Voices on the Wall: A Few Voices to Know

Kamala Markandaya:  A novelist and journalist, who gave us the beautiful novel about a family in rural India, Nectar in a Sieve, reminded us that words have a life that they breathe into us – but for some words, we should hold our breath until they pass.

Richard Rodriquez, John Steinbeck, James Baldwin, Author Miller, and Frank McCourt lived on the wall of my THS classroom in L-9 alongside a few women, a few of my greatest teachers.  Marti Knapp, a THS art teacher who retired a bit ago, gave her AP art students a summer assignment a few years ago:  paint the spirit of these writers so that they live in plain sight of students who will be learning from their words.  They did.  In honor and celebration of Women’s History Month, here are the voices of the women on that wall that our students should know, a few who taught hundreds of my students to think and live and be.

“That is all you can think of: what people will say! One goes from one end of the world to the other to hear the same story. Does it matter what people say?” ― Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve

Toni Morrison – A Pulitzer Prize winning author of the novel, turned movie, Beloved, reminded us that the blank page already contained everything; we just needed to pick up the pen or press our fingers to the keys.

“Writing is really a way of thinking – not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.” – Toni Morrison

Amy Tan – A proud alumna of San Jose State, musician in a band with Stephen King, and writer who introduced us to four mothers and daughters that told all of our stories, reminded us to balance our being.

“Each person is made of five different elements, she told me. Too much fire and you had a bad temper…Too little wood and you bent too quickly to listen to other people’s ideas, unable to stand on your own…Too much water and you flowed in too many different directions….” ― Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

Sandra Cisneros – A former teacher at an alternative high school, MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant winner for The House on Mango Street, and woman who painted her historic house purple because it was the language of her people, reminded us to be true to ourselves.

“I always tell my writing students that they need to write as if they were wearing their pajamas. To write as if they were talking to the one person they wouldn’t have to get dressed for. That’s their writing voice, and they should write from that place first.” – Sandra Cisneros

Maxine Hong Kingston – A writer who told her family secrets that were our family secrets in The Woman Warrior, a native of Stockton who taught English and wrote a book because she had to speak with the voice of her aunt who had no name and speak with the voice of the immigrant women who spoke with silence, reminded us that if we lifted our pens to raise our voices and think, it must be because we looked first so that we could see.  

“I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes.” 
― Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior

During Women’s History Month and always, remember to introduce your students to some of the women who have fed you your food for thought, those who have birthed in you great ideas, those who have helped you think and live and be. 

Writing is Thinking

Last week was my dad’s birthday…and you probably enthusiastically do not care, right? And why should you? What does this have to do with you? How can you use this information? What in the world was my purpose for telling you this?   

The question of purpose for writing is the most important question a writer must ask before putting pen to pad, fingers to keys. My purpose here is to discuss one aspect of explanatory writing – and to give a few easy formative assessment tips that will gauge your students’ progress without making your grading life crazy.  

You gave your pithy World War II mini-lecture: give students 3-5 minutes to summarize the lecture and explain the main points. Walk the room as they write to ensure pens are moving or keyboards are clacking…(in the case of keyboards, you might tell them that you’ll ask random writers to post their summaries to the class’s electronic journal). Ask them to highlight the main ideas – then, share with two seat mates to compare and clarify notes. Finally, go whole class. Get volunteers and non-volunteers to share what they learned. Clear up misunderstandings as you go.  

You showed the 20 min. video excerpt: give students a Give One/Get One graphic organizer (pick one of the zillion templates online, or shoot me an email me if you want one of mine). Give students 3-5 minutes to write (on the left side of the organizer) what they learned from the video. Then ask them to walk the room and speak to students they rarely, if ever, talk to – to discuss the points they wrote. If they learned something new, they should write what they learned on the right side of the organizer, giving credit to the student they learned from. Then, move on to (maybe two different students). Walk the room to ensure that students are discussing the material, rather than merely exchanging papers and copying notes. Listen to their clarifying conversations. Then, go whole class to ensure they got it.  

You read to them or assign the reading: give students 3-5 minutes to write one question and one comment.  The question can be a higher order thinking question that could have multiple answers, or it could be a clarifying question where the answer is right there on the page, but wasn’t understood. Depending on your purpose, ask students to comment by agreeing, disagreeing, explaining, analyzing, evaluating, observing, synthesizing their ideas with the writer’s ideas, or connecting the reading to personal experiences, to another text, or to current events in the world. Give them time to partner share. Then, take the discussion whole class. 

These writing-to-learn activities are interchangeable, can be used in any content-area, and can be modified to support younger students by asking them to write down the key words or phrases they remember from a mini-lecture, video, or reading. They can serve as a quick check for understanding – or can take the whole period, depending on your purpose. Either way, they are a good way to engender frequent, but short bouts with writing that will garner deeper understandings for your students – especially when your content or topic might be dense and complex.   

If you have other writing-to-learn strategies, please share – so that we build our writing community.  

…oh, and my dad, a laborer, and my first writing teacher, who wrote letters for his Navy buddies, thank-you notes to his friends, and poetry in the bathroom of our one-bathroom house, would have been 91.