More Stories from the Classroom
Here is a series of vignettes from some of my recent classes. Enjoy!
3rd Grade Literature
We recently finished reading Linda Sue Park’s The Kite Fighters, which is a beautiful, exciting story about finding one’s place in the world, especially within a very structured community. The ending scene, which I refuse to spoil, is one of the most beautiful endings from the books I teach in any of my classes. It perfectly captures the feeling of belonging.
To accompany this book, I’ve gotten in the habit over the past couple years of teaching Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem, “The Mountain and the Squirrel.” It’s a funny and cute presentation of a similar idea, communicated through an argument between a mountain and a squirrel. The kids always enjoy reciting it. When I shared the following lines, half the class gasped in recognition at the similarity in theme: “And I think it no disgrace/ To occupy my place./ … Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;/ If I cannot carry forests on my back, / Neither can you crack a nut.”
When I asked them to tell me what was similar about the book to what we had been talking about while reading The Kite Fighters, one of them put it very clearly when she said, “Well, the squirrel is saying that everybody has their place in the world, and in The Kite Fighters, Young-sup discovers his own place.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself! I love seeing them begin to draw these abstract, thematic connections.
4th Grade Literature
In the 4th grade, we have been reading Lynne Reid Banks’s The Indian in the Cupboard. Gosh, I love it. On the surface, it is about a little boy having adventures with a tiny Native American, but in reality, it is about so much more. The little boy must suddenly don the role of mother as he protects his new and beloved friend from danger, and he must simultaneously learn to treat him with the respect a fully grown man deserves. It is a truly thrilling and complicated conflict.
I’ve been ecstatic to see the extent to which my students are engaging with the novel this year. They are rife with personal connections, such as the wonderful thing one of my students said recently: “Oh, I get why Omri wanted to pick Little Bear up right away, even though it wasn’t exactly nice of him. Whenever I see my little two year old cousin, I do the same thing.”
There is no children’s book quite like this one that imparts, in a meaningful, non-condescending way (I’m looking at you, Wonder), the value of truly seeing something from another person’s point of view.
5th Grade Literature
I’m so happy to be able to talk about Linda Sue Park twice in the same blog post. I am a great admirer of hers.
We recently finished reading her Newbery Award-winning A Single Shard in 5th grade literature, and I think I enjoyed teaching it this time more than I ever have before. This is probably due in part to the fact that I spent ten days in South Korea this past July, and that many hours of those days were spent fawning over celadon pottery due to my absolute adoration of this novel. But another part of it is certainly the unquenchable love my students felt for all of the characters as we read the story this year.
When we reached the end of the story and were discussing the dominant themes in the story (perseverance, adherence to one’s principles, and dignity), one of my students (a 5th grader, I must remind you) said, “You could say that dignity is really the most important and main theme, because you need perseverance and adherence to your principles in order to have dignity in the first place.”
And, dang it if he didn’t take the words right out my mouth, but phrase them better than I was planning to.
I have such a cool job.
6th Grade Literature
In 6th grade literature, we have been reading (and LOVING) Bram Stoker’s Dracula since the beginning of October. The entire class is in a frenzy of excitement over it, and it is bringing out the absolute best in their literary abilities.
In one scene, a beautiful woman who has been transformed into a vampire must be killed with a stake, but right when one of the heroic main characters is about to do it, he offers the stake to the woman’s fiancé. The fiancé, in a final gesture of love and devotion to the woman he adores, kills her. The idea is that it will bring him comfort to know that it was his hand, and nobody else’s, who brought her salvation from the eternal hell of an evil existence, and instead allow her soul to be among the angels where it belongs. He could perform his duty as her protector, even over her very soul.
My class was in shock. And they felt the shock because they simultaneously understood the importance and beauty of that gesture, as well as the absolute brilliance of it on the part of the author.
“They didn’t get to have a wedding or a last kiss,” one of my students said, “but at least he could do that for her—something sacred and honorable they could share.”
Talk about soul!
8th Grade Poetry
I was only too happy to share one of my favorite pieces with the 8th grade last week: Thomas Hardy’s “Neutral Tones.” It contains perhaps some of the most dramatic lines of poetry ever written:
The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die
… I know, right?
So, while we were going through the poem line-by-line, discussing the meaning of it, and we got to these, one of my students said with the most hesitation I’ve ever heard, “Her smile……. isn’t dead……… but maybe……. it……. should be?”
I burst out laughing, but also assured him that yes, that is absolutely on the right track, and that I was only laughing because it was just such a relatable response to the poem.
What made this class even better is that it was the capstone class for our first unit of poetry class, and I was able to share with the students my plan of having them choose their favorite poem from the unit to memorize and recite. This being the first year I am teaching the course, I wasn’t sure how this assignment would go over, but I was elated to hear several of them ask immediately, “Is this one eligible?!” As I was leaving the room I heard several others conferring about which poem they would memorize, and many of them excitedly nodded toward the copy of “Neutral Tones” in their hand while saying, “This one!”
That’s all, folks!
If you are interested in the two poems I’ve mentioned here, I’m going to leave them here for you below.
The Mountain and the Squirrel
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel,
And the former called the latter
"Little prig."
Bun replied,
"You are doubtless very big;
But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together
To make up a year
And a sphere.
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.
If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry:
I'll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track.
Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut."
Neutral Tones
by Thomas Hardy
We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;
– They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.
Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles of years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro
On which lost the more by our love.
The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing….
Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.