What They Don’t Know Won’t Hurt Them

What They Don’t Know Won’t Hurt Them Linda Berlin Grandville High School lberlin@gpsbulldogs.org

Step One • Read the poem, mark anything you don’t understand • On a scale of 1 to 10 score your reading of the poem • 10 means you understand the poem thoroughly • 1 means you drew a complete blank

Step One • Read the poem again • Using a different pen, pencil, highlighter mark anything you don’t understand • On a scale of 1 to 10 score your reading of the poem • 10 means you understand the poem thoroughly • 1 means you drew a complete blank

Step One • Read the poem a third time • Using a different pen, pencil, highlighter mark anything you don’t understand • On a scale of 1 to 10 score your reading of the poem • 1 means you are drawing a complete blank • 10 means you understand the poem thoroughly

Step One – Triple Read Sheridan Blau,The Literature Workshop • Students resist difficulty; when they encounter a difficult passage they throw up their hands and give up. • It is our job to teach them how to tackle difficulty, how to embrace it. • “Confusion represents an advanced state of understanding.”

Step Two • Before we talk about what you know, I need you to reflect on what you don’t know • Looking back at the poems, what didn’t you understand? • Take a few minutes to write down what you had trouble with in these poems.

Step Two – Writing as Learning “Vygotsky and the Teaching of Writing” • Asking students to put their confusion into words begins the process of working through that confusion • Writing down what still remains troublesome take nebulous, abbreviated thoughts and makes them more complete and tangible

Step Three • What do you usually do when you don’t know/understand something? • Look it up? • Ask someone? • Figure it out in context? • Work around it? • Other?

Step Three • Share in your group what you didn’t know • Help each other work through what you did not understand • What you still can’t work out in your group, we’ll talk about as a class

Step Three – Small group • Some students are afraid to share their ideas with the whole class • fear of being wrong • fear of looking like a know-it-all or a show off • Small group work allows students to sort through their ideas in a safe place • This also allows the “stupid” questions to be asked and answered

Step Four • Was the material you didn’t understand vital to your overall understanding of the poem? • What will you do on test day when you run across portions of a poem/prose passage that you have no prior knowledge to understand?

Step Four • How to write about a poem like this: • One sentence summary of poem – 50 words or less • Thesis statement highlighting complexity • Move through the poem chronologically stanza by stanza: • What does it say? – quick summary • What does it mean? – highlight “cool stuff” • What does it matter? – tie back to complexity

Step Four – AP English Poetry Essay • Scored on a scale of 1-9 • Students hoping to earn college credit should be able to earn a 6 or higher • Students who simply summarize the poem, or who discuss the poets use of devices without addressing theme or complexity, can’t earn higher than a 5

Writing the AP English Poetry Essay • Students must recognize the complexity of the work and be able to write about theme, complexity, and poetic devices…. • …in 40 minutes • They can only do this on the test if they have practice doing this in class • Guided practice and writing opportunities

“But I don’t teach AP English.” • Poetry as flower • Appreciate the beauty, but also appreciate the artistry of the poet • Don’t beat the poem to death or torture meaning out of it, but let the poem reveal itself

“But I don’t teach AP English.” • Poetry as Argument • Poetry seeks to define, persuade, woo, entice, motivate, inspire … the list goes on • Teach poetry as an argument about love, injustice, family, humanity, death, etc. • Teach poetic structures or choices as part of the argument • Help students find both the argument and the evidence in the poem

Getting started • Find a poem just a bit beyond your students’ level of understanding • language or meaning, but not both • Let the kids do all the work • Triple read and mark up • Writing to reflect on confusion • Small group discussion • Informal or formal written response, visual analysis, presentation

Resources • Sarah Bauer, “Viewing a Poem as Argument” • Sheridan Blau, The Literature Workshop • Barbara Everson, “Vygotsky and the Teaching of Writing” • Ogden Morse, “SOAPSTone: A Strategy for Reading and Writing”

What They Don’t Know Won’t Hurt Them