So Many River Metaphors...but I Refuse to Use One in the Title

The first half of last week I was chillin’ up in Spokane, Washington, with two of my friends/colleagues from the Central Utah WritingProject (CUWP) to present at the Northwest Inland Writing Project (NIWP) spring conference.  Sarah and Janae presented on revision strategies—a topic I have dabbled in, and I revamped my shtick about wordplay in the classroom.  And although it wasn’t everything I expected, or hoped for, since I had a few technology glitches, it was a great venture for my first out-of-state presentation.

Jeff Wilhelm did an amazing job discussing the new common core and some strategies for implementing it in a language arts classroom.  It wasn’t anything new, but it validated what we, as a team at SFJHS, have been striving toward.  However, I didn’t receive my biggest a-ha moment until after the conference had finished and the three of us were killing time, passing time until our flight (full of Zag fans, by the way) departed.

The morning started out gray and a bit drizzly, not much in the way of vacation weather, but by the time we had breakfasted, the rain stopped and the sun played peek-a-boo haphazardly through gray patchy clouds.  We strolled through Riverside Park between our hotel and the conference center, crossing bridges, inhaling clean air and inspiring landscapes.  The ladies would pause and take pictures, but I didn’t have my camera; I had to capture the picturesque downtown area in my mind.

At one of our final panoramic bridge photo ops, I glanced across the water at a handful of tourists sneaking down a bank to get a better view of the lower falls.  That’s when it hit me.  I had been here before.  When I was seven, Dad was stationed at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas.  That summer we took a family vacation: a few days in Yosemite—awesome, but it did nothing to assuage my acrophobia—then across the Golden Gate Bridge and up the Pacific Cost Highway.  Once we hit the Columbia River, we crisscrossed the states of Oregon and Washington until we hit Spokane.  For some reason, my dad thought he would retire up there, so he decided to buy a few acres close to Mount Spokane.

I remember a few scattered details about the Spokane part of the trip.  My dad had a new Betamax video camera.  Marc or David, I don’t recall which, busted his flip-flop traipsing through the underbrush of those ten acres of pine trees.  We stopped at a gas station on the return and I had a pineapple Crush soda.  (Never had one since.)

But standing on the bridge last Thursday, the raging of the falls came back, the red brick buildings, the dilapidated wood and chain-link fences.  I knew these sights…and not from postcards or distant stories.  Even though the I-Max theater was new, I had been on Canada Island before.  I had crossed the bridges as a boy, walked the trails, chased the squirrels, thrown rocks and sticks into the rapids.  The familiarity, which had been absent the previous three days, was rekindled in a small spark of memory.  And that familiarity brought contentment.  The power of memory and connection across 29 years made the entire trip worth it.

I’ve addressed the importance of mining for memories and the power that it holds in earlier posts, and I’m sticking to that claim.  Stories have power, and working to uncover what was once hidden in our lives, be they pleasant or horrific, is a process well worth the blood, sweat, and embarrassment of yesteryear.

I move that the human population would do well to set aside time, every so often, to reflect, to remember, and to contemplate the past and present so as to create a fuller, more meaningful future.  Writing, or journaling, or blogging, or sketching, or anything (really) physical and mechanical helps to solidify our life’s experiences and assists in the meaning-making we all seek in life.  Actually organizing our thoughts on paper helps shape the marble, shade the coloration, or dry the cement.  And at times, we can completely reconstruct our experiences from a new perspective—one that only years and seasoning can give birth to.  It’s all in the details and how we relish them, how we revel in them, and how we retain them.

As a teacher, I suggest that we provide students with opportunities to explore different moment sin their own lives.  Depending on the age of the students, they may not have very many eye-openers that they can recall.  However, and this is where I want to drive my point home, it is up to us to help them realize how special each minute detail may be.  Teach them to capture a snapshot of life; sagas are not necessary (really, they aren’t).  Nobody truthfully cares about what happened every minute of the day that led up to the food fight at lunch.  They just want to feel the past-prime peas pelted against their pock-marked faces.  They want to hear the squelching of mashed potatoes sloshed across someone’s unsuspecting mug.  They want to witness the spray of the chocolate milk carton exploding against the brick wall.

Teach them pacing.  Teach them to slow down those special EPSN highlight moments that they have had.  I will always marvel at how a close play at the plate, a single blocked shot, or a tackle in the backfield gets stretched into a three-minute segment.  Teach them to explode a scene, to take a 30-second thrill and stretch it over two or three pages that will hold the memory captive behind paper and ink (or digital) bars forever.

What’s that you say?  They still struggle to find ideas, to discover instances of significance in their short lives?  First, remind them that they don’t have to be world travelers to have an exciting life.  Sometimes thoughtful moments come in that landfill of a bedroom while blaring the latest trendy flash-in-the-pan performing artist.  Other times we need to slow down those sad and depressing episodes of our lives in order to analyze or make sense of this crazy, mixed-up world.

Sometimes, we all need a kick in the pants to get us going.  Students seem to need this more often, so one thing I like to do is to provide some kind of inspiration.   At times, it’s a picture—an illustration, meme, or work of art that will hopefully get them thinking.  Every now and again I give them a hypothetical situation or a question to ponder.  My favorite way to get students into a moment, though, is through a text.  I love to use short stories, poems, quotes, picture books—something text-based, to fire up those gerbil wheels and keep them spinning.  Check out my post about Writing Prompts Based on Readings.  It might help you get an example of what I’m talking about.  For those who need a framework, a prompt provides safety.  For those who are ready to explore the recesses of their mental abysses, they are free to wander…as long as they haul proper spelunking attire and accouterments.  See some of my personal rambles (look at the tags on the side bar over on the right) to see how it works for me.

Now, after I’ve babbled, I guess it’s time for me to shut up.  I may not have conveyed my thoughts perfectly here, but just sitting at my computer and physically typing the words has given me an outlet, an opportunity to try and make sense of the flotsam swimming through the clumps of gray matter inside my skull.  This is just a rough draft.  If it’s important enough to me, I’ll revise…yes, even after publication.

Your assignment: revisit the Spokane River.  Find those moments that have meaning.  Make connections between past and present.  Solidify them.  Even if you need some prompting, just do it.  Try one of my prompts. Discover something on your own.  Whatever you do, just write (even if your inner muse is on hiatus), reflect (even when it’s worse than rubbing hand sanitizer over an unidentified paper cut), and enjoy your life (or else).

Article

Now, I realize that this shouldn't technically count as a new post, but I don't care.  It is a  revision of the previous post--an article that has been accepted for publication in this year's Utah English Journal (October).  So, for those who care, or have the time, or both, or whatever, here is the revised edition.  Maybe I'll get to posting more frequently now.

No, I couldn't hear you laughing.  I was busy heckling myself.  I have a stats class to master (cue violent vomiting sound effect, splatters and all) this semester.  Also on tap, a course rewrite for my independent study class.  It's a good thing I have a competent student teacher.

Okay, I'll shut up now so those who care can get on with things, and those who don't can get on with life.  I've already presented this at a Central Utah Writing Project conference, and I'm also proposing to present at the Utah Council of Teachers of English conference this October.  We'll see what happens.

Oh, yeah.  I'm leaving off the title and the reference list since they are exactly the same as before.

And as always, comments and criticisms are always welcome.

            Yes, I am one of those geeky idealistic English teachers, who occasionally fantasize about being Robin Williams’ character Mr. Keating from the classic film Dead Poets Society.  After twelve years of unsuccessfully convincing my students to call me “O Captain, My Captain,” I still hold to the belief that I can get my students to “savor words and language” (Haft, Henderson, Witt, Thomas, & Weir, 1989).  Regardless of an individual’s ability or inherent wordsmithiness, I encourage all students to play with words on many different levels.  On Fridays, we set aside time to play with words.  Just play.  But why?  Aren’t there roughly sixteen kajillion “testable” language arts objectives to cover in the first semester alone?  Yes, but don’t worry about those; I’ll explain.

            Wordplay is defined by Figgins and Johnson (2007) as students “exploring the possibilities of words on the page in front of them as those words collect, collide, and constrict, then converge and ultimately, connect” (p.29).  Huh?  Just wait.  Garcia et al (2007) define word play in two senses: “[1] as having fun and [2] to refer to the ‘looseness’ or ‘play’ that is needed in rubberized brake pads….If there is too much play in overstretched rubber bands, they are ineffective, while if there is no play, they are useless.  Language is much the same.  Without a sense of play, babies could not learn to talk nor could adults adjust their language to talk about new concepts” (p.51).   When we get a new computer or cell phone, most of us don’t bother reading the instruction guide.  Instead, we play around with the new toy until we understand how to manipulate it.

            Sure, but why play with words in the classroom?  Why not just teach them the core curriculum and be done with it?  Roger Shanley (2007) found that word play activities addressed state core language arts standards, were more informal and comfortable for students to work with, but at the same time promoted student creativity.  Author Phillip Pullman said that “The most valuable attitude we can help children adopt – the one that, among other things, helps them to write and read with the most fluency and effectiveness and enjoyment – I can best characterise by the word playful” (Pullman, 2005).   Play is work in disguise.  Playing with words is working to master the language.  To fulfill most academic assignments, students need not extend themselves to their linguistic boundaries (Pomerantz & Bell, 2007).  This language is often flat and voiceless.  In order to improve writing (and it may appear to be taking a step backward), students must return to the basics of language, which includes, first and foremost a positive attitude toward language (Pullman, 2005).  Figgins and Johnson (2007) show that “students’ relationships with language are more likely to change when they are permitted to play with it, but teachers must construct multiple classroom situations for experimentation, and thus change to take place” (p.29).

            What I can do, as a language arts teacher, is provide a time and a place for students to take risks and play with words in a safe environment, allowing them to grow as writers (Kazemek, 1999; Whitaker, 2008).  By doing so, students build their confidence, their vocabulary, their understanding and mastery of different genres, and they start to develop their own personal voice.

            So where do you start? Like the rest of you, I have students who don’t speak English and students who hate English mixed in with students who love language almost as much as I do.  How do you level the playing field?  I have found that playing is the best way to break down barriers on the playground, in the sandlot, and in the classroom.  Pullman noted that word play “begins with nursery rhymes and nonsense poems, with clapping games and finger play and simple songs and picture books.  It goes on to consist of fooling about with the stuff the world is made of: with sounds, and with shapes and colours…and with language.  Fooling with it, playing with it, pushing it this way and that, turning it sideways, painting it different colours, looking at it from the back, putting one thing on top of another, asking silly questions, mixing it up, making absurd comparisons, discovering unexpected similarities, making pretty patterns, and all the time saying “Supposing…I wonder…What if…” (2005).

                So we play with how words sound, how words look, and how words taste.  I’d like you play along now.  And, no, that’s not a suggestion.  Put down this article and grab a pen and paper (or scribble in the margins).  We’ll start with a couple pre-writing assignments: 

1.      Write down 3 different letters of the alphabet.  (Consonants work better.)

2.      List the objects in your pockets/wallet/bag.

3.      Write down a handful of at least three actions you enjoy doing.  Be specific.  Don’t just say “hiking;” instead write “hiking The Narrows in Zion National Park.”

            Now that the assignment is over, we’ll proceed.  The most basic play involves actual sounds.  To quote scripture for my own purpose, I say “Hear my words…and give ear unto me, ye that have knowledge.  For the ear trieth words, as the mouth tasteth meat.   Let us choose to us judgment: let us know among ourselves what is good” (Job 34:2-4).  Even the least of us enjoys sounds that resonate in our ears and syllables that slip off our tongues.  And I try to get my students to acknowledge that fact through play.  We start with Internet funnies like Neil Cicierega’s Potter Puppet Pals video "The Mysterious Ticking Noise" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx1XIm6q4r4) and this version of The Vestibules’ “Bulbous Bouffant” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uuCNAwXGaQ).  If you haven’t seen these clips, pause again and go watch them.  If you have, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

            After we have heard how awesome the sounds of words can be, we create our own Cool Word Lists.  Here is an example of the start a collaborative list collected by 9^th graders:

abhor	conundrum	gregarious	miniscule	reciprocate
abridge	cudgel	imbibe	nefarious	regurgitate
adjudicate	curmudgeon	implore	odoriferous	robust
adroit	deluge	incarcerate	ostentatious	saunter
alibi	dilapidated	infiltrate	pandemonium	serendipitous
ambivalent	discombobulate	ingenious	parabola	shabby
amble	divulge	kumquat	parsimonious	stamina
bamboozle	facetious	lackadaisical	perfunctory	stupor
behemoth	fidget	loquacious	pilfer	surreptitious
bombastic	finagle	lugubrious	pique	thwart
burgle	flabbergasted	luminous	placate	ubiquitous
catastrophic	flagellum	machination	protuberance	vagabond
chortle	fortuitous	magnanimous	pulchritude	vagrant
cohesive	furrow	malignant	pungent	voluptuous
connive	gargantuan	maniacal	recalcitrant	zesty

These lists are stored in their individual writer’s notebooks, to which they add more words over the course of the school year.

            Another method for collecting cool words comes from Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge’s Poemcrazy (1996).  She suggests having a physical word pool that students can draw from when they need to find a word of inspiration.  And so my classes gave birth to Chuck three years ago.  Our “word chuck” is really just a black plastic bucket with duct tape patches where students, when they collect a word they deem worthy of sharing with the rest of the world, or at least their fellow classmates, write the word on the back of a raffle ticket and “feed” Chuck.  When feeling uninspired, students pull out a handful of tickets to see if anything sparks their ignition.  Collecting words gives the students an opportunity to play with words in an isolated manner, without connecting to anything else, thus helping them to see value in individual words.  When they start manipulating two or three or fourteen words in to create meaning, you can tell they start to “get” words.  Former students who fail to dodge me in the grocery store still ask how Chuck is doing and if he has been fed lately.  Establishing and maintaining word pools also allows them to develop unknown vocabulary in a nonthreatening way.

            Once students have a comfortable grasp of individual words and sounds and cadence, it’s time to put them together.  Again, I like to start on a basic level with tongue twisters.  Several resources are available online as well as in the children’s section of your local bookstore; however, my favorite is Dr. Seuss’ Fox in Sox.  Students roar as they witness how tied up I, the supposed word-guru, get when trying to demonstrate these delectably scrambled sentences.

            From there I move on to plays on words, an essential element to any type of humor.  Bring in comics, Laffy Taffy wrappers, joke books (Kazemek, 1999), especially anything that includes bad puns.  This low form of humor works on many levels (and could be used as a springboard for many other language-artsy lessons like allusion or parody).  Chocolate Moose for Dinner (Gywnn, 1976), Olive, the Other Reindeer (Walsh, 1997), and the Amelia Bedelia series (Parish, 2003) are a perfect place to start regardless of whether you are working with first graders or freshmen.  Students enjoy reading and identifying puns and whatnot, but not as much as they do when they attempt to create them individually (or collaboratively).  These attempts at play could be used as non-fluffy extra credit, too.  The students actually have to think about crafting language instead of filling out a mindless worksheet.  Hmmm…go figure!  My personal favorite example of “lower” simple word play is David Lubar’s Punished! because it includes puns, oxymorons, anagrams, and palindromes.  Making students aware of the absurdities of the English language heightens their awareness of rhetorical devices in “higher” forms of literature, speech, and writing—especially when you require them to include them in their writing assignments.  Unfortunately, it also results in a flood of bad Internet jokes in my inbox, too.

            Although by no means a new way to play, students love returning time and time again to the comforts of alliteration.  Again, a plethora (love that word) of resources exists such as Stan and Jan Berenstain’s The B Book (1971) or Nicholas Heller’s Ogres! Ogres! Ogres! A Feasting Frenzy from A to Z (1999) that illustrate effective uses of alliteration.  Now we’re going to pause again so you can write and play along.

            Take your first letter and come up with a line of alliteration.  Come up with at least ten words that start with your letter (sound).  Try fitting some of them together.  Now, take your second letter and create a line that could be included in the Ogre book or fit into another alliterated tale.  Try one more by creating a whole paragraph! Or even a story!  Yes, they should make sense.  Sometimes we’ll roll a letter die to determine the letter for the class.  Competition between groups or individual students brings out some amazing writing.  Here is an example I wrote while I was playing with my Central Utah Writing Project fellows:

“A Sudden Slayer Snuffing”

                The somewhat psychotic slayer slipped silently onto the sad scene.  Surreptitiously, she spied the sortie of zombies sipping and slurping slimy substances from something, or someone recently smothered and smashed and squished.

                Suddenly, she shouted. “Stop, you spleen suckers!”  Screaming sadistically, she sent a smattering of shotgun shells into their subhuman skulls.

                Stunned for second, the simple, slobbering subjects smiled stupidly.  Sammy the Slayer shortly shrieked in shock then slumped slowly.  Someone, or something, had circled, sneaked up, seized, and strangled her.

                Suppertime!

Other sound devices that could be addressed in similar fashion could include, but are not limited to consonance, assonance, rhyme, rhythm/meter, or repetition.

            Another student favorite is onomatopoeia.  Just saying the name of this technique brings smiles, if not giggles to everyone.  Go ahead and try saying it with a scowl.  Nope. I can’t do it either.  And that’s because sounds can inspire.  Let’s play some more together.  Choose one of the actions you listed in your pre-writing.  Reflect for a few moments.  (Put the article down again, if necessary.)  Now write the words for the sounds of your activity.  In other words, “onomatopoeiafy” your action.  Then play with the structure.  Rearrange images.   Use a thesaurus or a Chuck if you need help finding the right words.  String the ideas together to create a poem.  Here is one example I got lucky with when playing with sounds:

“For Zachary”

Not even

the crack-sing-smack-sting-

barehanded snag of a foul ball

while balancing a foot-long

with yellow mustard, onions

and sweet pickle relish,

nor the

sky-slash-earth-crash-

explosion of light and adrenaline

while lightning’s intensity charges each arm hair

through the double-paned window drizzle

and safety of four walls,

nor the

sit-back-deep-black-

deep thought expanse of infinite stars

while a dying fire toasts backsides

like perfectly golden marshmallows

slipped between grahams

is worth experiencing

without a son to pass it on.

            After the students have had some practice playing in a structured setting (with my guidance), I let them try to fly on their own.  I’ll provide word games for students to play with and struggle over and conquer.  For beginners, or independent learners, word searches and crossword puzzles suffice.  I also like to divide them into groups to play board games such as Boggle, Scrabble, Mad Gab, Taboo, Scattergories, Bananagrams, or others.  If you stop and think about it, most decent board games are based on language and thinking.  Commercially produced grammar games such as Grammar Punk! work as well if you just can’t give up control of your classroom.

            Magnetic Poetry is also extremely popular.  I have several sets on a 4’x4’ whiteboard on one of my walls.  When students have free time, they congregate and try to outdo each others’ creative endeavors.  They take possession of their creations and get upset when I don’t preserve the “masterpieces” from the manipulations of other class periods.  I even have them fooling around with the online version (http://kids.magpogames.com/createpoem.cfm?kit=4).  Go play for a minute if you need to.  I had to (again) as I was writing this article.  In about ten seconds, I actually came up with the phrase “winter window wish.”  There’s no way I would have come up with that unless I was just scrambling words around.  I have no immediate need for that phrase now, but it’ll probably make an appearance somewhere down the road.  It’s in my notebook.  Students also take advantage of these playful platforms to collect phrases and images to use in their writing later.  Writer’s notebooks fill up with ideas that they have conjured while simply playing.  Found poetry in its several forms also provides an arena for students to feel comfortable using others’ words, changing them, and making them their own.  Meaning is broken down, absorbed, re-created, and reproduced through simple play.

            In his book On Writing, Stephen King said, “When it’s on target, a simile delights us in much the same way meeting an old friend in a crowd of strangers does” (2001).  One of my personal recent favorite similes comes from the Travel Channel’s Man Versus Food.  At the end of one show, someone asks the host how hot the chicken wings were.  He responded, “It was like licking the sun.”  Similes, like any other literary device, create imagery that students love holding onto.  I like to point out particularly powerful ones as we read.  From Maniac Magee, “…screaming like an Aztec human sacrifice about to be tossed off a pyramid” (Spinelli, 1999) often becomes a class favorite.

            I could ramble on describing and sharing the different types of play my students engage in, but I think you get the idea, and I need to end.  However, before I do, I need to emphasize the most important aspect of play: modeling.  If you want your students to “think for themselves” and “savor words and language” (Haft et al.,1989), you have to play as well.  Apart from providing the time and the opportunity to play, you, as the teacher, have to provide the example.  Even in a safe environment, playing with words and creating silliness requires taking personal risks.  When students see our own processes while playing with words, when we as adults take risks in front of them, it helps to ease their stress levels and allows them to open up and let loose with the wackiness, weirdness, and occasional wisdom found within the words of the English language.  Playing will force students and teachers alike to step outside the boundaries of everyday discourse and strive for something more creative, more imaginative, more risky.  The irony, though, is that while this advanced word choice and construction occurs, the users feel more at ease because of the context of the discourse.  The structure of play allows and encourages taking risks.  It also has an “important role in the development of learners’ identities, mulitcompentent selves, and communicative repertoires” (Pomerantz & Bell, 2007, p. 575).  Fears break down, inhibitions about composition crumble, and students are empowered through the power of play.