AUSSIE

Blog entry posted June 2nd, 2010 by Dale Worsley

I was facilitating a session at a retreat for the staff and a sprinkling of students from a Bronx high school. I was modeling the process of “open freewriting.” A teacher timed me while I wrote, for one minute, what came to my mind:

Go. What will I write? Blackbird. I saw one this morning. Blackbird, fly! And how many ways are there of looking at a blackbird? Grackle. Boat Tail.

After everyone had written their own two-minute freewrites, I chose a student, who I will call Jasmine, to help me model how partners would share their freewrites. Jasmine underlined the phrase “…how many ways…” from my freewrite and responded in writing:

Out of phrase, a trail of thoughts flow.

As everyone in the group wrote their freewrites, I continued mine:

Blackbird. Redbird. Bluebird. Yellow warbler. Brown thrasher. Grey catbird. Golden eagle. Green heron. So many colors to birds. I always have an eye out for birds. They catch my eye. Now what would that look like, a bird flying away with my eye?

Once again, Jasmine responded. She underlined “They catch my eye. Now what would that look like, a bird flying away with my eye?” And she wrote in reply:

Brings a mental picture of another kind of life where wildlife captivates your mind. I see you standing in a forest admiring your passion for birds and feeling like everything is alright.

For her own original freewrite, Jasmine wrote:

A quiet spacious room. Reaching and stretching and acting. Taking on a character of another. Becoming a story. Sharing the thoughts. Contemplating. Equus. Attention and ultimate shine.

In hers, I underlined “Becoming a Story” and I responded:

This whole piece was beautifully poetic. I just wanted to read it all aloud to everyone. “Becoming a story” though – what a profound idea. Who are we? What is the story we are becoming? Can we write it and share it? I certainly would like to hear yours.

I shared our freewrites with the whole group. Others shared theirs, as well. Then we all did a little “stop-and-jot” on our experience of the freewrite activity. Jasmine wrote:

I felt understood and related.

A week or so later, still rather amazed at the poetry and insight in Jasmine’s words, I was speaking to her English teacher, who surprised me with the information that Jasmine was struggling in English class and didn’t often do her assignments on class texts like Death of a Salesman. Such a forthcoming, intellectually alive freewriter as Jasmine not performing in English class? How could this possibly be? I suggested Jasmine be allowed to show her understanding in another way than through direct comprehension assignments. She might, for instance, conduct a research project on areas of interest to herself and read nonfiction for a while, the better to open her mind to the play….

So we found ourselves at the ramparts of the “cognitive revolution.” Let’s roll the tape back to last week’s blog and apply its theories to the case of Jasmine.

Schema Theory would approve of my solution, because her research would build on her background knowledge and, into the bargain, engage her in learning.

The Interactive Model of Reading, which would have us blend both the text and the reader’s schema, would support my solution as well if, as a part of the bargain with Jasmine, her personal research had to connect meaningfully to the idea of the “American Dream” explored in Death of a Salesman.

Constructivism would certainly give my solution the thumb’s up, as Jasmine would be welcome to build her own meaning when she was ready. (To be sure, I don’t mean any willy-nilly meaning, but one supported by the evidence from the text.)

Reader Response Theory would stand up and applaud my solution. At least it should. The “efferent reading” that would predictably follow the “informational reading” would be important to Jasmine, now that she’d had time to build her schema around the study’s big idea.

Sociocultural Theory? Perfect! She would work from her own social and cultural background in her research. She would work in a response group with other students to develop her ideas. The classroom wouldn’t be dry and stale, but a soupy melting pot of several relevant communities.

What about the criticism leveled at these theories, that in their application we lose our ability to share a body of knowledge, and that we focus too much on the reader and not enough on the text? Here, critics, is why mathematician John Venn invented his ubiquitous diagram! To bring Jasmine’s world, Miller’s world and the teacher’s world all together in symmetric harmony.

Oh, yes, a Venn diagram would be a beautiful thing here. Where dichotomy and disagreement persisted, we can create unity and harmony. I see Aristotle, Arcesilaus, Montaigne and Tolstoy nodding sagely (as old sages are wont to do) from their perches in the jury box. Tolstoy can’t restrain himself. Thinking of his experiences working with students at his school for peasants on his estate Yasnaya Polyana, he stands up and declaims:

The best teacher is the one who can instantly recognize what is bothering a particular student. This ability in turn gives the teacher a knowledge of the greatest possible number of methods; the ability to invent new methods; and above all – rather than blind adherence to one method – the conviction that all methods are one-sided, that the best possible method is the one that answers best all the possible difficulties incurred by the student. This is not a method, but an art and a talent.

The bearded one is a getting little long winded in his old age, but we get the point: Where artful and talented teaching goes, joyous learning follows.