February 13, 2008

Fourth grade, first hour

Before class, I had xeroxed a photo of Barack Obama standing with (being clasped by) Newark, NJ mayor Cory Booker, who is also a young, African American political star. (The photo appeared in a New Yorker profile of Booker this month.) We discussed what the image in the photo suggested. How did these two men feel about each other, if you had to say. D said he thought it looked like Booker was about to fight Obama, that there was a fierceness in his expression. I agreed, but suggested that strong POSITIVE feelings can sometimes come across as aggression. I told some of the stories of the two men’s lives, and tried to help D see that Booker was grasping Obama in solidarity, looking fiercely into O’s eye as if to say, “I’m with you on this.”

After this I handed out copies of a page of the article, the part where the author (Peter Boyle) relates how Booker prepared his introductory remarks before Obama was to speak at a NJ rally. I read the text aloud. It tells how Booker looks at the prepared notes, declares them to be “too vanilla,” and says aloud that what this moment calls for is “some chocolate, or maybe some Neopolitan.” Boyle explains that Booker then dashes on to the stage, shouting a protracted hello, then launches into a VERY animated speech – in standard English, but making use of the rhythm, rhyme, and tonal semantics of African American English (AAE). As Obama comes onto the stage Booker bows deeply at the waist and then exits.

The students knew right away what Booker meant by vanilla and chocolate and Neopolitan (meaning a mixture of both vanilla and chocolate). “Too white,” of course, was NOT how Booker wanted to sound. “This is code switching in action,” I said, “in a very public way, in a very self-conscious way. Booker knew how he wanted to sound and make some choices about how he should say what he needed to say in order to connect with the audience.”

So then I asked the students to sit down and write a speech. “The genre for today is speech,” I said. “You can pretend to be Obama, or Clinton (there are still a couple of Clinton fans in the Room). Or you can really compose any kind of speech. But you have to try to convince us of something, of why we should vote for you, or for someone you believe it. You can use any code you want—Ebonics or standard.”

DT, looking up from his work, said to me, “I’m talking in vanilla language.”

His was this:

Hi, my name is Hillary but you know me as Clinton. And the reason I gathered you here today because you guys should vote for me and not Obama but anyways you guys should vote for me because was there ever one time you felt like you should be in the hospital but you don’t want to because you don’t have a lot of money to pay the bill? Well, you can with medicare. And that is not why I want you to vote for me. I want to win this vote to stop the war. I also want to win this war for better schools, I also want to win this war for opportunity.

SA :

My Speech on How to Fix America
Hello, my great Americans. I hope to change the world with my knowledge. I hope to help people who need to be helped. My plan is to cure people who are ill. I want to help the schools have more books I also want to help the world not just America but the world and I can’t do that alone I need your help we need to take a stand and we need to stop the prejudiceness and we need to stop the wars against the Iraqis we need to have a life of happiness. We need to stick together.

MW: (I like this one because she wrote both the introducer’s part AND the candidate’s part)

Good morning my voters. How are you doing today? I would like to introduce someone who is strong, someone who has courage here he is Barack Obama.
Hello people thank you for giving me your support and all your might to vote for me. I will do my best to help out the community. I would fix up all the schools give books out and give more education out to kids and give more tutoring. There are people out here struggling to get houses we can buy houses we can fix up houses but we need change in our lives we need to help each other out in our community get better policeman there’s nothing wrong with that because we need to HELP THE COMMUNITY OUT.

MC: (This writer, who is charming, happy, cooperative and kind, really struggles with getting complete words/sentences on paper. His spelling is really rough, but he always sounds out as best he can. Sometimes he misses words altogether. That’s why I was overjoyed to see this lengthy speech.)

Hello my friend. [I] am Packman and I want everybody to vote for me because I need to be in the White House. Kids will have the best school lunch and the killing will stop because the war need to stop so moms can keep their children alive and keep them off the street and the people that [are] poor will have big house[s] but there one important thing I have to say is that I will let the children sag because that not a bad thing to do so I will give kids that are in the foster home a home so that [they] can be comfortable just like people that have big house[s].

When everyone was done writing the kids performed their speeches aloud using the microphone. I encouraged/allowed the audience to give audible feedback as if it really were a rally. So the strong comments usually received claps, foot stomps, nods, and “oh, yeahs.” Some people ad-libbed off their written work, some read word for word.

Fourth grade, second hour

We did the same thing as the first class. Except for two boys, this class generally writes at a lower level than the first hour. The work is heartfelt, but just not as deep or complete.

MS:

Vote for Me
Vote for me. My name is Barack Obama. I plan on stopping the war and bringing our family home to freedom. We need out family home so we can take care of them and they can take care of us. We need them and they need us. There is not a reason not to stop the war. People are dying and people are dead. People think if I stop the war the other people in Iraq are going to come kill us. That will not happen because when I stop the war people are going to say I am the best and WE WON THE WAR.

Second Grade

In our circle I read HAPPY HEDGEHOG BAND and POSSUM COME A-KNOCKIN, two illustrated books that use rhythm, humor, rhyme, and sounds to tell the story. Then I asked the kids to write their own. I wrote one, too, while they worked. Here’s mine:

I went out to the market
Seeking taters for my soup
But the grocer was a-sleepin
And I steppped into some poop [this got a laugh, natch]
I looked up on a shelf
Where I saw a little elf
Who pointed at a doggy
And then I learned the truth
He didn’t take a walk that day
Had nowhere else to go
And the consequences faced me
On the bottom of my shoe
revised to: When I walked into that store.
OR……..As I passed right through the door.

These lines don’t rhyme, but I emphasized that they don’t have to rhyme precisely.

Here’s JB’s:

Once there was a girl
That liked the boy
But the boy didn’t like the girl
The girl was sad
So she got a bat
And hit the boy
Upside his head
The boy said okay
You can be my girl
But then the girl didn’t want to be his girl
And they lived happily ever after.
This strikes me as one of those classic dramatic narrative plots, revealed simply and strikingly by a second grader.

AB:

Rat-a-tat-tat where my cat
Ma says you were sittin on the kitten
I said I wasn’t sitten on the kitten
Ma said Maybe Dad was a. . .
knock knock
Ma said who is that knockin at the door?

TW:

The Walking School
Once I came walking to school
I saw the school walking
the teacher was dancing
the principal was going
the student claming [?]
I said The School Walking Away!
They looked they saw nothing the school was swimming
they looked again the school was wet
That why they believed her.

Third Grade

We did the same activity as second grade.

KH:

I’m walking down the street
and heard something and it went beep beep.
My neighbor came out the door and she go Kelcie open dat door
So I go what is you screaming for
My mom told me to walk to the store
So when I walked to the store that lady go
Where did you go
I go why do you want to know
The lady go don’t slam that door
I go what are you looking for
She go no, no, no I’m not telling you what I’m looking for
What so not ask me to stay when I hit the door
The radio go this is Racherd [?] Radio
And I go wait before I hit the door.

KW: [Echoing me and the book and making it her own stuff!]

I step into some poop
I had to taste some soup
It tasted so disgusting
I wanted to start chucking
I start sleepin I start peakin
Mom was in the kitchen cookin some chicken
It tasted delicious I wanted to start kickin.
Mom what’s wrong you want some
I’m kickin
You want to start pickin
Pick me kiss me you want-a start kick me yeah.

I may pull a few kids out of this group. There are three of four kids (girls) who don’t really seem like they care to belong, or to try. I’ll talk to the teachers next week and see what they think.

Inda