Every year I have some students who arrive to my class with a fear or dislike of poetry. Spending some time away from deconstruction of meaning of poems has always worked to put these students at ease and allow them to open up to poetry anew.
This year, I revived a poetry station which I haven't used in three years: bibliomancy. In it, students ask a question, and use a special process involving books to write a poem prophesying the future. Reading the questions they ask always gives me pangs of compassion for my students, who are in the throes of adolescence. What caught my attention this year, though, was a new category of questions I had not seen before--questions about humankind in general, and its future.
"If both of your parents are immigrants, do they deport you too, or do you get put into a foster home?" one of my middle school students asked yesterday afternoon. "I've asked this to some other teachers, but I still don't know the answer," she added. It had been on her mind all day. I've taught through four presidential elections. This one feels in no way normal.
In the launch of her new blog, Ariel Sacks explains what she means by teaching for the whole story and why she's doing it.
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