I'm in my 3rd year of teaching reading, we won't count that year in 8th grade *shudders*, and I think I'm getting the hang of it. Our school follows the Lucy Caulkins game plan... pretty much to the letter. When I read the books and watched the videos, I'll admit, I was hooked. It just seemed to be the way reading was supposed to be taught. I've seen remarkable things happen in the last 3 years, but I'd like to focus this blog entry on an experience that happened during the first week of school, this year.
You need to know, first, that I take "Read Aloud" time very seriously. I have discovered that I am a storyteller. I don't read, I enact. Every character has his and her own voice. The decibel level of the reading depends on what is happening in the story. If the story calls for a whisper, my students have to lean forward in order to hear. And there are times that I need to give my students time to recover from a bombastic moment of excitement. When I read aloud, my students are in the palm of my hand, and I find that extraordinarily satisfying. Though my moments of greatest joy come when my students have me in the palm of their hand as they make a connection to the text that was purely of their making and profound enough to change my life. That happens more than you might think.
We started the lesson out by talking about shared experiences. I asked my students to think about why we love watching a movie so much more when we are with someone else than when we watch it alone. We talked about how we like laughing at the same things, and sharing what we loved about it the most. These moments, I shared, are what tightens the bonds of friendship. What I want most, when watching that movie with a friend, is to know that we share likes and dislikes... that they are... like me in some respects. I informed them that reading a story together can have the same effect, if we let it.
We were reading the second chapter of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate D. Camillo, an author who has written a number of books that were made to be read aloud. In it, Camillo intentionally makes us have feelings towards Edward, who was being poorly treated by a dog and a maid, and for Abilene, his loving owner who found him when he had been misplaced by the maid. We felt bad for Edward, and anger at the maid, but we mostly felt the joy that was so clearly evident in Abilene as she embraced him to the point that he could feel her heartbeat. We all knew what that feeling was like: The moment something that was loved and lost was found! But then Camillo puts in a paragraph. It immediately followed Abilene's fervent expression of love for him and her want to never again be parted from him. The book mentioned that Edward was felling a strong emotion as well, but that it was not love, but annoyance at his mistreatment. I read the paragraph again and asked my students to turn and talk with each other about what feelings they now felt, after hearing the paragraph a second time. It was universal. They did not like the way that Edward, seemingly dismissed her love, and did not return it.
I was happy that they recognized the emotional twist that Camillo orchestrated, but I was touched deeply by a comment that another student made. A young girl, who we'll call Ella, recounted an interaction that she had with a father with whom she had been separated through a divorce. She recalled some emails she had received from him and how he wanted to see her and wanted to get to know her better. The day came that they were brought together. Ella had readied herself to get to know this stranger who was her father. The meeting occurred, but the moment never happened. He came, but made no attempt to embrace her or talk to her about who she was or what she liked. Ella wanted a connection that he was not, in reality, ready to make. It crushed her. It crushed us. I didn't talk for a few moments, allowing what she had shared to sink in.
In the end I told her that I appreciated sharing a connection that was so deeply personal. I told her that I was grateful to get to know her better and in a way that most of her teachers ever will. But this moment wasn't just for me. Her classmates all shared this experience, all made the connection to this only too real-world moment, all became strengthened by joining in empathy for a brave young lady.
These moments happen each and every year I have had a read aloud in class. Whether it was while reading Almost Home by Joan Bauer with a boy who had spent the better part of a year homeless, or Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr with the students who had relatives who had fought the fight against one type of cancer or another. But they will only happen if we let it. Purposefully.
I can't imagine starting this year of reading off in a better way than that. I hope your beginnings are met with such successes!
