Alike and Different Both-Schaenen 12.12 and 12.17

December 17, 2007

I’m blogging two weeks in one. First, last week:

December 12
Fourth grade–we did two main things last week:
1. Wrote biographies of people whose lives they had been researching informally at home.
2. Talked a little bit about Ebonics.

FIRST HOUR
I took M’s story down by dictation, which was a good move, because his mechanics and writing skills are really struggling to keep up with his mind, which is quick and lively and energetic. He told me the story of his uncle, and we got nearly four pages written. The students took the idea of biography loosely, telling even a little bit – a story or two – about a person.

JR: “My brother Derrick he was in the dryer he started to get in. Then he close the door. Then he got cut in on. Then he was in the dryer. He close the doors he was spinning. he yelled because it was hot. Then my grama said do you hear that noise to my mom. Then they went down stairs and they saw him in the dryer. He got out and he was red spotted. My brother is lilght skinned. He likes fat girls that are beautiful. All girls like him.
One day he had a girlfriend name Domminicka she was very nice. Then he broke up with her. . . “[this story goes on another page]

DG:
My Grandma
She was living somewhere where they didn’t have toys so she had to make her own toys like puppets, dolls, and more.

SA:

“My God Grandma was in foster care because when she was a baby her mother didn’t want her so she gave her to a foster care so when she was growing up she had to grow up without a mom or a dad. So when I went and talked to her it was very painful because for her to have to talk to a 11-year-old I know she was thinking why am I talking to her she does not understand the pain that I am going through. She talked about when she was 13 she used to do a dance called the Crazy Legs she said when she used to go to clubs she use to do all kinds of dances she used to do tango and she fell in love with the man of her life I think his name John Something I know they got married and they had two kids they grew up and their dad died. So the only kids only had their mom the kids died because they got shot walking to her house. So now everybody in my neighborhood calls her their step grandma to make her feel better. She still lived up in the house on a hill but some people say that they hill is made from her memories. But I know that’s not true and she will always be my God Grandma.”

AP:
“My grand dad birthday was October 29. he died of an heart attack. I think he died in 2004 or 2005. I cried when I saw him in the casket. My grandma[?] didn’t want to go up but my dad and family picked her up and made her go up. . . My grandad had 28 kids that’s a lot of kids. My dad and granddaddy had the same name A.J.P. but my granddad was the first and my dad was the Jr. and that’s second and I was the third, III….”

PJ:
“When my brother was a baby he use to always cry if he didn’t see momma. My brother was bad he use to throw things at dar. He always wanted everybody to pick him up and carry him around. My brothers favorite cousin was Lil Man. They liked to dress alike. They used to always do the same thing all their lives. They even eat the same. They think the same. When they are together you can’t split them apart. It’s like they’re stuck together. Everywhere my big cousin Lil Man go my brother Carlos wants to go. They always buy a lot of junk after dinner. Then when they got done eating they went upstairs to eat a few snacks. They they went to bed. The next day he was still bad and it was his birthday. The fmaily came over to see him because he was the birthday boy. He was just turning two and my cousin was [?] to turn 8 in May. Then he started being good because he was getting presents. Then he said thank you to the people who gave him a present. Then from that day on he and my cousin was very good to every one. To be continued…”

SECOND HOUR

Some nice concentrated work from this hour!

JW:
“My mom name is Shirley. She was born in Illinois. her favorite food is rice. She work at a place called the V.A. What make my mom happy is when me and my sister and brother buy her something. Her favorite TV show is Lifetime. Her favorite color is purple.”

Here’s one by BW, who is obviously transferring loads from the main classroom into his work in R4W: The topic sentence is set off, and the others are all bulleted and lead off with Thens and Nexts.

The Life

This is the life of my grandma. One day my grandma told me that she was born in Washington. Then she told that her and her mother moved to Misosuri. Next she told me that when she had 8 kids. Then she told me that she would move back to Washington but her mother died in the hospital. Next after her mother died a few weeks later My Grandma took her and her kids to aunty’s funeral. Then the doctor told her that her mother gave her all of the money to her. Next my Grandma said I moved to Washington for a few years and now I am going to stay in St. Louis for the rest of my life. This is a true story.

SECOND GRADE

We had a small group, only 3, because Ms. Casey’s kids had special guests in for reading. First we talked about Christmas—what they all do to celebrate. Give and receive gifts, they said.

Before writing, we talked a little about “the bare be,” and “zero copula” of Ebonics. All 3 kids knew and could explain without an prompt from me that:

“She be drinking coffee” MEANS “She always (or usually) drinks coffee.”
AND THAT
“She drinking coffee” MEANS “She is drinking coffee right now.”

We also talked a littlel bit about pronunciation:
ILS: Why do you think some people, including you, sometimes say MO (long O) instead of MORE?
KH: Because it’s shorter.
ILS: And what about BAFF instead of BATH?
KH: It easier to say.

I was working off the assessment rubrics I have developed for tracking how aware the kids are of the kind of language they use and their casual and formal practices in class—both syntax and structure and vocab AND pronunciation of particular sounds. I kind of blended some observation and inquiry with some direct instruction about all this, pointing out the distinctions once they had grappled with them a little. It’s all very casual and loose, but I do try to wedge all of this conversation in.

Then they switched gears and wrote about meaningful gifts they have received in the past.
DW:
“I had a ring my grandma gave to me. It is purple. It got a ruby in it. I love it. My granma gave it to me to keep. I wash it every day. And it’s shiny. It is special because my granma gave it to me . And then she died.”

KH wrote about a care bear she got from her auntie. DT wrote about new clean shoes he got from his mama.

They all said how nice it was to be such a small group. It’s true—all kind of things are possible when you have the gift of time and attention a tiny class affords.

THIRD GRADE

Coming at the the genre of science writing from the perspective of generating meaningful, purposeful language in service to its function (helping someone else to recognize something), we did the Wendy Saul Chips Ahoy Experiment. The idea is that if the purpose is made clear, the language will come around on its own.

Everyone got two pencils and a piece of paper. One pencil was for describing, the other for writing. I asked them to describe the pencil (dents, length, erasers, color) so that anyone reading their paper would be able to identify it just from the words on the page – description! The next week we would lay out all the pencils and switch papers and have at it. “Describe it so that someone could read your paper and find your pencil,” I said.

ILS: “That’s what writers do. What you see, you say.”

Nice work all around. Some people drew drawings, which they labeled.

LP: It is 7 inches tall. My pencil is blue. Mine is pointy it is a point lead. It has letters it says Community School. Some of it is gold. My eraser is black and red. It has a poke in it. My other pencil is light brown. Some of it is silver. Mine has black words. It doesn’t have a eraser.

KW: My pencil is short. It is ½ inches. It’s light orange. It doesn’t have an eraser. It has 287. And U.S. A. Dixon Oriole. It has 21 HB and 194. It looks like this:
[picture below, with arrow pointing at one end and the words: “No eraser”

KH: My pencil is six and a half inches. My has an eraser. It doesn’t have bit marks. They don’t have words on them the pencil is black it’s shaped like a triangle. It has orange in it. It has a low pencil lead. They have an X on it. It has happy faces on it. . .It has yellow in it. My pencil have silver on it. This is a long pencil it have black eyes it has white in it. It’s smooth and have hardness on the other it has no words on it. . .”

I can hardly wait to see how/if they can find the match!

December 17, 2007

FOURTH GRADE

Wendy’s experiment: Same as with the pencil from last week, but using instead the homemade cranberry bars I brought in. Lots of describing words, then they traded papers while I laid out the bars on the table. They then tried to I.D. the bar that was described. It worked beautifully. Of course then everyone got to eat the bar they found. My language/prompting was like this:
“Write what you see. They’re sort of all alike, but they are each unique. How is yours unique? What makes is different form the other ones.”
They looked at shape, size (measuring with rulers), number of cranberries, was it an edge piece or a center piece, thin or thick…etc etc.

MW: It has broken up icing. Under the icing I see blueberries. On the bottom of the cake I see cranberries. Crumbs are falling off. The icing looks clear. At first I thought it was a granola bar. I see another red spot. There are little blue spots. I see a piece of icing at the bottom. It looks like it is really light. I wonder if it is good for you. It smell goood. Kind of crooked. One side is longer than the other. It doesn’t look like it has much icing. It is tan color. There is no edge. One centimeter. Twenty inches. It looks sweet.

DG: It’s square like. The back is kind of flat. It have eight cranberries inside. The bottom is flat. One side is 21 cms, the other side is 11 cms. It have an edge.

ZJ: My cake is crooked because it came from the edge of the pan. It has lots of icing on it. It have 6 centimeters. It also have dust in it. It small like lemon. It is 1 inches…It is very small. My is 1 inch tall.

AP: This cranberry thing has lot of icing. The back is one in a half inches the front is there.

First and second hour 4th grade finished up and we talked about pronunciation of more/moh, baff/bath, then/den. More about choosing where to use which and context of language. Quickly it got very serious and deep. SA spoke about how she feels that she’s just a “normal black girl” living “in the hood” and she doesn’t see why people “be wantin to” take her away from who she is, that this culture and environment are part of what makes her who she is and that’s what she is and she doesn’t care what anyone says she’s not turning her back on her community. The others chimed in with stories about how outraged they felt at the proposals in one neighbohood or community to outlaw baggy pants, not that they approve of baggy pants, but they don’t get why matters of style and personal expression should be regulated by “outsiders.” This went on for a while, with SA once mentioning the things “white people” do/say, then saying, “no offense, Ms. Schaenen,” as she always does when she speaks about such matters.
ILS: Do you think that I do that?
SA: No, you don’t.

In the second hour during a similar conversation AP said, “You don’t because you mixed.”
ILS: Mixed how? What do you mean mixed? You mean like I have a black father?
AP: Yeah.
ZJ: Yeah, you act black. White teachers in schools an’ stuff, they ain’t like that because they be hangin with black students, coming to the neighbood and all, and teachin us and stuff.

I was rather taken aback to hear from ZJ that I seem to her to “act black,” because one of the things I’m always aware of is the enormous difference in my background—with respect to privilege, cultural/ethnic background, ways of being… I know the students like me, but I always sort of thought they liked me given our differences, that they got a kick out of the way I speak on account of its being kind of amusingly different to them. I definitely never try in any way “to act black,” and indeed often call attention to their laughter over how weird I sound when I replicate Ebonics patterns myself to point out various constructions. To think that there was some sort of consensus (at least with this group) that I was/am “one of them” was amazing and also a little bizarre. I suspect it might be a case of affection leading to affinity or identification with me (and the other white teachers here), or me/us with them.

At the door to their room MW mentioned that she hated the way white people talk, and MS said, yeah, “white people talk funny.”
ILS: Do I talk funny?
MS: No, not you.
And then she went on to impersonate sort of a teeny-bopper “whatever” kind of valley girly way of talking. “Like totally” kind of language.

Another conversation in the Room:
AW: Black people think before doing something. White people just go and do it.
MS: Naw, [paraphrased] it’s not about skin color, it’s about how you are as a person that matters, it’s how you treat people.
ILS: So I’m hearing a couple of you saying that there are big differences in how white people and black people act and think, and other who say it’s more about how and who we are inside that matters.
Nods.

When the conversations go to places like this I feel so strongly how lucky I am to be in this place at this time…to be able to think and talk about such things in real ways with my students…ways that seem to shut down in the “outside world” among adults and kids both. I sense that it’s the safety of this room, and the whole history of my time here, that allows these words to come out in a meaningful way, in ways that permit us to link language to self and identity and purpose in ways that no MAP test can possible tap. What are the connections between all this and regular school work? I’m still not sure. But I am ever more certain of its value nonetheless.

SECOND GRADE

We played a rousing fun game of Apples to Apples – for this group it was the first time ever. Some interesting matches, good humor, lots of routines established for playing again. They learned the word adjectives and reviewed NOUNS.

THIRD GRADE
We couldn’t get together today…rain check until after x-mas break!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!

Inda Schaenen