There’s often much discussion — amongst parents and teachers, writers and librarians, readers and bloggers –about how to engage kids in literacy.
Much discussion and some head scratching and occasionally a frustrated thump on the noggin.
It’s one of those things that seems like it should be easier than it is. I mean, we’re talking about stories here, right??? Everyone loves a good story!
But we’re up against really compelling new media. And educational inequality. And fear.
We’re dealing with time constraints and financial limitations. Fill-in-the-dot tests.
We are talking about stories here, but the noise in the room is overwhelming…
Shhhh! Enter our friends at Share a Story – Shape a Future!! They’ve created a week-long blog event during which we can think about literacy to our heart’s content. Nothing’s getting in the way.
Here’s the entire schedule. Now carry on because there’s already a lot out there, and it’s good.
My ten-year-old has a truly global sensibility. Always has. From about age four, she’d tell anyone who’d listen that she was into "cultures".
At various times we’ve had on our hands a budding anthropologist, a high priestess, a peacekeeper, a journalist, and a political rabble rouser. These days she makes it clear that she’ll do any variety of work as long as she has to travel around the world to do it.
In the meantime, though, she does what she can. Experiments with Chinese calligraphy. Dances to world beat. Cuddles up at night with a sarong she calls Rosa.
And, lately, throw herself into Pennies for Peace. Pennies for Peace is the charitable offshoot of the book Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson. The premise is that the way toward world peace, prosperity and equality is through education. And that every penny counts when trying to educate all the world’s children.
Yesterday, my girl introduced Pennies for Peace to the other fourth graders at her school. Today, she hosted a Pakistani friend who talked to the kids about life in his home country.
The reception the kids gave him was vibrant. They couldn’t stop popping up onto their knees with questions. About the climate, the clothing, the game of cricket.
One little boy ended up telling the visitor about how Pakistan used to be a part of India — and asked him if he’d ever heard of Ghandi. And another pointed out that maybe K2 isn’t the second-tallest mountain in the world if you counted one of the oceanic mountains. Lots of the kids wanted to hear him speak in Urdu.
What struck me about the whole thing was how comfortable these kids are with the notion that the world is small and full of friends.
Seems to me that they’re presuming something that we still don’t always ‘get’ — at societal and political levels. What we see as groundbreaking, they take as a given. And that is the sort of thing that helps me sleep well at night…
So in honor of my Tall One, and all her open-hearted friends, these few words from Whitman today. Namaste.
from A Passage to India by Walt Whitman
Not you alone, proud truths of the world,
Nor you alone, ye facts of modern science,
But myths and fables of eld, Asia’s, Africa’s fables,
The far-darting beams of the spirit, the unloos’d dreams,
The deep diving bibles and legends,
The daring plots of the poets, the elder religions;
O you temples fairer than lilies, pour’d over by the rising sun!
O you fables, spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known, mounting to heaven!
You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish’d with gold!
Towers of fables immortal, fashion’d from mortal dreams!
You too I welcome, and fully, the same as the rest!
This was a matter of some consternation for all of us.
The next night loomed with nothing to read.
How would we decide? What were we in the mood for? And why couldn’t Jeanne Birdsall just up and write Book 3 so we could carry on with the sweetness of the Penderwicks?
Alas, the hours passed and we found ourselves at the dinner table, nervously nearing the witching hour.
Suddenly, as if by ESP, it was agreed upon. We’d bring stacks and stacks of nominees to the table and vote. Dinner plates pushed aside, we all brought forth our own particular wishes and started a process more elaborate than the CYBILS.
The result?
Success! We started a book that night and have three more waiting in the wings. Interestingly, three of the four are books from series. Different series! We seem to manage keeping many threads alive without getting completely mixed up in regards to fantasy and reality. Or maybe we’re just enjoying the teeter…
Most important to the process, we agreed that if a lovely book appeared in our lives just begging to be read, we’d toss the list out the window. Because really, don’t you always need to leave the possibility open for unanticipated love?
One of the classes I’m teaching this semester takes place entirely online.
Distance learning, you’ll hear lots of people say, is the way of the future. It enables a whole host of folk to take classes when they otherwise might not, because of car costs, childcare, scheduling issues, and what not. And it’s true, and I’m glad to help make that happen.
But. (You knew there was "But" coming, didn’t you?)
It just isn’t the same. The dynamic is drier than I’d like, the interactions less generous and less fluid. If a round-table discussion is a peony in full bloom, an online discussion is more like a stem with the occasional bud.
I feel compelled to stir up as much energy and support and wisdom for my online students as my on-campus ones, but there are days I feel miles from acheiving that.
So, today, I’m asking for your help. I’m inviting you to be guests in my classroom. Help me liven things up a little! And here’s how:
In my comments, will you offer my students:
1. Your favorite book on writing or process or creativity or 2. Your top tip on writing poetry or 3. Your top tip on writing prose or 4. One way to get over writer’s block or 5. One way to reckon with discipline and deadlines or 6. One way to access the muse or 7. Any other little snippet you think might inspire, illustrate, educate or awe my online writing students!
I’ll share all of your advice over the next week or two and we’ll light things a’fire! Your reward will be my eternal gratitude. Truly…
This coming weekend, the good folk at the University of Texas at Austin host what is billed as the "biggest open house in Texas."
Explore UT is a day of events, exploration, exhibits and interaction all across campus, for kids of all ages. This is the tenth anniversary of the event and, as is typical of Texas, it’s a big ol’ deal. Kids get to design bridges, pan for gold, dance the salsa and merengue, and much, much more.
There is something so funny and childlike to the notion that everything has an opposite. And then there’s the fact that when you fill a book with said opposites, it’s really about connections. How beautifully twisted is that??
In writing this lovely little book, Richard Wilbur went from being "an esteemed poet of humor and wisdom" to "an esteemed poet of humor and wisdom I’d really like to have dinner with." Or rather, "… I’d really like to have numerous dinners with."
Seriously. I want someone with this kind of whimsy in the bunker with me if it comes to that.
Run out and get this little morsel if you don’t already have it. And in the meantime, a taste or two:
#22
A spell is something you are under When put to sleep, or filled with wonder The opposite of spell, I guess, Is normal waking consciousness, In which you’re not enthralled or sleepy, And things are only fairly creepy.
#8
What is the opposite of riot? It’s lots of people keeping quiet.
#19
Because what’s present doesn’t last, The opposite of it is past. Or if you choose to look ahead, Future’s the opposite instead. Or look around to see what’s here, And absent things will not appear. There’s one more opposite of present That’s really almost too unpleasant: It is when someone takes away Something with which you like to play.
Yesterday morning I packed my bags and my bronchial wheeze and headed off on a school visit. I was sort of dreading it. I’d been sick for more than a week, my voice was weak and sore, and I was just plain knackered.
But by noon I’d been infused with funny, curious, wide-eyed kid energy and darned if I wasn’t feeling a bit better.
Here’s my favorite line of the day:
We had your book at our house, but we sold it.
I said I understood. That being a 2nd grader, she probably needed more room on her shelves for chapter books. I laughed. The teachers, however, looked stricken.
Here are my favorite pocket metaphors of the day:
A hive is a pocket for a bee. A nose is a pocket for mucus. A book is a pocket for pages.
The teachers looked stricken again over the mucus. But then a child sneezed, as if to assert the truth of it.
And with my own viral scourge, who was I to argue?
Plus, isn’t it refreshing sometimes to be with folk who just say it like it is?
This past month, I was one of the lucky folk who got to read and judge books for the Cybils. I sat on the poetry panel with a bunch of seriously smart and thoughtful folk, and it was quite the treat. So good, in fact, that I thought ya’ll might want a little inside scoop on the process.
(I promise, I’ll be restrained with the details. I don’t want to have to enter the witness protection program.)
So. First. Under the guiding light of our fearless leader, Ms. Kelly Fineman, our team convened by way of a Yahoo Group.
And then we lay back on our chaise lounges to await delivery of the five finalists. The publishers, we were sure, were all scurrying to get the books to us by overnight post.
Um. Not.
Might as well blame it on the economy, which is responsible for everything from drought to marital discord these days.
We were told to beg, borrow or steal buy the books. Tout de suite.
Panic. Petulance. Pulling out of hair.
One panelist lives so far north that it was clear he wouldn’t get his hands on the books at all, unless Santa stepped in. Which he didn’t.
But we all did our honest best and, before long, the email blizzard began.
First, we each ranked our books in descending order.
Some of us assigned a #1 to the book that others rated #5. And vice versa.
Plus, all the books were strong enough to be seriously humbling.
Ah, but we were undaunted.
We discussed the merits and limitations of the various sub-genres. We debated the meaning of "kid appeal". We weighed in on the art. We shared our deepest thoughts on brussel sprouts.
Really. We did.
Because one of the great things about collaborating on a project like this is the immediate intimacy, borne out of a shared passion and responsibility. In the absence of an actual salon with a round table, there is nothing like some quick literary repartee via a listserve. It was, dare I say it, a pleasure.
And, because we all know how to employ our stick-to-itiveness when we need to, we also reached a really satisfying consensus in end. We chose Honeybee, by Naomi Shihab Nye, for its lyrical elegance, its range from the personal to the political, its experimentation in terms of shape and form. I recommend giving it a read, and the other finalists, too.
And I also recommend connecting with wise and witty people over coffee, wine or email to discuss the things that matter to you, be they books or brussel sprouts. Do this as frequently as possible and you will feel as if you’ve won an award. Unsung, maybe, but quite sweet.
Monday nights, my husband and older daughter go off to orchestra, leaving Small One and I on our own at book time. We can’t read whatever our family read-aloud is (currently The Penderwicks on Gardam Street) because the others would be left in the lurch, so we have to have our own special Monday book.
It’s an interesting thing, reading a book in little bits just once a week. There are, I suspect, many stories that wouldn’t hold up to the challenge.
The Underneath, though, is episodic and has bite-sized chapters and while we are hungry for it each Monday, we’re not left hanging uncomfortably in the middle of a straight-forward, chronologically-arranged narrative.
Instead, we read the chapters like we read poems. One at a time and then, greedily, a few more before bed. We savor them.
And really, they are poems. Perfectly put together little prose poems, layered and sensual. Absolutely song-like when read aloud.
There is some very heavy stuff. Sad and mean. But the humanity (funny word to use when so many of the characters aren’t human) is palpable and the love, raw and right there at the surface. In the end, I think we both just feel like we’ve spent time sitting with beauty when we read this book. Mondays have taken on a special shine.
So, today, little bits of poetry from The Underneath:
"… Ranger had not realized how much he needed this sweet, friendly sound. How much he needed someone to settle in next to him. He didn’t know that he needed to not be so solitary until at last he wasn’t. So many needs in one old dog."
"Usually it’s better for a house to be inhabited. There’s something about the moisture in a person’s breath that restores old wood and gives the place some dignity. A house with people who live there tends to sit upright on its moorings. Usually that would be the case."
"All of us have favorites. The sky has favorite comets. The wind has favorite canyons. The rain has favorite roofs. And the trees? Because they live such long lives, their favorites change from time to time."
"With their roots exposed to the very innards of the Earth, where they can feel all its tremors and movements, trees, with their branches skimming the sky, branches that serve as antennae, can tell when something is awry."
If you haven’t yet, give it a read. And take your time. Really.
Maybe all the creative folk in your life have already sent you this link but if not, I urge you to watch. And, y’know, if you have already seen it, watch it again. It’s a beautiful thing…
