Eduholic

This Memorial Day weekend, my family went to a Pow-wow hosted by the Upper Mattaponi tribe of King William, Virginia. There I gave away a boat and got a gift I will never forget.

Readers of this blog may recall that I met tribal leader Ben Adams at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival last summer when a dugout canoe my tenth graders made at Mount Vernon with the help of the Alexandria Seaport Foundation was on display near John Smith’s shallop. Ben offered the canoe a permanent home at the Sharon Indian School, Virginia’s oldest Native school and now an education center for his tribe. This Memorial Day weekend, we made it official.

Pow-wow’s are big Indian parties. A sacred circle fifty yards or so in diameter is the center of the action. Drums and chants accompany ceremonial dancing, performed by members of local tribes in their finest regalia. The comfortable patter of an MC identifies dancers and welcomes visitors. Some folks set up lawn chairs around the circle; others stroll amidst a ring of tents looking at crafts.

This particular Pow-wow was the Upper Mattaponi’s 21st annual. (With the Pamunkey, Monacan, and Chickahominy, they’re among eight recognized Virginia tribes.) It was held on a patch of tribal land off a sleepy Virginia road twenty miles west of Kings Dominion. Cars parked on the grass like at a fairgrounds; a game of wiffle ball was going near a flagpole.

As we entered, my three-year old son, who has worn grooves in his Davey Crockett DVD, was beside himself. “Are you a real Indian?” he asked the first man in regalia we met. Fortunately, it was our host. Ben wore a full feathered headdress, supple buckskin, and brandished a medicine stick tipped with a hawk’s talon.

Other men sported Mohawks, face paint, or bright fabrics, depending on their tribe and personality. In the circle, their movements ranged from the traditional shuffle step to pantomime stalking to a wounded careening. Women wore fringed, beaded dresses and danced with fluid stillness, their eyes cast down demurely.

After the opening ceremonies, Ben ushered me and the boys to the mic, where he made a gracious statement of thanks. “This canoe,” he told the crowd, “will be a part of many Upper Mattaponi Pow-wow’s for years to come and it has a home on our tribal land.”

He asked me to say a few words. I talked about the provenance of the log from which the canoe was made (a tulip poplar from nearby Warrenton, born in 1891 according to a USGS tree ring analysis). And I shared a question that inspires me as an educator: How can kids hold learning in their hands?

Then, Ben took the mic and said that the tribe wanted to express its thanks for the canoe. I expected a t-shirt or a plaque. Instead, he walked to join a line of a dozen men and women who stood facing us near the center of the circle.

With a keening wail a group of drummers began their song, and then came a gentle, beautiful dance, which featured a gesture that looked as if seed was being sewn on the ground before the dancers. For a few minutes, we were transfixed-- even my three-year old, clutching a toy tomahawk.

This was a welcome dance, Ben told me, the same one they’d performed for the Queen of England herself on the steps of Virginia’s capital when she visited around the time of Jamestown’s 400th. My only regret was that Elysha, one of my students who braved the traffic on 95 with her family, arrived too late to experience this honor.

Beyond the sacred circle, the log canoe rested in an “Indian village” with a long house, a funnel-shaped fish basket, and a smoking fire over which dangled a deer shoulder. An education day was part of the festival, to pass on culture to the youth of the tribe. Laminated posters our TJ kids made when building the canoe were tacked up nearby.

My wife struck up conversation with a high school age girl named Morgan, who it turned out was a cousin of Ben’s. She is going to William & Mary next year on a full scholarship. Standing near the recreated home of her woodland ancestors complete with dugout, it was clear that in preserving their heritage, the Upper Mattaponi were equipped to travel forward into the 21st century.

Posted by Emmet Rosenfeld at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I predict there will be at least 38 comments on this post. My kids do their homework, that much I know. I’m not so sure they all freewrite right. I take some of the blame; I’m not sure I’ve peeled back my skull enough in using this technique in class so as to make them understand just how undisciplined and generative the technique can be.

Regular readers of this blog will know that one of my favorite teacher tricks is the “quick write.” I use it when we are discussing or doing or watching something. At a certain point, instead of calling out questions to the group—a practice which generally results in a meaty conversation between me and ten percent of the students in the room—I ask kids to write their thoughts in their ever-handy writer’s notebook. What generally follows is a three- or ten- or eighteen- minute burst of intense silence, as every student scribbles out loud in his or her marble comp book.

I write, too. If I were to start puttering with papers or, even worse, walk around like a warden peering over their shoulders, I would be undermining the effectiveness of the freewrite. By writing intently, I send the message that this is thinking time for all of us. And it is. I usually have so many ideas after engaging in a class discussion that I can’t wait to make sense of them on paper.

My enthusiasm may be part of the problem. Every now and then I look up and notice with surprise that someone is twirling her pencil, or staring off into space. Why aren’t they madly scribbling, I wonder, generally before ducking my head back down to my own notebook page to keep up with a pen that hasn’t stopped moving.

One reason some stop writing, I think, is because they assume they’re done. Meaning, they’ve recorded a few lines for the assignment in case I check it, and now they just need to wait out the next five or fifteen minutes to get to the next thing (or even better, the end of class). Yes, even TJ students sometimes go through the motions. In fact, there are those who would argue that they tend to go through the motions even more than “regular” kids, so adept have our students become at the business of school.

Freewriting isn’t business. It isn’t about doing an assignment efficiently or for the grade. It’s really about letting go, losing yourself in a swirl of thoughts that may or may not go where you think it should. This is the creative ferment that leads to original ideas, in my experience, an absolutely essential stage along the path to more ordered, meaningful expression. I’ve explicitly taught it in a limited way, moreso implicitly by modeling and consistently having kids do it. Some get it, some don’t.

At any rate, I figured I’d take another stab here. Below is my own ten-minute freewrite at the end of a class discussion on Frankenstein. I’ve reproduced it verbatim, just the way it came out in my notebook. I’m assigning my tenth grade students to read this post and respond with a comment either directly from or based on their own freewrites. If they (or you) also want to weigh in on the process of freewriting itself, please do.

As context for those brave enough to wade through the responses, the reading covered was the last volume of three in Mary Shelley’s book. The day’s lesson consisted of sharing charts made last class in groups of four. Each chart had four sections. The first quadrant listed plot points using selected quotes. The second quarter noted “swoons and screams,” or other expressions of Romantic emotion. Third, I asked them to make a connection between Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” and the novel. Last, they had to find something that had recurred three times in the book, like an image, event, or an aspect of language.

While they shared the charts, I asked them to make notes on three questions in their writer’s notebooks. First, why are swoons and screams important? Second, what makes this a Romantic work? And third, write three thesis statements based on recurring aspects. At the end of class, we all wrote for an additional ten minutes. Here’s my unmediated response. Read on and my kids will show you theirs.

Start 9:50- end 10:00
Most swoons [my kids claim to have experienced] are girls screaming at bugs or caterpillars. My example: the popped-out knee in art class yesterday, the teacher’s grief-stricken expression as he waited in the office for the ambulance. The rarity of true experiences in life that take us to the edge, the heights of the sublime or the depths of despair. Maybe Burma or China right now, the desperate villagers trapped under rubble of cheaply-made schools because corrupt officials were on the take and the cement crumbles in your fingers…

Authenticity of experience, being truly alive, awake—not asleep, not “calmer” or “relaxed.” The possibility of violent emotion…

Frankenstein as an anti-Romantic novel, a Gothic story in which nature does not sooth, it blasts. Repeatedly, Victor tries to find solace in the beauty of lakes and mountains, with ever-diminishing returns. Ultimately, he ends up in the blasted lifeless frozen North, more truly expressive of his internal landscape. Not sublime, but cast down from heaven with violence to a frozen hell. Nature, subverted, twisted punishes Victor with endless pursuit. Because he violated her laws, created an unnatural scientific contraption, machine, machination, manipulation, perversion… because of his Promethean hubris, he is cast out of heaven, denied the Wordsworthian sublime. Instead of dissolution of self in Edenic nature, he us utterly self-bound, locked in his own obsession, bound by his own creation in chains that prevent him from escaping a crushing sense of guilt, defeat and loss.

Posted by Emmet Rosenfeld at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (38)

I just finished teaching freshman comp at the local community college. Getting back two nights a week is welcome, but I will miss the mix of adults that offered such a stark contrast to the technocrats-in-training I teach on the day gig.

At the beginning of the course and at the end I asked students to write a “position paper.” The before and after snapshots let them and me see how far they’ve come. Below are excerpts from a few of the thirty four students’ papers. This is first draft writing, which I’ve reproduced unedited to preserve voice and give an accurate sense of the student population. Each evokes for me a snapshot of its author, and at the same time holds up a mirror to my teaching.

Mercedes is with a nonprofit now; in her past life she was a professional tour guide at an archeological site in Peru. She reflected on writing a personal narrative about the teacher that first made her love history: “My first composition was about my best teacher in high school, made me think a lot about my childhood. Never, before had I thought about it in the way that I did when writing my essay. It was like something sleeping in my unconscious until my new teacher helped me to bring it to the forefront of my mind.” With an archeologists sense of wonder she discovered the power of writing to uncover and interpret the artifacts of our past.

Valentina, one of two Russian au pairs in the class this session, raised her hand to ask questions as if she were chopping the air with military precision. What she took from the class would make Strunk & White forgive her occasional Cyrillic misspelling: “I’ve learned many useful teqcnicks such as “quote sandwich”, "snap shot”, “helicopter”…I’ve learned that in English language verbs are strong. Now I use more verbs, and try to avoid unnecessary adverbs and adjectives. I’ve learned how to be more specific.” In the end, it was the chance to make choices that most appealed to her: “Besides, I’ve been working at my grammar issues a great deal. The instructor gave us freedom to choose aspects grammar we want to work at; it was extremely helpful. I’ve reviewed articles three times; I’ve learned rules about usage semicolon. But one of the best things I’ve learned is how to write fast and enjoy it. I used to think about ever single word I put in my writing; it could take me hours to write a sentence. Now I write easy, but then revise thoroughly.”

Andres, formerly a young ad executive in Colombia, wrote his personal narrative about the harrowing experience of getting kidnapped off the streets of Bogota. In his research paper, he explored a different aspect of Colombian life, the controversy over how the traditional music of his country was being reinterpreted by a contemporary singer: “The best thing I learned was to think critically. While I was writing my papers and reading the essays I was thinking critically. The best example I have to explain this thought is the MLA research paper. I had to present an opposing view or counter-argument for my argument. My topic or my argument was about Carlos Vive and his new style to play Vallenato. In order to be objective my counter-argument was: ‘Many people disagree with Carlos Vives and his new style of music.’ I had to present both positions.” Andres, who had escaped from his kidnappers by engaging with them in conversation and essentially befriending them, explained that he felt critical thinking was “a tool to tolerate and respect those who have a different opinion of your point of view. If you have the information and you process that information in your mind, making it understandable, your opinion could be respected.”

Behind various piercings and tattoos, Annie was a fervent animal rights advocate who wrote about the tragedy of commercial whaling. Take a deep breath before reading this paragraph from her second position paper: “I know now to use commas to separate lists such as I love avocado, tomatoes, oranges, strawberries. Or you use commas to separate thoughts such as I love cake, especially tres leches cake. You can also use commas to express a pause. You also use commas after buts and before yets… About the run on sentences that’s just how I talk I can never stop I’m like Pringles once you pop you can’t stop well that’s how I am when it comes to talking. Although surprisingly I feel as though I’ve gotten better at that too. Only because now I’m always trying to cut myself off (LOL). Sentences have a subject, verb it’s a complete thought. Such as they towed my car. If I wanted to continue that sentence I could but it would be better if I just started a new sentence.” A Yogi Berra of grammar, Annie’s errors make sense. What is clear is an emerging understanding of grammatical ideas that had previously been a mystery to her.

Jamil is a young man who came to class one day with half his face sagging. He persisted in the course despite a scary bout with what turned out to be Bell’s palsy. He had bootstrapped his way from a checkered past into a new job, at the start of this course, and a new sense of his own potential by the end of it: “The most important things I took from this class were an integrated social and hands on learning environment. I had to stimulate my mind, and turn in assignments in a timely manner. In this atmosphere I learned many different techniques of writing, mainly on a research paper. I am now a lot more savy on the internet in doing research, finding credible sources of information, and how to do this in an efficient manner. I learned to write with detail, in a flowing direction which is easy for the reader to follow. I learned to use imagery, keep wording simple, pay attention to tense… and most importantly to just let your initial writing flow to your paper and do revisions later.”

Olivia was a young mom once diagnosed with a learning disability, now returning to the classroom but unsure if she could succeed. She was the last person out the door on the first night of class, painstakingly recopying her first position paper. With fluid confidence she wrote on the last night of the course: “The content of the first position paper is most interesting to me. I find it sad that I had little confidence in my ability to write. I feel now that I’m done with my first English class in almost ten years, that I did very well. I’m very proud of my self and what I have written. It took a lot of work and tears to have completed what I have done. I’m now not afraid of writing. I feel that I can get an internship and move on to get my degree. I can see a little more clearly, that I can complete my goal in life with out the fear of writing to hold me back.”

Posted by Emmet Rosenfeld at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)