Blog #4 Teaching for Joy and Justice and Reflecting on Poetry

"Part of my job as a teacher is to awaken students to the joy and love that they may take for granted, so I use poetry and narrative prompts that help them "see" daily gifts, to celebrate their homes and heritages." 

-Linda Christensen 

I loved reading this quote by Christensen; I thought, "yes this is how I would like to practice teaching– I want to be this kind teacher!" Then it occurred to me, although it may seem obvious, there are different kinds of teachers who hold different beliefs and value different things. You may be thinking "duh", but this concept had yet to fully settled into my bones. You know when you know something but you don't feel it– it doesn't fully resonate with you? Well, I had not really come to the conclusion, that you may feel a pull to teach for different reasons than others and this may seep into your praxis, on my own time with my own mind. I couldn't help but wonder what Christensen's results would be on the Curriculum Ideology Inventory we completed last class. I would think she would fall under Social Reconstruction, but possibly she would find herself under Learner Centered? Thoughts? 

Although my above, lets call it, "mini awakening" may seem silly or obvious I think it is coming from my history of exposure to teachers or teaching practices. I had never met/ read/ heard anyone refer to their purpose of teaching as "awakening students to joy and love." I always thought this was something that was slightly implied but not a practical reason to be a teacher; love and joy are not enough. Shouldn't you have history with tutoring or teaching others, shouldn't you be a genius with grammar and a master of writing essays? And maybe this emotional aspect isn't enough, but it sure seems important to Christensen and it feels important to me. It had me wondering, why do people become teachers? Why are you becoming a teacher? Why is this profession important to you? 

I was particularly a fan of the chapter "Knock Knock": Turning Pain into Power." I am so inspired by the way Christensen asks her students to share their fears and the way she too opens and shares hers. In this moment, I could almost feel the honest vibrations of that classroom. Then, when Christensen quotes her student Lester, who takes up the voice of his father in his poem, I teared up. (35)  It sounds cliche but it's true! This was powerful poetry! 

I guess all poetry carries this power, but this is an area of literature and writing that I do not feel as comfortable with. For me, poetry has always been taught in the context of rules: line count, stanzas, iambs. However, after reading Christensen, I don't feel like these structures are the most important part of the poetic craft. Poetry is something I would love to become more comfortable with and, after this weeks readings, feel is necessary to find my own rhythm within; I want to exude an authentic relationship with poetry to my future students. 

I was encouraged by how both Christensen and Kati Macalus referred to poetry as this place for authentic emotion. To take a quote from Macalus' blog, "the labor of poetry is finding ways through language to point to what cannot be put into words." I think there is certainly a lot of truth here and an area I would enjoy exploring more. In addition to the quote I picked up from Macalus' blog, I really resonated with her proposal that "poems can alter the way we see the world." I have certainly felt a variant of this within my own writing/ reading. She refers to the space "between language and experience" which I believe is a beautiful place that calls for  feeling. I have used this mindset, if that does it justice, many times in thinking, in writing, and in reading. I think it's a beautiful place :) 

Blog #3 Thinking About Feeling as a Tool with "Sharing and Responding"

I felt a warm comfort reading Peter Elbow and Pat Belanoff's Sharing and Responding; in many ways their words brought me back to the Cameron piece and her emphasis "to just start where you are." Cameron wrote about the ways in which writing is innate– perhaps not the process of writing a polished piece but rather the ability to have thoughts or observations and to let those flow through you into a written form– and I believe that Elbow and Belanoff present strategies for sharing and responding to writing that align closely with Cameron's opinion. I want to quote a piece of their booklet that struck me:
"what is the right spirit? In sharing, the goal is for writers to give and for listeners to receive. Writing is gift giving. When you give someone a gift, you don't want her to criticize; you want her to use it and enjoy it. If you happen to give someone a gift he doesn't like, do you want him to complain? No, you want him to thank you all the same" (17).
I find this particular quote to really get at the idea of this booklet (as I perceive it): writing, and responding to writing, can be exercises in feeling rather than being heavily reliant on a strict sets of rules and guidelines that comes from a place of 'correct writing'. Isn't the ability to feel and perceive and connect through language a gift? And, if you agree, should it not be equally weighted? That said, I do see the need for students to understand the benefits of paragraph structure, different forms of writing, and standard conventions; however, I also think students could greatly benefit form a practice of recognizing the knowledge/ authority that comes with simply being a person with thoughts and feelings.

I found the eleven kinds of responses to be really diverse and exiting! I can see how they would evoke genuine feedback opposed to a simple 'I liked your paper' or 'I think it was good overall.' Which, I can personally testify to the awkwardness that arises when a teacher says something along the lines of 'get in groups and talk about each others papers.' I don't think I ever received honest feedback from a situation like this nor was I ever genuinely prepared for honest feedback.

In the spirit of honesty– I wish I had been given more opportunities to engage in genuine writing/ reading feedback. I would be particularly interested in exploring "movies of the reader's mind." This kind of responding asks the reader to think beyond language and I think that can beneficial when it comes to reading others work and writing your own. I also love the idea of having students translate "it-statments" into "I-statemnets" (9). I feel that this is a subtle exercise in owning and exploring emotions that bubble up while writing or reading. I believe that Elbow and Belanoff include this as a form of response because there is a lot of truth within the act of feeling. This invitation to experience a piece of writing feels quite rooted in reality and brings the act of writing in conversation with the act of being, and perhaps then it is no longer solely an academic act.

Recently, I was speaking with an English professor who told me about a recent writing of hers that addressed the different treatment of those who read and write about Shakespeare for enjoyment and those who approach it from a serious and critical place. She introduced me to a piece by Eileen Joy, where Joy writes,

"I want to note here as well that a concern for play, for pleasure, and also for enjoyment, can be an importantly ethical matter, especially in academic disciplines (literary studies, historical studies, philosophy, etc.) that are often suspicious of pleasure and enjoyment, privileging instead what some term “strong,” “skeptical,” “sober,” “serious,” and “rational” critique" (Joy).

 I would argue that Elbow and Belanoff's Sharing and Responding is also concerned with the incorporation of human reaction/ enjoyment within the writing process. To say, responding that takes on a more playful role, opposed to one that is solely knowledge based, is extremely beneficial for both reader and writer. 

Airing on the side of caution– citation of Joy: 

Joy, Eileen. “A Welcoming Pavilion of Thought: Weird Reading.” In The Middle, 13 Apr. 2013. 

Blog #2 Getting Uncomfortable with "Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: The Remix"

In preparing to write this weeks blog post, I have laid the three readings out on my kitchen table; I am waiting for those words that I know could possibly string them all together. The articles being: "Student Athletes Kneel to Level the Playing Field", "Dear White Teacher", and "Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: The Remix."

I have come up with this: getting uncomfortable and opening up to vulnerability seem to be pretty powerful steps in a powerful direction.

Not one of these three pieces made any mention of comfort or a teachers right to comfort. However, all three seemed to touch upon this common notion of getting uncomfortable as a means of evoking change. This idea of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable could have lead to an anxious mind, but I actually found myself inwardly reveling in a moment of assurance. Could I be alone in feeling as if "Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: A Remix" was an invitation to discard this teacher persona of 'knower of all things?'

To further this, I quote Winn and Johnson, "culturally relevant pedagogy is also about the students who show up in our classrooms daily. It welcomes students' voices, demands their reflection, and pushes them towards discovery of self" (14). I really like the mention here of the "the students who show up ... daily"; For me this affirmed the idea that the classroom is a human space- constantly changing and shifting. I could enter the class with a plan in hand and outcome in mind but, taking the advice of Winn and Johnson and "regarding students as experts", I could quickly find my lesson heading towards an unexpected end. That could be uncomfortable, but thats okay; in fact, maybe a lot of growth could be had when a lesson heads in an unplanned direction.

In his TED Talk, Victor Rios speaks about the way his life changed because he had a teacher who was "culturally relevant, respected [his] community, [his] people, [his] family." He mentions this teachers cultural relevance, but he also mentions the way she continued to reach out to him- over and over again even when he denied her. I would say Rios' teacher leaned into discomfort and it changed Rios' life.

I think this thread of 'necessary discomfort' can continue to be extracted, perhaps with more ease, from the Hagopian and Lathan articles. In fact, the inspiration for this exploration of the role of discomfort came from Hagopian's article and her quote of the Garfield football team, "it is our hope that out of these potentially uncomfortable conversations positive, impactful change will be created." I felt uplifted, and stirred by the wisdom of this high school football team. Perhaps Colin Kaepernick took a knee to not only draw attention to "police terror in Black communities"but also to highlight the way we tend to retreat to comfortable places.

Perhaps the "White Teacher" that Chrysanthius Lathan was addressing in her article, "Dear White Teacher", looks to the classroom the way some look to the sports arena- as a place for comfort. That seems like some dangerous business. Lathan writes, "you must confront your discomfort at all costs", and again I can't help but feel assured: It is okay to be uncomfortable, but it is not okay to ignore it!

When I first read the Mavis Staples quote at the top of our syllabus, "we have work to do", I thought of "work" as something to be done externally; however, maybe we also have some internal work to do, and who says that work should be comfortable.

Blog #1: Inspiration from Cameron and a Reaction to the NCTE Article

The short chapters from Julia Cameron's The Right to Write felt like the crisp, refreshing breeze that often marks the arrival of fall.  Personally, I find the trade-off of humidity and heat for the rustling of leaves at my feet innately calming, and reading writing like Cameron's often evokes in me that same sense of comfort. Perhaps I should know how to properly classify this sort of writing- richly descriptive yet instructional- but I am not sure I can. I dare say it felt almost meditative.

I distinctly remember this same reaction to writing during my first year at Rhode Island College. My first year writing professor assigned us some short, yet absolutely beautiful essays that left me feeling shocked. I had never confronted this kind of writing- these essays were argumentative but had the descriptive languages and imagery of a novel. These writers engaged not just my mind but my senses and their arguments felt much more robust for it. I think this is something Cameron addresses when, in chapter one, she writes "hitting a creative bull's eye, a sentence that precisely expresses what you see shimmering on the horizon- those sentences are worth the chase". When I read or write a sentence that feels as if it fits Cameron's description it is as if someone is saying, "I see and feel your humanity. Me too!"

Is this just me? Do you ever encounter writing that articulates something you could not find the words for yourself, and, in doing so, seems to evoke a sense of community/ connection?

With Cameron in mind, I moved on to the NCTE Article. This article inspired me and simultaneously stressed me out.

In the interest of keeping things positive, I want to first acknowledge how much I appreciated the section titled "Writing is embedded in complex social relationships and their appropriate languages."The article states, "the teaching of excellence in writing means adding language to what already exists, not subtracting." I really love this idea, and I think it can be related back to my earlier discussion of Cameron and writing as an invitation into community. Of course, I was speaking personally when I referred to Cameron's writing as "meditative" and I am happy to acknowledge that this particular kind of writing speaks to me but may not speak to everyone. The point is that everyone should be granted an opportunity to feel that welcoming, that connection, that recognition of self within writing. Perhaps it is useful to refer back to our first class and the short discussion we had about the truth that is often folded into writing- every student should be given an opportunity to not only write their truth, but write and read in a language or style that feels authentic to them.

I personally feel that writing is an exercise in presenting the world through the filter of your own unique perspective. Then, is it a denial of authentic expression to continually ask students to write in traditional English with proper grammar and structuring? At this moment in my life, with my limited experience in a classroom, I say yes.

I don't believe the NCTE article would disagree with me, but sometimes I feel a small shudder of stress come over me when I think about propelling my beliefs into practice. Has anyone else experienced this?

Here is a short TED talk in regards to English, the language, and an interesting article about code-switching in schools. Not to put too much emphasis on either, simply food for thought-- particularly in regards to what is lost when correct/ perfect/ comfortable English is overemphasized.