“I usually feel like a submarine, but that doesn’t work in this class,” said with mixed humor and frustration. My sixth grade class was reading the novel Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt and we were at a point where Dicey, the oldest child of a wandering foursome, compares herself and her family to different types of boats, looking for a harbor. I thought I could use their readings like mentor texts and encourage student writing by having them use the novel excerpts as models. So I asked students to write a similar analogy that reflects themselves or their family as compared to some type of boat. Providing a model of not only what I’m asking but also a sample of the depth and quality of response, I compared myself to a tugboat – sometimes I pull students along the channel of life, sometimes I push from behind, and many times I move beside them, guiding their journey with an occasional nudge to keep them safely in the channel so they don’t run aground. Every student wrote – it was about them! And they had a model text as well as a teacher model for support.
When I spoke with Chad later, during a quiet moment, I asked him to elaborate on his idea of a submarine – a lot of his written analogy focused on the periscope — coming up, keeping the direction in view — while the sub glided undersea… unseen. Chad told me he just moves through school, kind of under the surface without being noticed. He shared that he keeps his periscope “up” so he can see what’s going on – but in 5th grade his teacher did not call on him the whole year. (!) The last thing Chad told me… said with a sparkle in his eye while trying not to grin … was that the problem in my class is that I ask him questions and to share his ideas even if he doesn’t raise his hand!!
I thought I found a way to encourage writing with the idea of writing parallel to the novel, instead I learned so much more about my students – their insights and self-perceptions, their capacity for depth of interpretations. Between their engagement and buy-in to the assignment and the impact on my own classroom practice, this was a true growth experience.
And remember all that Professional Development about techniques for random participation to encourage student achievement? Well, apparently it matters!