved reading, and soon loved writing as well. It's the story of a boy who loved reading and writing, but found at least some of the aspects of our modern American educational systems were not supportive of his individual learning style. It's the story of a boy who fell in love with literature at many different times in his life, but ended up writing papers in English classes on the assigned books that he wasn't reading -- books that he wasn't reading because he was reading other books that weren't assigned. This is a boy who was reading Thomas Hardy and John Dos Passos in 10th grade, but found the literature classes boring and the writing assignments burdensome and unfulfilling. And what of the other students -- the other kids in my my classes who weren't sneak-reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles from underneath the desk? What about these other kids that never found out that books are still just about the best way to imagine, dream, time travel, and learn about the universe and other peoples' perceptions of it?
On the first day of English 4790, at Western Michigan University, I told the classroom of English teachers or someday-to-be English teachers that, as a teacher, I hope to help young people connect to books that they want to read. I hope to help them connect to books and other resources that help them explore their world and learn more about the topics and fields of study that interest them. I hope to help them learn to write, as well. As opposed to reading The Great Gatsby (a beautiful book, by the way) or Henry David Thoreau's Walden (one of the most thoughtful and gorgeous pieces of prose every written), they might have an interest in science, music, film, or sports -- all areas of interest for which exist an extensive body of texts and literature in a variety of different forms. There are many books outside the established cannon of Western civilization's classics that are nonetheless examples of great writing and great literature in their own right. John McPhee, for example, could write about almost anything and make it interesting and insightful, while Henry James might write about the last two minutes of an NCAA basketball championship and make it about as fun as a physics textbook.
On the first day of English 4790, at Western Michigan University, I told the classroom of English teachers or someday-to-be English teachers that, as a teacher, I hope to help young people connect to books that they want to read. I hope to help them connect to books and other resources that help them explore their world and learn more about the topics and fields of study that interest them. I hope to help them learn to write, as well. As opposed to reading The Great Gatsby (a beautiful book, by the way) or Henry David Thoreau's Walden (one of the most thoughtful and gorgeous pieces of prose every written), they might have an interest in science, music, film, or sports -- all areas of interest for which exist an extensive body of texts and literature in a variety of different forms. There are many books outside the established cannon of Western civilization's classics that are nonetheless examples of great writing and great literature in their own right. John McPhee, for example, could write about almost anything and make it interesting and insightful, while Henry James might write about the last two minutes of an NCAA basketball championship and make it about as fun as a physics textbook.
My experience writing is inextricably bound to my experience of reading.
In other words, in talking about how I learned to write, I must talk about books.
Falling in love with a book is one of my favorite experiences. I can't make it happen. It's like going to the movies. Often I'll read about a movie coming out in the upcoming months and have it in mind as something I'm excited about and looking forward to seeing. Perhaps one out of ten times it is what I hoped for or expected, and usually, I'm a bit disappointed. It's when I go to a theater or pull a movie off the library shelf, not knowing what it is -- renting it on a whim or on a vague recommendation -- that I may hold a treasure, a delight, or a surprise in my hand. Often, I don't love or totally understand the greatest movies right away – they're the ones that I quietly or subconsciously mull over and are drawn to again. The experience of them deepened since viewing them.
Children of Men was this way for me. I couldn't believe that no one had told me about this movie. Like a good book, it pulled me into its story and its world, effortlessly suspending any disbelief I might have. I also didn't know how good Chinatown was the first time I saw it. I just knew that something deep and cool had happened. I'd have to revisit it to start to examine and feel its layers.
With books, it's like the book finds you and you open it and you can't believe what you've found.
Are bibliophiles born or made? Are gardeners or supersonic jet pilots born or made?
Spud Johnson was a writer who lived much of his life in Taos, New Mexico, and died in the late 1960s. His small home was covered with various artistic renderings of horses on canvas and paper, in metal and clay. His small home was also covered with books. “Spud collects books like he collects horses,” his friend Mabel Dodge Luhan recalled in her book Winter in Taos. “He likes them for their paper, their covers, their printing, and their contents. Every extra dollar he has goes for a book, and they they are, all over his three rooms. He never buys horses - they come to him - but for books her makes sacrifices.” I love books that way. Their covers, their typeset, their weight and feel, the possibilities they suggest, and often for their content. I've often felt that the books are searching for me as much as I search for them, that they seek to be alive by being read and are looking for adoring and appreciative eyes. And their authors, as Stephen King notes in his On Writing, perform a bit of alchemy. They speak to us across sometimes vast distances of time and space. You can read Ovid's account of the great flood in his Metamophoses, join him at his desk-side, and delight with him as he discovers the images that make the flood real and beautiful and funny to him.
What books were like being surprised by a movie for me? I can't list them all. West of the Thirties: Discoveries Among the Navajo and Hopi, by Edward T. Hall. When it found me, and I opened it, I fell into a hush and curled in the lamplight with the voice of an old friend. Or Tim Dinsdale, who's Loch Ness Monster was also like meeting a best friend I never knew I had. (I later read an article about him by Henry Bauer and found that Dinsdale and I were indeed very much alike, questing romantics with a lot of different interests.) One night a long time ago I opened William Butler Yeats The Celtic Twilight. A hush fell over all the world on a late summer night, and I was spellbound by writing that seemed effortless and light, whose meanings and wonders were hidden strangely amongst and between the words as much as in them.
Or a night long ago, not far from Brookville, Indiana, my family stayed the night with friends on a return trip from Kentucky. I'd bought a Penguin edition of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles at Joseph-Beth Bookstore in Lexington. (John Irving had mentioned the book in A Prayer for Owen Meany.) I sat down in a comfortable chair and cracked its spine under winter lamplight. It had found me, and I, it. Did I breathe as I discovered his world? It was a world I'd wanted to visit without knowing my own desire. I was time traveling and falling in love and his language moved like rivers and air, like wind that ripples through green grass in May. I later somehow lost this copy, but it found me again when a friend found it in a box, my name neatly written on the inside, and returned it to me. Whenever I see this edition for sale somewhere, I buy it. I have a stack of three or four. Penguin editions have a wonderful typeface and weight. They are flexible and soft, but sturdy. Their covers are reproductions of paintings.
These are just a few of the books I love. And when I love a book, I read it again and again. Certain books call my name from the shelf. They may call for a few days or weeks, until a feeling in my gut says I'm ready to spend time with them. There's a book out there, right now, that I will fall in love with. Like when I fell in love with my wife, it'll happen when I least expect it. You can't plan to fall in love. You can't make it happen. We're not in charge of much, and certainly not the timing. The love of your life is out there, waiting to meet you. There are some books that want to be read. And there are some books that want to be written, too.
If I talk about writing, I have to first talk about reading.
In other words, in talking about how I learned to write, I must talk about books.
Falling in love with a book is one of my favorite experiences. I can't make it happen. It's like going to the movies. Often I'll read about a movie coming out in the upcoming months and have it in mind as something I'm excited about and looking forward to seeing. Perhaps one out of ten times it is what I hoped for or expected, and usually, I'm a bit disappointed. It's when I go to a theater or pull a movie off the library shelf, not knowing what it is -- renting it on a whim or on a vague recommendation -- that I may hold a treasure, a delight, or a surprise in my hand. Often, I don't love or totally understand the greatest movies right away – they're the ones that I quietly or subconsciously mull over and are drawn to again. The experience of them deepened since viewing them.
Children of Men was this way for me. I couldn't believe that no one had told me about this movie. Like a good book, it pulled me into its story and its world, effortlessly suspending any disbelief I might have. I also didn't know how good Chinatown was the first time I saw it. I just knew that something deep and cool had happened. I'd have to revisit it to start to examine and feel its layers.
With books, it's like the book finds you and you open it and you can't believe what you've found.
Are bibliophiles born or made? Are gardeners or supersonic jet pilots born or made?
Spud Johnson was a writer who lived much of his life in Taos, New Mexico, and died in the late 1960s. His small home was covered with various artistic renderings of horses on canvas and paper, in metal and clay. His small home was also covered with books. “Spud collects books like he collects horses,” his friend Mabel Dodge Luhan recalled in her book Winter in Taos. “He likes them for their paper, their covers, their printing, and their contents. Every extra dollar he has goes for a book, and they they are, all over his three rooms. He never buys horses - they come to him - but for books her makes sacrifices.” I love books that way. Their covers, their typeset, their weight and feel, the possibilities they suggest, and often for their content. I've often felt that the books are searching for me as much as I search for them, that they seek to be alive by being read and are looking for adoring and appreciative eyes. And their authors, as Stephen King notes in his On Writing, perform a bit of alchemy. They speak to us across sometimes vast distances of time and space. You can read Ovid's account of the great flood in his Metamophoses, join him at his desk-side, and delight with him as he discovers the images that make the flood real and beautiful and funny to him.
What books were like being surprised by a movie for me? I can't list them all. West of the Thirties: Discoveries Among the Navajo and Hopi, by Edward T. Hall. When it found me, and I opened it, I fell into a hush and curled in the lamplight with the voice of an old friend. Or Tim Dinsdale, who's Loch Ness Monster was also like meeting a best friend I never knew I had. (I later read an article about him by Henry Bauer and found that Dinsdale and I were indeed very much alike, questing romantics with a lot of different interests.) One night a long time ago I opened William Butler Yeats The Celtic Twilight. A hush fell over all the world on a late summer night, and I was spellbound by writing that seemed effortless and light, whose meanings and wonders were hidden strangely amongst and between the words as much as in them.
Or a night long ago, not far from Brookville, Indiana, my family stayed the night with friends on a return trip from Kentucky. I'd bought a Penguin edition of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles at Joseph-Beth Bookstore in Lexington. (John Irving had mentioned the book in A Prayer for Owen Meany.) I sat down in a comfortable chair and cracked its spine under winter lamplight. It had found me, and I, it. Did I breathe as I discovered his world? It was a world I'd wanted to visit without knowing my own desire. I was time traveling and falling in love and his language moved like rivers and air, like wind that ripples through green grass in May. I later somehow lost this copy, but it found me again when a friend found it in a box, my name neatly written on the inside, and returned it to me. Whenever I see this edition for sale somewhere, I buy it. I have a stack of three or four. Penguin editions have a wonderful typeface and weight. They are flexible and soft, but sturdy. Their covers are reproductions of paintings.
These are just a few of the books I love. And when I love a book, I read it again and again. Certain books call my name from the shelf. They may call for a few days or weeks, until a feeling in my gut says I'm ready to spend time with them. There's a book out there, right now, that I will fall in love with. Like when I fell in love with my wife, it'll happen when I least expect it. You can't plan to fall in love. You can't make it happen. We're not in charge of much, and certainly not the timing. The love of your life is out there, waiting to meet you. There are some books that want to be read. And there are some books that want to be written, too.
If I talk about writing, I have to first talk about reading.
In the fall of 1980 I was in first grade. We had mock elections in class, and Ronald Reagan swept the classroom and the school just like he did the whole country. I voted Democratic on the purply dittoed ballot because I had more sympathy for the moon-eyed donkey than I did the bold and striding elephant. I'd seen The Empire Strikes Back that summer, and I lived and breathed its imagery and mythos – in one nostril, and out the other. I read books about animals, looked for tracks in the woods near my house, and had a Wilcat brand shoebox that housed a modest collection of skulls and bones. If you asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, the little boy that was me would have told you that he wanted to be a detective or a marine biologist.
The falling and colored leaves, the early twilights that gilded into blue dusks under star-pierced cloud kingdoms – do we come into this world already knowing the tilt of the earth, the circle of seasons? The world was beautiful and mysterious to me. I stayed fine-tuned to an inner world, a nearby patch of woods, and a tree that lived there.
The falling and colored leaves, the early twilights that gilded into blue dusks under star-pierced cloud kingdoms – do we come into this world already knowing the tilt of the earth, the circle of seasons? The world was beautiful and mysterious to me. I stayed fine-tuned to an inner world, a nearby patch of woods, and a tree that lived there.
Late in my kindergarten year, not long after we moved to Michigan, I had “read” my first book. My proud parents wrote an inscription in the front of the book to leave a tiny monument to this achievement of their first-born progeny. “This is the first book Will ever read,” it reads, in my mom's looping, bouncing scrawl. “He read it at 1817 Colchester, Portage, Mich., at 9:30 pm, May 20, 1980. Daddy, mommy, Grandma and Beth heard him and were so proud.”
Actually, I don't think I was reading. I had memorized the book from my parents' many reading of it, and I knew when to turn the pages. Some rudimentary reading may have occurred. One aspect of the phenomenon of reading is that we really don't sound out a lot of the words – we recognize them whole, almost like Japanese or Chinese characters. It's one of the funny little miracles of language and writing, this mixture of phonetics and symbol recognition. The book was Hi Cat!, written and illustratedby Ezra Jack Keats. By the time we'd moved to a neighborhood near Western Michigan University the following fall, I was collecting them. I remember going to Athena Bookstore (where I would work during high school) when it was still on the corner of Lovell and Westnedge, and I remember downtown Kalamazoo Saturdays when John Rollins bookstore was on the Kalamazoo Mall, stately and cosmopolitan like a store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. I'd use my allowance money to buy an Ezra Jack Keats book in paperback. And occasionally, wonder of wonders, there'd be a new hardcover of his on the shelf. He was still putting out books! His stories and images were utterly mysterious to me, especially the imagery – disheveled and grafitti-touched urban worlds, rainy nights, and silhouetted figures – all given life by his brushed oil strokes, collage, and smeared and marbled hues. Do we find books or do they find us? I needed them, and they might just have needed me. Through Ezra Jack Keats and a handful of other children's writers, I learned to read. My dad loved children's literature, especially Maurice Sendak, and read books most nights with my sister and me. My dad worked other small miracles, one of which was to suggest that I send Ezra Jack Keats a letter. And Keats wrote back! |
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A Rockwell Kent illustration.
It would have been sometime, then, in the winter or late spring of my first grade year, that I read a book to my class.
I remember so clearly the pinnacle of this reading experience. In some form or another, I told Mrs. Sparks, my teacher, how much I loved Keats's book Goggles! Mrs. Sparks asked me if I'd like to read the book to the class. I apparently was willing. She had me sit on a chair in front of the class, just like she did during story time, and I read the book to the class. I read it. And this time it was no memorized affair. It wasn't a cocky or prideful moment, and I didn't feel all that special about it at the time. I may have even been a little shy or embarrassed about it. If it did make me feel special, it was because I loved Mrs. Sparks and would do anything for her. Long before I had any interest in girls at all, I think I was in love with Mrs. Sparks.
I remember so clearly the pinnacle of this reading experience. In some form or another, I told Mrs. Sparks, my teacher, how much I loved Keats's book Goggles! Mrs. Sparks asked me if I'd like to read the book to the class. I apparently was willing. She had me sit on a chair in front of the class, just like she did during story time, and I read the book to the class. I read it. And this time it was no memorized affair. It wasn't a cocky or prideful moment, and I didn't feel all that special about it at the time. I may have even been a little shy or embarrassed about it. If it did make me feel special, it was because I loved Mrs. Sparks and would do anything for her. Long before I had any interest in girls at all, I think I was in love with Mrs. Sparks.
We were learning to write at this time, and Mrs. Sparks used a ruler to draw three straight chalk lines on the blackboard to demonstrate the letters we were learning to write. (I later saw other teachers use a three-pronged device that allowed them to do this quicker and easier, but Mrs. Sparks style was distinctive and the lines were much straighter – a carpenter could calibrate his level on them.) We were taught a non-cursive style of writing that I recall as being called “danelian,” and I may have been among the last generation of earthlings to learn this odd little style with its umbrella handle curls that formed part of almost every letter. (A quick check of Wikipedia tells me that it’s called D’Nelian, and that it “has drawn criticism in many locations, as the addition of so-called ‘monkey tails’ to manuscript effectively adds a 'third step' to how children are instructed to write.” Monkey tails!) Somehow, from the alphabet song to writing individual letters, words are made and written language is born!
We did one project in class that I recall as being fun and engaging. We went around the desks, each student adding a sentence or item of plot development. A kid named Ryan, a 1st grade mack-daddy and humorist, started off our class's tale by giving a name to a family called the Jammers, whose signature element was that they wore pajamas much of time, each story in the series we produced ending with them putting on their jammies and going to bed. I think this worked well for the kids. There was a lot of laughter, and we were also in charge of illustrating the book with our crayons and paper and glue.
We did one project in class that I recall as being fun and engaging. We went around the desks, each student adding a sentence or item of plot development. A kid named Ryan, a 1st grade mack-daddy and humorist, started off our class's tale by giving a name to a family called the Jammers, whose signature element was that they wore pajamas much of time, each story in the series we produced ending with them putting on their jammies and going to bed. I think this worked well for the kids. There was a lot of laughter, and we were also in charge of illustrating the book with our crayons and paper and glue.
In second grade, we learned cursive writing. I recall less about writing, and more about reading. My reading must have taken off, however, as I remember working on “chapter books,” and reading books that were far more words than pictures. I was also moving steadily through the reading books and reading levels, but still wanted to be in the “highest” group with my friend Cade. One time I was reading a biography of Abraham Lincoln and asked my teacher if I could stay in my seat and finish it before when we went to the library that day, instead of joining the group for some sort of song or story time on the carpet area at the front of the class. She said that would be okay.
I also remember a telling incident. I have many fond memories of my 2nd grade teacher, but one day she was apparently feeling a lot of stress. Many of us were slow and probably talkative as we got out of our winter boots and jackets, and we took too long in getting back into the classroom after lunch and recess. For those of us she deemed to be at fault in this situation, she had sit at our tables with our heads down . A small group that consisted mostly or totally of the kids in the “highest” reading group was allowed to sit up front with her and read a story. I was not one of them, and I sat at my desk with a feeling of shame and separation. I had no idea what we had done or done wrong. I suspect that when she blew her fuse at the loud bunch of kids she unconsciously chose the kids she already viewed as capable and mature as being well-behaved, and the rest of us as being less mature and well-behaved. I don't know for sure what happened, but this is my impression. I currently work as an instructor, and I recognize this tendency to see some students as capable of doing no wrong, and they get the benefit of the doubt, while others don't get this same benefit.
3rd grade is where I remember the writing. It may well have been a natural progression from 1st and 2nd into 3rd grade, and I wonder how organized or coordinated it was. Our writing started with group work and imitation, getting more dexterous and able to form the letters and string them together into words. Our reading grew more complex, and the writing followed. I don't remember much free or non-imitative writing until 3rd grade.
In 3rd grade we had creative writing day ever Thursday. I began to look forward to this day. At the front of the room, our teacher had a flat piece of cardboard with a spinner on it. We would spin the wheel and the arrow would point to a picture of a haunted house, a Holmsian-type detective figure, a dragon, or maybe a horse or another animal. I would spin the wheel and get my topic, though I often disregarded the suggested topic and went with what I wanted to write.
At some point in recent years, it occurred to me that I was actually writing down dreams a lot of the time. I was trying to capture that type of abstract imagery and description that color our dreams at night. I remember specifically several instances of this, and it points to an interesting mainline connection between the subconscious and unconscious and creative expression. I'm sure I wasn't aware that I was doing it at the time.
Mrs. Ellis read us The Mouse and the Motorcycle in class. One of the stories I wrote for creative writing Thursday grew out of and focused on elements I loved in this book. My story, too, took place in a hotel and involved mice, and part of my fascination came from the hidden world between and behind the walls, the tunnels and holes that were part of the mice world. I stole freely from Beverly Cleary's wonderful template, and it involved the mice getting drunk of drops of wine and driving not a toy motorcycle, but teaming together to collectively operate a full-size car. One of the characters was an older, wiser mouse or rat named Woebegone. My teacher later commented on this character's name as being quite clever and ingenious, though it didn't seem special to me. It was obvious – the word had showed up in one of our reading books as a vocabulary word.
The significant thing about this story was I took it home to finish, and put quite a bit of time in to it. I moved from the grey-brown lined paper from class, to full sheets of notebook paper. I remember thinking, as I sat in my desk in the throes of creation -- "I could be a writer when I grow up."
I took the finished story back to class and read it to my class for show-and-tell. What audacity!
In 3rd grade we had creative writing day ever Thursday. I began to look forward to this day. At the front of the room, our teacher had a flat piece of cardboard with a spinner on it. We would spin the wheel and the arrow would point to a picture of a haunted house, a Holmsian-type detective figure, a dragon, or maybe a horse or another animal. I would spin the wheel and get my topic, though I often disregarded the suggested topic and went with what I wanted to write.
At some point in recent years, it occurred to me that I was actually writing down dreams a lot of the time. I was trying to capture that type of abstract imagery and description that color our dreams at night. I remember specifically several instances of this, and it points to an interesting mainline connection between the subconscious and unconscious and creative expression. I'm sure I wasn't aware that I was doing it at the time.
Mrs. Ellis read us The Mouse and the Motorcycle in class. One of the stories I wrote for creative writing Thursday grew out of and focused on elements I loved in this book. My story, too, took place in a hotel and involved mice, and part of my fascination came from the hidden world between and behind the walls, the tunnels and holes that were part of the mice world. I stole freely from Beverly Cleary's wonderful template, and it involved the mice getting drunk of drops of wine and driving not a toy motorcycle, but teaming together to collectively operate a full-size car. One of the characters was an older, wiser mouse or rat named Woebegone. My teacher later commented on this character's name as being quite clever and ingenious, though it didn't seem special to me. It was obvious – the word had showed up in one of our reading books as a vocabulary word.
The significant thing about this story was I took it home to finish, and put quite a bit of time in to it. I moved from the grey-brown lined paper from class, to full sheets of notebook paper. I remember thinking, as I sat in my desk in the throes of creation -- "I could be a writer when I grow up."
I took the finished story back to class and read it to my class for show-and-tell. What audacity!
Courtesy of the Kalamazoo Public Library Website, and the Kalamazoo Valley Museum.
Lincoln Elementary School is on Kalamazoo's north side, the predominantly African-American neighborhoods just north of the downtown area. I never noticed that it was in a poorer or different area of town. I did know that there were more African-American kids. There were more kids of all kinds and backgrounds, actually. On bathroom breaks in 6th grade I would look out the window to the skyscrapers downtown, especially beautiful on the dim and snowy winter days.
The Gibson guitar factory is a block away, but I didn't know that then. Nobody told me. Keith Richards, of the Rolling Stones, had insisted on stopping in Kalamazoo to see the Gibson factory on one of the band's trips between Detroit and Chicago. They came all the way from England and made a mini-pilgrimage to a holy shrine for guitarists, the factory where Les Pauls were made. And there it is, a block from where I went to school, the faded words “Gibson” still spelled out in shingles on an old smokestack.
Mrs. Echols was my reading teacher in 4th grade. She gave us various writing assignments that encouraged us to explore and research topics of our choosing. I handed in one of them, which I recall was a simple book I made by cutting regular typewriter paper in half, lining it up, and stapling into the shape of a book. The end product pleased me, and I ended up going home and making more of them for fun, writing one, I recall, on the Great Depression and illustrating it myself. I did a similar thing in my homeroom with Ms. Snow. She gave us options to choose from for a social studies project, and I chose a more challenging one – creating a notebook about the different regions of the U.S. I filled it with drawings and also taped and glued in postcard and magazine photos. I used a 1950s era World Book Encyclopedia for information on the states and regions and the crops and products and landscapes of these places. I remember how once I got started, I got involved in the creating and lost all track of time, happily exhausted at the end of evening's work. It still sits on my bookshelf.
The Gibson guitar factory is a block away, but I didn't know that then. Nobody told me. Keith Richards, of the Rolling Stones, had insisted on stopping in Kalamazoo to see the Gibson factory on one of the band's trips between Detroit and Chicago. They came all the way from England and made a mini-pilgrimage to a holy shrine for guitarists, the factory where Les Pauls were made. And there it is, a block from where I went to school, the faded words “Gibson” still spelled out in shingles on an old smokestack.
Mrs. Echols was my reading teacher in 4th grade. She gave us various writing assignments that encouraged us to explore and research topics of our choosing. I handed in one of them, which I recall was a simple book I made by cutting regular typewriter paper in half, lining it up, and stapling into the shape of a book. The end product pleased me, and I ended up going home and making more of them for fun, writing one, I recall, on the Great Depression and illustrating it myself. I did a similar thing in my homeroom with Ms. Snow. She gave us options to choose from for a social studies project, and I chose a more challenging one – creating a notebook about the different regions of the U.S. I filled it with drawings and also taped and glued in postcard and magazine photos. I used a 1950s era World Book Encyclopedia for information on the states and regions and the crops and products and landscapes of these places. I remember how once I got started, I got involved in the creating and lost all track of time, happily exhausted at the end of evening's work. It still sits on my bookshelf.
Where is She?
She doesn't talk in class Her eyes are empty She seems tired She stares She struggles through classwork Slowly If at all Where is she? Is she dyslexic? Embarassed that she can't read well? Ashamed that she can't get it? Is she praying? Where is she? Our teacher tries to reach her He's sitting at her side Helping her with math Or writing. Does she want to be reached? Does she want to be helped? Where is she? Is she in her mind Back at home? Is there violence? Or is the house empty? Does she eat enough? Does she live with a mom, A dad, A grandparent? Is the emptiness in her eyes Her staring into space Something I can't understand Or imagine? Where is she? Is she in Goddess school? Is she skydiving Through fields of electricity Towards the surface of a new planet? Fighting gale force winds with A megaphone and a sequined sword? Is she rescuing someone From a castle window? Where is she? Empty seat in class For three days. Is she sick? Is she crying? Is she laughing? Is she scared? Is she watching television? Where is she? Is she live in town today? Is she one of the women I see At the grocery, the library? Or in the neighborhoods? Does she live far away? Is she still alive? What is her life like today? Where is she? I don't recall her name. I have a memory of her smiling Was it in class? At lunch? At recess? What made her smile or Even laugh In my memory? Where is she? What was she doing Or thinking When she smiled? Mr. Hansen was unlike any teacher I've had before or since. There's going to be a day when I listen to a Mannheim Steamroller album and it will take me back to that classroom, reading the Hardy Boys or a coffee-table size book he had on spies and espionage. Most days after we got back from lunch he'd put on music and we'd have a quiet reading time where we read books of our choice. At one point he talked to me, and, I believe, my folks, about my limited reading in the Hardy Boy's realm. It was a nudge I heard and acted upon, but I also expressed to him the time-traveling and mysterious world the books took me to. Mr. Hansen also gave talks that showed me that there were ways to think outside the box. Our seats were set up on two sides facing each other, with an aisle down the middle, and there were no assigned seats - all of this was different than any other classroom I'd ever been in. We stored our belongings in what he called “cubes,” box style spaces of criss-crossing shelving units that might be called cubicles or mailboxes. This resulted in us not keeping our stuff in any particular desk, and while we had habitual places we chose to sit, we also moved and changed around as we desired. It seem to recall that there were times when he urged us to move and relocate. He also gave these talks, where he moved our thinking in new directions. “This is it!” he would shout. He'd jump forward on the wooden floor. “Now this is it!” “Now this is it!” he would shout again. “Do you get what I'm saying? There is only here, only now. This is it.” He would urge us to claim our power. Be powerful. Make powerful choices. One of the things that really stuck with me was his exhortation for us “to make your own work.” I didn't know what he meant by this at first, but I came to understand that he meant for us to pursue our own interests and projects. Some meaning of what he said came to me beyond his words, and much of this way of thinking has been a part of how I think ever since. Mr. Hansen also read to the class, and these were engaging and powerful experiences. He read My Side of the Mountain and several others. We were thrilled by Beowulf: A New Telling. I think he read Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, as well. But when he read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor we were spellbound. We were looking forward every day to what happened next. The African-American kids in class were asking questions about the violence and the lynchings. Did that really happen? Was it really like that? Yup. We were utterly spellbound by that book. It opened doors to new worlds for us. |
The thing I recall most and most often about Lincoln School was Mr. Hansen. Not a week goes by when I don't think of him in some way. He was one of those teachers who gained some notoriety and legendary status, to the point where kids requested him or parents requested their kids be put in his class. I remember hearing from my folks, after they'd returned from a parent teacher conference, that all this notoriety bothered him. He liked best to work with challenged kids, kids who needed lots of support and help getting some basic skills and tools under their belt.
I remember many of the African-American kids in his class, and how there was definitely a socioeconomic or racial divide. Most of the African-American kids didn't participate much. There was Jermaine who was unreachable most of the time. He sat staring into space and mulled over whatever classwork lay before him the way a kid will poke around at a dinner plate containing spinach, lima beans, broccoli, and asparagus. “I know this stuff's good for me, but do I have to eat it?” he seemed to say. He usually chose not to eat at all. Jermaine would engage with some of his peers, peppering his days with a laugh and a smile or an aside, but otherwise qithdrawing back beind his screen, unresponsive. There was Billie who didn't do much class work either. He'd look at picture books during reading time and break into uncontrollable, wheezing laughter that ended him up on the floor, amusing us all and interrupting quiet reading. He might have tried a little more than Jermaine, and he certainly found ways to entertain himself, but he, too, often receded into quiet or sullenness. There was a girl, too, thin and quiet like she wanted to disappear. I don't recall her name. Was it Doris? She made Jermaine look outgoing. This poem (at left) is for her, but it might be about all the kids who attend class in body, but may not be there in mind or spirit. Where were they? Where are they today? The white kids, or, I should say, the kids from the other side of the socioeconomic, metaphoric, and very real train tracks, were engaged and did their work for the most part. There was Sean, who I remember piercing his ear with a safety pin over the course of several painful hours. He wore a stud after that. He liked hanging out with the black kids and seemed to want to absorb their ways. There was Marcus, slight and thin and intellectual, who sat like a tiny sidekick next to Mark, a giant of a kid. There was Becky, on whom I had my first heavy-duty industrial 18-carat crush. There was Amy, a driven and focused student. There was Michelle, who shared my fondness for Hardy Boys mysteries, and Kristen, who looked and dressed like the girl bassist in a girl band -- like Wendy or Lisa from Prince's band. I think she might have been someone that Doris connected to and talked with. There was Bryan, who drew pictures every chance he got, using his pencil like shades and colors of oil paints. He was heavy into Voltron - robot defender of the universe. There was me, doing my thing, reading and dreaming, hanging out with Bryan and Marcus. I remember asking one friend at Lincoln, Yorgo, what he wanted to be when he grew up. "A C.I.A. agent," he said, and he meant it. I wanted to be a detective. Mr. Hansen had a class full of kids -- each of us with our own little worlds, and struggles of varying shapes and flavors. I can look back now, add a few things I learned about these classmates later in our academic careers, and recall my own journeys, and know that it wasn't easy for anybody in a lot of ways. But I can also see that most of the kids who were engaged and involved in class came from more stable homes where there are different types of support for school and other activities, and where a value is put on education and literacy. It might be as simple as how present a parent is in their child's life, and this can be tied to income, number of parents or adults in the home, or how much supervision and guidance there is compared to how much a child is left to their own devices. In my early 20s, I traveled in the American west, hitchhiking and traveling, and I caught I ride with two young men, barely out of their teens, who ended up ditching me and driving off with my backpack. As I've reflected on what they told me and how they acted and what they believed in, I've come to a theory that there was no one in their lives who believed in them. There was no one who stated verbally, or otherwise: I believe in you. I believe in who you are and what you are choosing to do. You've told me what you are interested in and care about, and I support you and believe in you. You're interested in soccer, history, and the Beatles -- let's see what we can do about that. Much of this belief in and support of a child is expressed less as word or a statement, and more as action and an unstated presence. I guess you could call this simply being involved in a child's life. Many of us take this for granted and never question its presence. It seems as natural and normal as rain, or birds in the sky. Then there are the things I can take for granted as a person from the middle or upper middle class. We were not rich but the paychecks were steady and more than enough. We went on vacations. A healthy supply of food and clothing were the norm. Shelter was never at issue. Even today, I know that my folks and my family "got my back." There are many who have never had that assurance or safety net. There's the story about the fish who's swimming along and another fish swims by and says "Howdy, Bill. How's the water feeling?" "Water?" Bill said to himself. "What's that? What's he talking about?" In other words, we don't see the obvious things around us because they're always there. I take for granted, too, the literacy of my parents. Both my folks read and write. They both have worked as professional editors and writers. The apple doesn't fall from the tree. And there were always books around the house. I saw my folks reading books and newspapers. I don't remember them encouraging me to read, but between stops at bookstores and the library, I ended up viewing books as normal things and the normal place to go for stories or information. It's easy to not see the water I was swimming in. |
There was so much I read during those elementary and upper elementary years. The Great Brain series is still a favorite. On rainy dues, sick days, sad days -- I grab one of the books from that series and go "home." I absolutely love the storytelling. Sid Fleischman's Chancy and the Grand Rascal is a "kid's" book I return to, as well. I've been reading it aloud with my wife. Eleanor Estes helped me time travel to a small town in Connecticut during the first World War with The Moffats. Another of her books is The Alley, and I didn't read it until my early 20s. It gives the truest sense of childhood I've ever encountered in a book. And it's a mystery, to boot! I can't count how many times I read these books and others.
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Does Nancie Atwell choose junior high as a focus period because it is a time in life when all the disparate skills congeal and a certain level of writing is possible? It may just be where she ended up. I can see the joy in writing I had as early as 3rd grade, and I remember brief essay type work in other classes. It wasn't until junior high, which back then was 7th and 8th grade before the advent of middle schools, that I remember being launched into writing papers of the research and thesis statement variety.
It's a mad rush to adulthood. Childhood, it seems, is not meant to be lived. It's often treated as a preparation for when "real" life begins. The product seems to hold precedent over process. The unspoken rule is to cram in the tools that will make adult life and “success” possible. Thus, from junior high on, it was the organized research paper. Occasionally fun to research, but a boring task to write. I think teachers must have felt the pressure to do this, or else they were doing what had been handed on to them. It wasn't until I read Nancie Atwell's Teaching In the Middle that deep questions were answered for me. I have felt some trepidation about going into teaching as a career. I feel I am being called, but I wondered why I would willingly walk into a high school again – a place where I was distinctly bored and uncomfortable much of the time.
Imagine, as Atwell suggests, a learning environment where some serious play goes on. Students explore reading based on choices, or choices guided by a supportive and freedom-oriented teacher. Imagine exploring a variety of styles, approaches, voices, and genres. The three poems I have written in the last week based on Linda Christensen's models have been more enjoyable and instructive about the process of writing than most of the papers I wrote – and is it Nancy Atwell, or some of her peers in the collection Adolescent Literacy that points out that the five paragraph does not exist in the real world?! Once again, the focus is on product, not process.
I had many teachers that touched me and inspired me in different ways, many of the devoted and well-meaning. Madame La Belle was a wonderful French teacher. She taught from a place of respecting the intelligence of the student. Mrs. Foghino was a joy – so youthful at heart herself that connecting with 7th and 8th graders was easy and real for her. She respected individual creativity, and that creativity is given to all people, not just the "creative" ones. Mrs. Cook taught an engaging 9th grade English. And Mr. Todd was a passionate AP English teacher. One of my best friends at the time has said that Mr. Todd taught him how to write, and superbly prepared him for college level writing.
My own story in this area is indicative of something else, however. I have come to understand that I'm of the ADD school – the much diagnosed attention deficit disorder, which was not diagnosed so much 20 years ago. (I recently heard of a kindergartner being stickered with this label! He's just learning to learn, coming from a world of play into one of structure. Give him a break. He's an intelligent and imaginative 6-year-old. College prep courses can wait!) I looked forward to AP English for several years leading up to my senior year, hoping that this might be the class that I really enjoyed. And I did in many ways. But I read very few of the assigned texts, but wrote papers on them all and probably pulled off an A grade. Why did I not read the assigned books? I was reading what I wanted to read and doing so all the time. And I was writing in a journal compulsively, wanting to get down the flavors and events of my days.
There is a part of me that can be resentful, rebellious, and lazy. I will choose my own way over someone else's, and I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it. I take responsibility for this. But I also recognize a voice deep down that, especially in AP English or my college classes, “What's wrong with me that I don't like doing this?”
There has been much more talk in recent years about learning styles. I wonder how many students fall through the cracks because of this? In one sense, I was lucky, in that a verbal and visual representaion, like a book, really worked for me. If I read something, I could remember it, and even see it on the page in my mind like a visual representation of information. But what about the students who learn by doing? Learn by seeing? Who learn by interacting, sharing with or even teaching others? Do they wonder what's wrong with them that they can't fit this model, mold, or curriculum?
Nancie Atwell's, and other revisionist approaches, allow for the student to guide more of their own process. Very few, if any, of my secondary level classes allowed for discussion in small groups, sharing ideas and writing, or interacting in social ways. Once again, I don't view this as the fault of teachers as much as of an old system of traditions and rules that were never challenged or questioned. One of the biggest of these assumptions is that students and young people are empty vessels waiting to be filled, as though they do not have a dynamic sense of themselves and their world.
I am left to ponder how my writing – and life – might have benefited from writing workshops, writing in different genres, and choice in reading in an academic setting. I wish we'd sat in my classes, sharing our writing in a circle or in small groups with each other. My writing today would benefit from these things. Unconsciously, I learned that writing was geeky and nerdy, something secret that should not be shared.
The film Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a comedy, of course. And comedy is about hyperbole and exaggeration, like this scene from early in the film. It's not too off the mark in a lot of ways. I was a student who tried to stay engaged and attentive, and believed in putting forth effort and, well, getting a good grade. I didn't try too hard in math and science classes, and felt sort of proud when I got a D in physics (no fault of Mr. Nevin's, who was super-cool and apparently took pity on me and passed me for showing up.) But what about all the other kids who don't care and don't want to be there? If anything, this clip is an exaggerated version of the teaching style that we're hoping goes the way of the dodo bird. I think of these two clips as an illustration of the "education" that didn't work for Ferris, and then, the kind of education that did. I consider John Hughes one of my spiritual god fathers. This second clip shows why. Hughes grew up in Chicago and spent a lot of time at the Art Institute, which he considered a sort of spiritual home. This clip can get me all choked up. His taste in music, while not always the best, is splendid for this clip - the Dream Academy's instrumental cover of the Smiths's Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want. The Smiths's sublime original wasn't even on an album - it was a b-side. That's how great they are.It would be fun to use this movie to teach narrative and convention -- how Hughes knows all the conventions of comedy and horror and drama. By knowing them and loving them, he can warp them, shape them, exaggerate them, and bend them, playing with them like a cat plays with a ball of yarn. John Hughes -- Rest In Peace -- 1950 - 2009 Finally, here's my version, using books I love and some imagery I've filmed in the last few years. It's wobbly and a bit nauseating because I filmed it with a wee little Fuji snap-shot style camera's video capability. No tripods involved!!! It's amazing what you can do in about an hour with iMovie. Starring: Helen, Tom T. Terrific, snow, and Lake Superior. |
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How did I learn to write, then? In a big sense I think I learned to write by reading. Stephen King says there is no rule for when to start a new paragraph. By reading and writing and understanding intuitively how it might apply to different styles, the writer just knows when to start a new paragraph.
Often it can be short and clipped, a visual and rhythmic cue and clue, breath or break, that offers its own meaning and meta-punctuated sensibilty.
Paragraphs can be used in short bursts to make points, or lists.
What I mean is that learning to write is an intuitive process, one that performs a dance of theft and borrowing and imitation and mimicry, out of which we just might find our own vocabulary, rhythm, and cadence.
I learned a lot by reading.
And rereading.
There are many books that I reread. I return to them often, reading samples monthly, or diving into the whole book yearly, or when they call to me and keep yelling my name until I have to respond to them. They change because I change. They take on new colors and dimensions because I have. I marvel at their syntax and style as I find new outlets for my own syntax and style. Sometimes it is the rhythm of the words. Or how a writer says something that I long to hear again. I have relationships with books.
Behind the scenes, outside of school, I was writing. In 5th grade I put out a few issues of a family newspaper. In 3rd grade I was reading local history and wrote a summary of the early trains in Kalamazoo. I think I must have done more writing than I remember. By 9th and 10th grade I was writing the pained, melancholy, passionate, and excited journals that anyone who writes at that age is bound to write. This journaling went on and off for years and still does. I discover things by writing. I figure things out. I find perspective and gratitude. At one point, I did a lot of guided spiritual writing and it was utterly transformative. Something powerful happens when we engage our writing selves and writing voices -- we connect with some language core that helps us see the world differently. Once we have written our truth, it is that much easier to bring that truth from the depths to the surface of our life.
A funny thing I remember – I could mimic style without even trying. I spun out newspaper parodies with little effort. One I wrote for my boss at a bookstore where I worked. He was into philanthropy, so I wrote a parodied newspaper story about him opening a literary theme park where kids got off a rollercoaster ride called “Oliver's Twist,” and said, “That was awesome! I gotta read that book. What amazes me was the ease with which I could mimic that style. A year or so later I was writing profiles of visiting authors for The Michigan Daily, the University of Michigan student newspaper. On a university campus of 30,000 or so students, I was the only one who wanted the literary beat. I interviewed by phone and later met Richard Rodriguez (who was incredibly kind and patient and personable) and Annie Dillard (same). I talked to Garrison Keillor by telephone, as well. He got a little irritated when I asked him if the whole Minnesota thing was schtick. I didn't know much about his radio show then. I once sat with other journalists at a table presided over by Czeslaw Milosz, who had been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1980.
(I just found an article this week in The New Yorker [June 6, 2011] that quotes an anonymous Professor X and his opinions based on years of teaching in higher education. "I have come to think," he writes, "that the two most crucial ingredients in the mysterious mix that makes a good writer may be 1) having read enough throughout a lifetime to have internalized the rhythms of the written word, and 2) refining the ability to mimic those rhythms." Another reason to get kids reading -- and as Atwell says, the best way to get kids reading is to let them choose more of the books they want to read. Stephen King, by the way, says the same thing in On Writing. Want to be a writer? Read and write a lot.)
I labored and crafted the 10 or 15 articles I wrote for the paper, but it was easy in a way that I find shocking now. Structured writing like that, in recent years, seems much more challenging. The nasty habit of perfectionism had not entrenched itself like it has today. Then, there's that mystery of what we do with such ease in our younger years. . . you don't know what you have until it's gone, or at least out of practice. I didn't know how cool it was to be interviewing these writers – well, I did and I didn't. I was 20 years old, feet planted firmly on the ground, my head in outer space.
Any reader of this autoethnography can see that I love reading and writing.
But what of the kids that aren't compulsivley self-motivated, sneak-reading 1919 or Look Homeward, Angel in 2nd hour U.S. Government after hastily answering a bunch of pointless questions from the text book, handing in the questions, and getting back to my book? What of the kids who aren't motivated at all, and have little support or resources at home to achieve literacy in a variety of mediums?
As teachers, how do we share with them they joys of reading and having relationships with books and other forms of writing? How do we guide them onto the open seas of exploration and discovery that writing can be? How do we get them at least writing? Are the classrooms and workshops described by Nancie Atwell and Linda Christensen just too unrealistic for most school teachers and most schools or school systems?
Often it can be short and clipped, a visual and rhythmic cue and clue, breath or break, that offers its own meaning and meta-punctuated sensibilty.
Paragraphs can be used in short bursts to make points, or lists.
What I mean is that learning to write is an intuitive process, one that performs a dance of theft and borrowing and imitation and mimicry, out of which we just might find our own vocabulary, rhythm, and cadence.
I learned a lot by reading.
And rereading.
There are many books that I reread. I return to them often, reading samples monthly, or diving into the whole book yearly, or when they call to me and keep yelling my name until I have to respond to them. They change because I change. They take on new colors and dimensions because I have. I marvel at their syntax and style as I find new outlets for my own syntax and style. Sometimes it is the rhythm of the words. Or how a writer says something that I long to hear again. I have relationships with books.
Behind the scenes, outside of school, I was writing. In 5th grade I put out a few issues of a family newspaper. In 3rd grade I was reading local history and wrote a summary of the early trains in Kalamazoo. I think I must have done more writing than I remember. By 9th and 10th grade I was writing the pained, melancholy, passionate, and excited journals that anyone who writes at that age is bound to write. This journaling went on and off for years and still does. I discover things by writing. I figure things out. I find perspective and gratitude. At one point, I did a lot of guided spiritual writing and it was utterly transformative. Something powerful happens when we engage our writing selves and writing voices -- we connect with some language core that helps us see the world differently. Once we have written our truth, it is that much easier to bring that truth from the depths to the surface of our life.
A funny thing I remember – I could mimic style without even trying. I spun out newspaper parodies with little effort. One I wrote for my boss at a bookstore where I worked. He was into philanthropy, so I wrote a parodied newspaper story about him opening a literary theme park where kids got off a rollercoaster ride called “Oliver's Twist,” and said, “That was awesome! I gotta read that book. What amazes me was the ease with which I could mimic that style. A year or so later I was writing profiles of visiting authors for The Michigan Daily, the University of Michigan student newspaper. On a university campus of 30,000 or so students, I was the only one who wanted the literary beat. I interviewed by phone and later met Richard Rodriguez (who was incredibly kind and patient and personable) and Annie Dillard (same). I talked to Garrison Keillor by telephone, as well. He got a little irritated when I asked him if the whole Minnesota thing was schtick. I didn't know much about his radio show then. I once sat with other journalists at a table presided over by Czeslaw Milosz, who had been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1980.
(I just found an article this week in The New Yorker [June 6, 2011] that quotes an anonymous Professor X and his opinions based on years of teaching in higher education. "I have come to think," he writes, "that the two most crucial ingredients in the mysterious mix that makes a good writer may be 1) having read enough throughout a lifetime to have internalized the rhythms of the written word, and 2) refining the ability to mimic those rhythms." Another reason to get kids reading -- and as Atwell says, the best way to get kids reading is to let them choose more of the books they want to read. Stephen King, by the way, says the same thing in On Writing. Want to be a writer? Read and write a lot.)
I labored and crafted the 10 or 15 articles I wrote for the paper, but it was easy in a way that I find shocking now. Structured writing like that, in recent years, seems much more challenging. The nasty habit of perfectionism had not entrenched itself like it has today. Then, there's that mystery of what we do with such ease in our younger years. . . you don't know what you have until it's gone, or at least out of practice. I didn't know how cool it was to be interviewing these writers – well, I did and I didn't. I was 20 years old, feet planted firmly on the ground, my head in outer space.
Any reader of this autoethnography can see that I love reading and writing.
But what of the kids that aren't compulsivley self-motivated, sneak-reading 1919 or Look Homeward, Angel in 2nd hour U.S. Government after hastily answering a bunch of pointless questions from the text book, handing in the questions, and getting back to my book? What of the kids who aren't motivated at all, and have little support or resources at home to achieve literacy in a variety of mediums?
As teachers, how do we share with them they joys of reading and having relationships with books and other forms of writing? How do we guide them onto the open seas of exploration and discovery that writing can be? How do we get them at least writing? Are the classrooms and workshops described by Nancie Atwell and Linda Christensen just too unrealistic for most school teachers and most schools or school systems?
One of the things that is calling me to teaching is a desire to share my passion for reading and writing with kids, especially those who are not on familiar terms with them. The way these skills have been traditionally taught, they come off to students as something separate and divorced from their lives and their experience. In my opinion, all good writing is a form of storytelling, and along with music and dance, storytelling is basic to our humanity. To paraphrase Joseph Campbell, stories and myths are how we confirm meaning in our lives and sanctify the journey. Writing is a way to connect with this, and writing, as Atwell and Christensen and so many other writers affirm, is not an act of recording what we already know. It is thinking. It is discovery. It is creation. It is exploration. What fun is writing a story if we already know how it ends? Surely, writing is an act of creation. We can discover things by writing that we can find in no other way.
I want to let students choose what they want to read. We'll read some things together, but I imagine trips to the library where they learn to find books and resoures for topics and stories that interest them. We will read together in class. We will write together in class. I want to guide them through different genres of writing. I want to let them enjoy the process, without focus on the product -- they won't need to hand in all their writing. They can see which of their own pieces inspire them towards revision and sharing, even publication. I want them to look at books, music, movies, and other narrative forms that tell stories. They may not have realized that the TV shows, magazines,movies, music, and other art forms that they love are based in writing and narrative. They may not know that there are books and writing on every subject imaginable. They may not know that there are writers from backgrounds similar to theirs, with experiences like their own, who have created books and narratives that reflect a variety of human heritages. They may not have found or been shown that writing is a key to many doors. They may not yet know that stories are important - may be the most important thing - to who we are, to sustaining and breathing meaning into our lives. They may not yet know that they have stories and perspectives that are real and important and worth sharing. They may not know that they have a voice, and that voices are beautiful. They may not know that voices don't come from a particular country or city, and don't come in any particular color or ability, or that voices don't have to have money to sing. They may not yet know that voices and stories -- even their own -- are engaged in the work of changing the world. The envelope I received from Ezra Jack Keats, back in 1982 or so, contained a sort of form letter where he responded to various questions. "Tell me, Ezra, when did you first start to paint?" one of the questions asked. "I think I started when I was about four years old. I really dedicateed myself to what I did, avidly and lovingly. I drew on and colored everything that came across my path, with the indulgent approval of my mother. I lived in a very, very tough section of Brooklyn, in an old, beat-up tenement, and drawing was really a rather hazardous pursuit. I remember being intercepted once by some tough older neighborhood boys when I was about eight. I had a painting of mine under my arm. They closed in and pulled it out of my hands -- I was really scared -- and then a very strange thing happened. When they learned that I had done the painting, they began to treat me with great respect. From then on, when they'd see me, I'd be greeted with 'Hi, Doc!,' and I discovered that there was a place for me in my piece of the world." "What is the first thing you remember painting?" queried another. "I taught myself to paint, using any kind of material I could find. Once I got some paint -- just a few colors, two of which were blue and white -- and I covered a board with my blue paint. I dipped my brush into the white paint and dabbed it onto the board, shook the brush a little and let it trail off. I stepped back and got the greatest thrill I can remember. I saw a little cloud floating across a blue sky. It was very real to me, and I'll always remember it. What a tremednous feeling of gratification, to have created something like this! Even today, when I look up and see a tiny cloud floating across the sky with little wispy ends trailing off, I think of that time." I hope to learn with my students. They are fellow writers. I hope to guide them towards this thrill of creation, of finding "a place for me in my piece of the world." I hope to be one of the teachers who support them and help them start on the journey of discovery, finding their voice and voices, in whatever form of writing or music or art or expression that calls them. As Ezra Jack Keats wrote to me at the top of the form letter - "Best Wishes." |
If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. - Toni Morrison |