A couple weeks ago I went with a few colleagues to The Literacy Promise, a conference in SLC.
Most of the sessions were enjoyable, but one that I went to stood out to
me. Those of you who teach English
should know who Penny Kittle is. If not,
repent immediately and go purchase, read, annotate, and devour a couple of her
books.
Her session addresses using writer’s notebooks in the
classroom. A short lesson in revision
struck a chord with me, and I’ve decided to share it with you. By the way, if any of you in the area get a
chance to attend The Literacy Promise (held every two years), it is worth the
cost. Get your administrators to spring
for the registration in April 0f 2014.
Anyway, as my friend Nacho says, “Anywhays…”…
Penny started before her session by graciously chatting
with me about a few teachery writing-type things. And she signed my book. I am such a geek!
This particular segment started as she passed out a copy
of Sarah Kay’s poem “Hands,” which we then watched the author perform via
YouTube. Check her other stuff out as
well.
We were asked to annotate the poem as we read it through
the second time. We traced our hands—not
to make Thanksgiving turkeys, mind you, but to give connect us to our
past. We brainstormed any connections we
had to our “Hands” annotations, as well as any other images, stories, etc. that
came from our hands. We, in five
minutes, circled words and phrases, jotted noted, drew diagrams, vomited our
ideas onto paper.
She then gave us an additional five to choose one point from
the mess before us and start writing an anecdote about it.
We stopped mid-idea.
And then we had to revise what we had barely eked out of
our pens as quickly as we could (two minutes).
Then we turned and talked to a neighbor, not about our
stories, although it was what came naturally, but about what we revised, how we
revised. Here I go flashing my geekdom,
but I rather enjoyed that little chat with my pal Cassie. In those two minutes, I saw my revision
process as I never had before. I was systematic; there was a method to my clichéd madness.
Now, I’m not going to go in depth with my geeky
revelations, but I thought I might share that process with the few that have
ventured this far. I tried this activity
with my 9th graders…and it worked.
Of course, I extended their time.
And the best part by far was the conversation generated by them about
their processes. Whole-class discussion
was mediocre, but what occurred between braced faces and zits was almost
magic. Almost.
So I guess I’ll share my product-somewhat revised, even
though it’s not what you’re looking for:
When
Amy and I were first engaged she would always gush to her girlfriends how much
she loved holding my hands. She’d yank
me over and showcase my palms and knuckles like I was some kind of
livestock. Some might have been
offended, but I didn’t mind.
Until then I had never really
thought about my thick, gnarly, knuckle-popped sausage-finger hands: the hands
that couldn’t type quickly without inserting invented letters into words; hands
that couldn’t quite coordinate themselves to play the piano with any semblance
of finesse; hands that didn’t have much mechanical dexterity other than a death
grip of a vice.
My hands, the chunks of flesh
that survived pocketknives and scout camp, electric shocks, and even meat
slicers; the hooks of flesh madeover with scars and burns, scratches and
stings, paper cuts too infinite to count, the knuckles bent and bruised and
bloody and busted (and probably broken at one point or another)—are no big
deal.
They’re just my hands.
Just my hands—smeared with ink
and nervous sweat as they fumble to keep other smaller, more delicate hands
close and safe from monsters under the bed, and first days of school and overly
obnoxious barking neighbor dogs.
But when the human stock show closed,
and we walked away, my fingers interlaced with hers, I knew my hands, though not
too pretty to look at, just needed to be good enough.
I might turn it into a poem. Whaddya think?
