Education / Language Arts

$24.95

Reading, Writing,

LINDA CHRISTENSEN
Reading, Writing, and Rising Up
2ND EDITION BY LINDA CHRISTENSEN
and Rising Up
For almost two decades, teachers have looked to Reading, Writing, and Rising Up as a trusted Teaching About Social Justice
text to integrate social justice teaching in language arts classrooms. Now, Linda Christensen is
and the Power of the Written Word

Reading, Writing, and Rising Up

back with a fully revised, updated version. Offering essays, teaching models, and a remarkable
collection of student writing, Christensen builds on her catalog of social justice scholarship with
a breathtaking set of tools and wisdom for teachers in the new millennium.

Reading, Writing, and Rising Up is
a profound work of emancipatory
pedagogy that brings together
theory, classroom practice,
personal narrative, and student
work. This is not simply a “second
edition” of Christensen’s earlier
work. There is a wealth of new, rich,
and timely material that shows and
tells how to reach “unreachable”
students and teach them to
think and write critically. Linda
Christensen is a talented, brilliant
teacher who has distilled her four
decades of work with students
“If you are not outraged, you are
not paying attention.” The second
edition of Reading, Writing, and
Rising Up provides us, as teachers,
with ways to share our outrage,
our critical consciousness, our
passion for justice, and our
indefatigable questioning of
power with our students, making
it part of our curriculum and a
way of being in the world. At
the same time, Reading, Writing,
and Rising Up insists that joy,
creativity, community, and love
accompany our outrage, reading,
LINDA CHRISTENSEN
It’s difficult to imagine a
more valuable addition to
an English teacher’s library.
Linda Christensen provides a
rich collection of instructional
activities that absorb students
in problems of social justice
and ethical responsibility while
engaging them intensely in
authentic uses of literacy skills.
The rich collection of lessons
in this newly revised edition of
Reading, Writing, and Rising Up
ensures that students develop
in academic literacy at the same

in a rainbow classroom into a
masterpiece that is a must-read for
teachers in this Black Lives Matter
historical moment.
GENEVA SMITHERMAN
University Distinguished Professor
Emerita, Michigan State University;
author of Talkin That Talk: Language,
Culture, and Education in African
America.
and writing.
DAVID BLOOME
EHE Distinguished Professor of
Teaching and Learning, The Ohio
State University; Founding Director
of Columbus Area Writing Project;
Past President, National Council
of Teachers of English
2ND EDITION
time they grow in racial, ethical,
and humane literacy.
SHERIDAN BLAU
Professor of Practice in the Teaching
of English Teachers College,
Columbia University; Professor
Emeritus in English and Education,
University of California, Santa
Barbara; Past President, National
Council of Teachers of English
RETHINKING SCHOOLS

A RETHINKING SCHOOLS PUBLICATION

800-669-4192 | www.rethinkingschools.org

A RETHINKING SCHOOLS PUBLICATION I SECOND EDITION

COVER DESIGN Zucker Design | COVER ILLUSTRATION Jane Murray Lewis
Reading, Writing,
and Rising Up
Teaching About Social Justice
and the Power of the Written Word

LINDA CHRISTENSEN

A RETHINKING SCHOOLS PUBLICATION

SECOND EDITION
Reading, Writing, and Rising Up, Second Edition
By Linda Christensen

A Rethinking Schools Publication

Rethinking Schools, Ltd., is a nonprofit publisher and advocacy organization

dedicated to sustaining and strengthening public education through social
justice teaching and education activism. Our magazine, books, and other
resources promote equity and racial justice in the classroom. We encourage
grassroots efforts in our schools and communities to enhance the learning and
well-being of our children, and to build broad democratic movements for social
and environmental justice.

To request additional copies of this book or a catalog of other publications, or

to subscribe to Rethinking Schools magazine, contact:
Rethinking Schools
6737 W. Washington St. Suite 3249
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53214
800-669-4192
www.rethinkingschools.org

© 2017 Rethinking Schools, Ltd.

Cover and book design: Nancy Zucker

Cover illustration: “Kindred Spirits” by Jane Murray Lewis
Proofreading: Lawrence Sanfilippo and Haili Jones Graff
Indexing: Carol Roberts
Production Editor: Kjerstin Johnson

All rights reserved. Except as permitted below, no part of this book may be
reproduced in any form or by any means, including electronic, without the
express prior written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotation in
an acknowledged review. Individuals may photocopy excerpts from this book
for use in educational settings (physical settings only; internet use is not
permitted), as long as such material is furnished free to students or workshop
participants. For sale of any portion of this book as part of course packets,
contact the Copyright Clearance Center for permissions and appropriate fees.
If you have any questions, contact Rethinking Schools at the address above.

ISBN: 978-0-942961-69-0

The Library of Congress has catalogued the first edition as follows:

Christensen, Linda.
Reading, writing, and rising up : teaching about social justice and
the power of the written word / by Linda Christensen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.).
ISBN 0-942961-25-0
1. Reading (Secondary)—Social aspects—United States. 2.
Literature—Study and teaching (Secondary)—Social aspects—United
States. 3. Social justice—Study and teaching (Secondary)—United
States. 4. High school students—United States—Social conditions—20th
century. I. Title.
LB1632 .C49 2000
306.4’88’0973—dc21
00-010916
 Contents

Chapter 1: Creating Community out of Chaos

3 Creating Community out of Chaos

9 
Name Poem: To Say the Name Is to Begin the Story

15 The Read-Around: Raising Writers

19 
Where I’m From: Inviting Students’ Lives into the Classroom
“Where I’m From” by George Ella Lyon
“Where I’m From” by Renée Watson

27 Sweet Learning

31 Mapping Childhood: How Our Stories Build Community

43 Discipline: No Quick Fix

Chapter 2: Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us

49 Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us: Critiquing Cartoons and Society

58 Writing the Cartoon Essay

68 Cartoons: Taking Action

71 Danger of a Single Story: Writing Essays About Our Lives

81 Talking Back: Teaching “what the mirror said”

“what the mirror said” by Lucille Clifton

86 The Poetry of Protest: Teaching Martín Espada

“Jorge the Janitor Finally Quits” (English and Spanish) by Martín Espada
“Federico’s Ghost” by Martín Espada

v
92 “Why I Like Graffiti”: A Political Manifesto
“Why I Like Graffiti” by Katharine Harer

97 Untracking English: Creating Quality Education for All Students

Chapter 3: Writing the Word and the World

109 Writing the Word and the World: Moving Beyond Pretty Words

115 Forgiveness Poems: An Ax for the Frozen Sea Within Us

“forgiving my father” by Lucille Clifton

122 Essay with an Attitude

134 Burned out of Homes and History: Uncovering the Silenced Voices of the Tulsa Race Massacre

156 Rethinking Research: Reading and Writing About the Roots of Gentrification

168 What Happened to the Golden Door?: How My Students Taught Me About Immigration

Chapter 4: Reading for Justice, Reading for Change

181 Reading for Justice, Reading for Change

183 Narrative Writing: Connecting Student Lives to the Curriculum

185 Teaching the Gender Narrative

196 Lighting the Fire: Tea Party, Mixer, Block Party, Backyard Barbecue

202 From Theme and Evidence Wall into Essay

205 Dialogue Journals

207 Character Silhouette

208 Improvisations and Interior Monologues: Returning to Key Scenes

vi READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

210 Other People’s Lives: Persona Poems Teach Insight and Empathy

215 The Metaphor Poem: Making Knowledge Visible

219 Writing the Literary Analysis Essay: How Choice, Conversations, and Models Bring Passion

Chapter 5: The Politics of Language

229 Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard?

234 Reading, Writing, and Righteous Anger: Teaching About Language and Society

243 Celebrating Student Voice: Lawson Inada’s “Rayford’s Song”

“Rayford’s Song” by Lawson Inada

248 “Accents”: We Don’t Need to Hush

“Accents” by Denice Frohman

Chapter 6: Creating a Vision of Possibility

257 Passion Counts: The “I Love” Essay

267 Unsung Heroes: The “Significant Person” Essay

273 Creating a Vision of Possibility: The “Finding Your Heart” Essay

Chapter 7: Responding to Student Work

283 Responding to Student Work: Teaching the Writer, Not the Writing

298 Portfolios and Basketballs

315 Index

vii

W
hy reading, writing, and rising up?
Because after 40 years of teaching, my
students still walk out the school door
into a social emergency. Students of color, immi-
grant students, poor students, linguistically diverse
students, transgender, gay, and lesbian students re-
main at the center of this emergency. Learning to
read and write as a political act moves students be-
yond sounding out words or reading lexile-appro-
priate texts; an engaged literacy signals a throwing
off of slumber, a rising up out of a consumer-in-
duced coma to awareness.
During my years of teaching high school, I
found it necessary to teach reading and writing as
liberating acts. I discovered that it was only when
we stopped reading novels as ends in themselves
and started examining society—from literature to
cartoons to immigration laws to the politics of lan-
guage—that my students engaged in learning.
Rising up remains a constant metaphor in my
teaching. I want students to rise up into conscious-
ness about themselves and others, to understand
how both their choices and their misunderstandings
have been shaped by a society that seeks to control
them through a barrage of images and sound bites,
anemic history books that lack analysis, and a cur-
riculum that too often asks them to become “stan-
dardized” instead of enlightened.
Teaching students to read and write the world
continues to be a political act, especially for those
of us who have dropped the handcuffs of imposed
curriculum and assessments. Literacy still provides
a path to liberation if we teach students to read the
history of the wealth gap, immigration policies, test-
ing, school funding, unequal discipline rates based
on race, and any other entrenched system. Those
Introduction
who have exploited others or benefit from exploita-
tion don’t want students to come into consciousness,
to understand the roots and causes of inequality; in-
stead they want them to swallow down poverty and
disenfranchisement and blame themselves or their
families. As James Baldwin wrote in his 1963 arti-
cle, “Talk to Teachers,” published in The Saturday
Review:
The paradox of education is precisely this—
that as one begins to become conscious one
begins to examine the society in which he is
being educated. The purpose of education,
finally, is to create in a person the ability to
look at the world for himself, to make his own
decisions … But no society is really anxious
to have that kind of person around. What so-
cieties really, ideally, want is a citizenry which
will simply obey the rules of society. If a so-
ciety succeeds in this, that society is about to
perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks
of himself as responsible is to examine society
and try to change it and to fight it—at no mat-
ter what risk. This is the only hope society has.
This is the only way societies change.
By teaching students to examine society
through literature, history, and their own lives, I
hope to educate the “citizenry” in my classroom to
rise up against rules that demand people be subser-
vient to systems of power that bend truth, obscure
history, and create stratified educational systems.
My first taste of Baldwin’s paradox came
around the issue of language. For years, I felt shame
about my own nonstandard language and moni-
tored my words to make sure they didn’t sound like
ix
“home.” When I came to understand how language
can be a tool of domination and that my home lan-
guage wasn’t wrong, it was simply the language of
people without money, I became angry. Out of that
anger, I rose up. I developed a unit on the politics
of language (see Chapter 5) so that students in my
English classes could understand the power of lan-
guage to not only shape our self-concept but to limit
access to power.
In fact, each chapter in this book came out of
what Baldwin described as the obligation “to exam-
ine society and try to change it and to fight it.” In the
fall of 1975, I entered Jefferson High School, located
in the heart of a predominantly working-class Afri-
can American neighborhood in Portland, Oregon,
as a temporary Title I Reading teacher. Straight from
student teaching in an almost all-white lower-class
middle school in a white working-class communi-
ty, I landed in a place that not only shaped me, but
profoundly changed me by the time I was forced by
“reconstitution” to leave the school 23 years later. In
2006, I took on new work as the director of the Or-
egon Writing Project at Lewis & Clark College after
my official retirement from the school district. I also
returned to Jefferson as a co-teacher, mentor, and
coach. I wrote much of this new edition out of that
return to my teaching home.
Today, Jefferson continues to reflect national
trends not only in education but also in urban land-
scapes chewed up by gentrification and in historic
Black and Brown communities pushed out of their
homes. As my city, neighborhood, and school be-
came gentrified, I recognized a need to educate stu-
dents—and myself—about the history of land theft
that has stripped communities of color of wealth.
I wrote new units on the Tulsa Race Massacre and
gentrification (see Chapter 3) to help students un-
derstand how the changes in their neighborhoods
represent historic reaches from the past that laid the
foundation for the contemporary injustices wreak-
ing havoc on their lives.
My teaching has also changed in the nearly 20
years since this book was first published. I have con-
tinued to teach, to question, to reflect, to revise, to
come to new understandings. It’s this reflection that
moved me to change my strategies and content. Out
of this state of reflection, a new edition of Reading,
Writing, and Rising Up was born. When I began this
x READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
second edition, I thought I could just add a few new
pieces or update articles like “Unlearning the Myths
that Bind Us” by including a few new cartoons.
Instead, I retaught the entire unit and rewrote the
original article. I discovered that the majority of
new cartoons continue to project similar problems
that earlier ones broadcast, but I found that my
teaching strategies lacked transparency in the origi-
nal edition. I made the teaching appear magical and
sequential instead of messy and cyclical. Also, Jayme
Causey, an amazing first-year teacher at Jefferson
and my former student at Grant High School, gave
me new insights into the role of men in cartoons
that I had previously overlooked.
The murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012 prompt-
ed me to create the “Danger of a Single Story” lesson,
which introduces students to Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie’s evocative discussion of biased “single sto-
ries.” I pair it with Brent Staples’ essay, “Just Walk on
By: Black Men and Public Space.” In his canonical
1986 essay, first published in Ms. magazine, Staples
uses a series of vignettes to describe “the unwieldy
inheritance I’d come into—the ability to alter pub-
lic space … ” With these two pieces, I help students
unravel and talk back to the stereotypes that harm
them physically, mentally, and emotionally. As al-
ways, I partner social justice content with building
literacy skills. In this case, Adiche and Staples be-
come mentor texts and demonstrate how to write an
essay using incidents from life as evidence.
In the first edition of the book, I separated out
poetry into a chapter on its own. This isolation did
not mirror my teaching practice, which embeds po-
etry in every unit. Poetry is part of my “holy trinity”
of writing—along with narrative and essay—taught
throughout the year. In my classroom, poetry is a
way of building community, discussing literature,
history, and our lives, and even a formative assess-
ment. By reorganizing poetry within chapters, I
sought to mirror the way poetry actually works in
my classroom.
Other changes in the book reflect similar shifts.
I pulled what was one, single article on teaching col-
lege essays in the first edition and devoted an entire
chapter to the topic in the second (see Chapter 7).
Many of my students do not perform well on stan-
dardized tests, and some live under the shadow of a
low GPA. Through writing the college essay, I help
them tell the story of their lives so that scholarship
committees and admission officers see the person
behind the numbers.
I added a chapter, “Reading for Justice, Read-
ing for Change,” to address a gaping hole in the
first edition—the teaching of literature (see Chap-
ter 4). My co-teacher and colleague, Dianne Leahy,
describes our framework for exploring text in this
way: “Instead of the book being an overwhelming
puzzle that we try to figure out, we use the book to
solve the puzzle of our lives.” In this chapter, I lay
out the many strategies we use to engage students in
authentic conversations about our shared reading.
Poet Martín Espada wrote, “Any progressive
social change must be imagined first, and that vi-
sion must find its most eloquent possible expression
to move from vision to reality. Any oppressive social
condition, before it can be changed, must be named
and condemned with words that persuade by stir-
ring the emotions, awakening the senses. Thus the
need for the political imagination.” My student, Ja-
lean Webb demonstrates the power of words yoked
with action in his poem, “My Teacher Taught Me to
Protest”:
Because we’re not suppose to do it
Because if I stand like this I might save my
brother’s life
Protest and demonstrations
Marches and movements
Because they wish they could stop us
Spread word,
Break their laws, bend their rules, push them
Because I might enact change …
Destroy the earth until there’s nothing left
They want things to stay the same
Something’s got to give, something has to
change
Because in the hands of an activist, signs are
shields
And our words knives
“Blacklivesmatter”
“I am an ally”
Peaceful bombings
Like when a million men marched
There is Martin Luther King in my stride …
Blake Brockington in the way I ally
Betty Friedan the way I love my sister and
mother
Rosa Parks the way I won’t be moved
This collection of work focuses on teaching for
social justice. It comes out of my years of teaching
at Jefferson and Grant and working with colleagues
and parent activists in the Rethinking Schools,
Northwest Teaching for Social Justice, and Oregon
and National Writing Project communities. I am
acutely aware of the words of African revolutionary
Amilcar Cabral, “Tell no lies. Claim no easy victo-
ries.” It’s a warning my husband and co-teacher Bill
Bigelow reminds me to take to heart when I start
“talking story” about my classroom. So let me open
this book by using Cabral’s words to proclaim there
were no easy victories in any of these lessons. But
there is hope.
My teaching career has been long and reward-
ing and this book tells the story of some of those
years. I recall one particularly bad day during the
opening year of my life at Jefferson. At the end of a
spectacularly failed teaching day, I crossed the hall
to an older teacher’s classroom, crying. “I can’t face
them tomorrow after the way I messed up today.”
He said, “Students are forgiving. Go back tomorrow.
Apologize if you need to. And let them know you are
trying.” I wrote a poem, included here, to this teach-
er. I apologize here, too, for the mistakes I made,
but know that every piece I wrote and rewrote came
from years of trying to be the best teacher I could be
to the students who entered my room. Z
xi
Poem for My Mentor Teacher
by Linda Christensen

I carry you like the albatross

in the poem you loved.

It’s your story I tell—

of how you knew all of the grammar rules
we forgot
and how you quoted
Shakespeare’s sonnets
and sang Woody Guthrie songs
every spring

and how you started forgetting

our names.
I still recall the way the blue broadcloth
of you shirt
sagged against the podium
it once shook.

Thirty years after you’ve gone

I’ve learned that names change
as often as leaves
and chalk dust has become my signature too,
but I want to know
when my mind stutters
and my voice struggles
to claim this room
it once owned

before days slide into days

will I, too,
cradle lines of poetry
on lips practiced in forgetting

and if I do,
who will tell my story?

xii READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP


T
eaching might appear to be a solo act:
When the door closes, it’s usually just one
teacher and her students. But we’re never
alone in our classrooms. Mentors, colleagues, the
writers we love, former students, even our families
crowd in with us—giving guidance, challenging us,
or reminding us to behave. Ultimately, teaching is a
collective performance. And so, I’ve discovered, is
writing.
There would be no book without my life com-
panion, Bill Bigelow. Our first year teaching togeth-
er, Bill turned my pedagogy upside down with his
questions and analysis; through his role plays and
emphasis on social justice, he brought Paulo Freire’s
words—“Conflict is the midwife of consciousness”
—to bear on the classroom where we taught Liter-
ature and U.S. History. Over the years, he has read
every draft I’ve written and continued to comment
and advise—even when I threw drafts at his head. If
they awarded Nobel Prizes for teaching, Bill would
take home the first honor.
From the first day of my “education” at Jefferson
to my last, nothing has had a more profound effect
on my teaching than the students of Jefferson High
School. Their humor, their abilities to overcome ad-
verse situations, their wisdom, their willingness to
forgive me for my faults, and their criticism marked
me. Daily they demonstrated how much students
know about the world that is too often not a part
of the official curriculum. It’s difficult to single out
a few students when I’ve taught so many. But some
students have become family and colleagues over
the years: Katy Barber, Uriah Boyd, Pamela Clegg,
Desiree´ DuBoise, Rochelle Eason, Lakeitha Elliot,
Khalilah Joseph, Bridgette and Gabby Lang, Meg
Niemi, Mira Shimabukuro, Vince Singer, Nicole
Acknowledgements
Smith-Leary, Damon Turner, Alejandro Vidales,
Dyan and Renée Watson, Jalean Webb, Deanna and
Stacy Wesson, Amanda and Aaron Wheeler-Kay,
Cresta White, and Jenelle and Naaman Yarbrough.
The Oregon Writing Project (OWP) taught me
both the value of examining my own practice and
the importance of looking to classroom teachers for
answers. I am indebted to Nat Teich and Vince Wix-
on for their baptism into the project, to Tim Gillespie
and Kim Stafford who continue to be writing allies.
Mary Bothwell, the mother of language arts in Port-
land schools, modeled how to fight ferociously on
behalf of all students. Pam Hooten, longtime friend,
colleague, and program assistant to OWP, makes
our work a decades-long celebration of friendship
as she works magic with money and communica-
tion. For more years than I can count, Katharine
Johnson, OWP co-director and teaching genius, has
demonstrated that heart, wit, and intellect are pow-
erful partners in classroom teachers. Mark Hansen,
OWP co-director of elementary programs, dispens-
es humor and wisdom and intense political clarity
when they are most needed. Every encounter with
Chrysanthius Lathan, OWP co-director in charge
of student writing workshops, provides me with les-
sons about the intersection of race, class, and friend-
ship in both her teaching and writing.
Dianne Leahy, language arts teacher extraordi-
naire, has been my critical ally in teaching over the
last decade. She has opened space in her classroom
for me to co-teach since I retired so I could keep
my teaching chops alive. She has read and com-
mented on every piece in this book. Our lunchtime
talks illuminate strategies and insights into the art
of education.
Andy Kulak, another longtime Jefferson teacher
xiii
and ally, whips students into a passionate love affair this book from the classroom to the computer to the
with reading and writing. Andy’s thirst for knowl- printer.
edge, as well as his ability to translate that knowl- My mother, Lena Christensen, taught me the
edge directly back into classroom practice, is one of basics of teaching when she raised me: Keep your
the reasons I seek him out for inspiration. expectations high and pin their writing to the wall.
Many of the essays in this book first appeared My sister Colleen Furnish cheered me, fed me,
in Rethinking Schools and were improved by the watched my daughters, and believed in me. Because
magazine’s rigorous editorial process. The staff and of my brother, Billy, I am perhaps the only teacher to
editors of Rethinking Schools—Wayne Au, Bill Bi- have her articles hung on the walls of a bar (“BC’s”
gelow, Grace Cornell Gonzales, Helen Gym, Jesse in Eureka, California). And my sister Tina taught
Hagopian, Stan Karp, David Levine, Larry Miller, me the value of seeing beyond a person’s actions to
Bob Peterson, Adam Sanchez, Jody Sokolower, and their motivations, and of opening my hands when I
Moé Yonamine—have scrutinized every article, want to make a fist.
making all of us better writers and teachers in the My daughters, Anna Hereford Bautista and
process. But even more fundamentally, Rethink- Gretchen Hereford, have been the greatest gifts in
ing Schools is a nest of possibility, a place where my life. They have become women warriors whose
we return to fine-tune both our vision and critique words land on the side of justice and integrity. Now,
of education. Additional Rethinking Schools staff my two grandsons, Xavier Hertel and Mateo Bautis-
members whose work makes my writing and pub- ta, provide new inspiration. Each day I walk into a
lishing possible are Tegan Dowling, Rachel Kenison, classroom, I am reminded that the children I teach
and Gina Palazzari. These women make the world are as precious to their parents as my daughters and
of Rethinking Schools revolve—from marketing to grandsons are to me. I am humbled. Z
setting up conferences to organizing printers.
For any book to hit the shelves, invisible
hands make the impossible possible. This publica-
tion might not have ever made it to print if it hadn’t
been for Kjerstin Johnson, production editor, who
brought not only her skills as an editor to the book,
but her knowledge of contemporary culture. Kjer-
stin has been more generous in her praise and her
patience than I deserve. She mended my errors,
prodded me with grace, and pushed me to rethink
key concepts when I just wanted to be done.
Nancy Zucker brought her artistic sensibility
to the book, seeking artists whose visions matched
the intention of the book. Throughout this writing,
editing, and visioning process, Nancy was a to-
tal partner in the work, putting up with me when
I changed my mind and challenging me to see the
book beyond the words. I also appreciate the watch-
ful eyes of of proofreaders Lawrence Sanfilippo and
Haili Jones Graff, who helped me through a tight
manuscript deadline.
Without the funding from the Rights and Op-
portunities Foundation, the second edition of Read-
ing, Writing, and Rising Up might not have be sitting
in your hands at this moment. Their timely financial
support and their belief in the project helped take

xiv READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

Chapter 1

Creating Community
out of Chaos
 Creating Community
out of Chaos

O
nce, during 4th-period En-
glish, I came dangerously
close to becoming the teach-
er who pushes students out of class
into the halls, into the arms of the
school dean, and out into the streets. I
understand the thin line teachers tread
between creating safe classrooms and
creating push-out zones.
It started harmlessly enough.
I had returned to the school where
I taught for decades to co-teach ju-
nior English with a fabulous teacher,
Dianne Leahy. Forty students were
stuffed into our classroom. The school
district instituted another new sched-
ule to save money, so we only saw our
students every other day for 90 min-
utes. A few weeks into the school year,
I was still confusing Ana and Maria,
Deven and Terrell, and Melissa and
Erika. It took so long to settle the stu-
dents down every day that Dianne
and I were exasperated by how little
real work students completed. We bat-
tled competition with cell phones and
side talking, as well as frequent inter- RAFAEL LÓPEZ

ruptions due to students strolling in

and out of the classroom or plugging in their cell
phones while we attempted to demonstrate a writ-
ing strategy or initiate a discussion about the play
we were studying. In addition to the lack of forward
movement on reading and writing during the day,
students did not complete their homework. Embar-
rassed by their behavior and their skimpy work, I
hoped that no one would walk in and see us totally
at the mercy of these 16- and 17-year-olds.
We tried to build relationships. Dianne found
out who played what sport, who danced, who was a
cheerleader, who loved skateboarding. I watched her
kneel in front of kids as she passed out folders with a
word of praise or a question that demonstrated she
cared about them as individuals. Daily we attempted
to connect names to faces and faces to aspirations.

CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS 3

 While out on a hike after a particularly frus- measures that tighten the reins by moving defiant
trating day where the struggle over cell phones, students out of class and sending them to the disci-
side talk, and unkindness interrupted our work plinarian (which moves them one step closer to the
once again, I remembered a former student, Sek- streets), she’s lost the class.
ou, who returned from Morehouse College with a As classroom teachers, we wield an enormous
story about a ritual that he participated in during amount of power to control students’ destiny. Di-
the early days of his freshman year and how it made anne and I were determined to keep all of these
him feel part of the scholarly brotherhood. I thought students in junior English, but it is conceivable that
perhaps Dianne and I a teacher with 40 students
needed a ritual to help Part of me was horrified as I might want to cut a few,
students remember that
the classroom is a sacred
watched the class coalesce into especially those who resist.
Because we have taught
place of learning. Eager one angry swarm, and part of for many years, we knew
to create community out me thought, “Hot damn. We that we would win most
of the chaos, I prepared a students over, but this ex-
have a class of activists.”
document for students to perience made me won-
sign that promised they der about the new teacher
would complete their work, refrain from using cell down the hall—one who doesn’t have that history
phones, and participate fully in class by respectfully of a beautiful June classroom community to recall.
listening to others. Now, even as I write this list, it The tide turned when one of the football play-
doesn’t sound too far-fetched. In fact, it sounds like ers said, “I want to play Grant on Friday night, so I’m
what school is about. signing.” A number of other students followed suit.
I brought the document to class and distribut- They even walked out of the classroom and returned
ed it to students. They accepted the first bullet—do saying, “I am a scholar.” They didn’t go through the
your work—but when we got to cell phones, Sier- arch of hands I had envisioned, nor did they say it
ra said, “I’m not signing. I text during class, and it like they believed it, but we did make it through the
doesn’t interfere with my work.” class, although students looked at me like I was a
Her voice brought a flood of others. Melanie skunk for the rest of the day.
said, “I’m not signing. I already do my work.” Ursula This incredibly misguided move on my part
seconded that. Vince agreed. Then Jasmine said, “I reminded me that students need to be engaged in
only pledge with God.” Kevin gave her a high five, meaningful curriculum and to develop relation-
and several others laughed and wadded up the pa- ships with their teachers and each other. They need
per. I’m not sure if it was Jason or Victor who said, a learning community where they feel safe to risk
“Let’s all not sign. What can they do? They can’t kick and dare and even fail. There is no shortcut to mak-
all of us out of class.” ing that happen.
I had a moment of pure panic. Ten minutes Each September I have this optimistic mis-
into a 90-minute period, and I had a revolt on my conception that I’m going to create a compassion-
hands. Part of me was horrified as I watched the ate, warm, safe place for students in the first days of
class coalesce into one angry swarm, and part of me class—often because my recollection is based on the
thought, “Hot damn. We have a class of activists.” final quarter of the previous year. In the past, that
This is the point at which my 30-plus years in atmosphere did emerge in a shorter time span. But
the classroom and my memory of other hard years the students were more homogenous, and we were
helped me weather the moment. I could have sent living in what seemed like a more secure and less
Victor, Sierra, and others to the dean’s office with violent time. While students shared the tragedies
referrals for insubordination, beginning an out-of- of divorce and loss of friendships, their class talk
control relationship that would teeter between their was less often disrupted by the pressure cooker of
defiance and my desire to control the classroom. society—and I was more naive and rarely explored
When the class chaos tips a teacher to institute those areas. We were polite to each other as we kept

4 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

uncomfortable truths at bay. Classroom community Writing and Sharing Personal Stories
isn’t always synonymous with warmth and harmony. Building community begins when students explore
their own lives and engage with their classmates. Di-
Building Community out of Chaos anne and I chose the first book, Sherman Alexie’s
Politeness is often a veneer mistaken for understand- screenplay Smoke Signals, to create links to students’
ing, when in reality it masks uncomfortable territo- lives since the play focuses on relationships between
ry, the unspeakable pit that we turn from because we children and their parents. In the beginning, stu-
know the anger and pain that dwell there. During dents weren’t connecting to the play. That changed
my years at Jefferson High School in Portland, Or- when we started discussing the alcoholism and the
egon—where the interplay of race, class, sexual ori- father/son relationship in the book. Terrell talked
entation, and gender created a constant background about how Arnold, the father, was an alcoholic as-
static—it was important to remind myself that real shole. His frank assessment broke the ice. Others
community is forged out of struggle. Students won’t jumped in. They hated it when Arnold hit Victor, his
always agree on issues; the arguments, tears, laugh- son, just because he dropped his father’s beer. Uriah
ter, joy, and anger are the crucible from which a real talked about how Arnold used alcohol to wash away
community starts. his guilt for burning Thomas’ parents in a house fire.
Still, I hate discord. When I was growing up, Although the discussion was short and some
I typically gave up the fight and agreed with my students still side talked, the class conversation
sister or mother so that a reconciliation could be marked the first movement toward compelling
reached. I can remember running to my “safe” spot work. But the turning point came when we asked
under my father’s overturned rowboat, which hung students to write a forgiveness poem (see “Forgive-
over two sawhorses in the backyard, whenever an- ness Poems,” p. 115). In this lesson, students read
ger ran loose in our house. As a teacher, I learned to Lucille Clifton’s “forgiving my father” and two stu-
understand that discord—when paired with a social dent samples—one by a student who forgives her
justice curriculum—can give mother for moving so much
birth to community. and creating disruptions in
Too often these days When students’ lives are her life, and one by a stu-
I’m in the middle of that an- dent who doesn’t forgive
ger, and there’s no safe spot.
taken off the margins and
his father’s absence from
My first impulse is to make placed in the curriculum, his life. Our students ac-
everyone sit down, be polite, they don’t feel the same need tually stopped talking and
and listen to each other—a to put down someone else. listened to the poems. Then
great goal that I’ve come to we said, “Write a list of who
realize doesn’t happen easily. you want to forgive or not
Topics like gentrification, racism, and homopho- forgive. Then choose one to write about. If you don’t
bia seethe like festering wounds. When there is an want to write about your life, you can write a poem
opening for discussion, years of anger and pain sur- from Victor’s point of view in the book.”
face because most students haven’t been taught how Students wrote—silently, mostly. They wrote in
to talk with each other about these painful matters. the classroom, on the stairs in the hallway, sprawled
I can’t say that I’ve found definitive answers, against the lockers in front of our class. They wrote
but over the years, I have come to understand some furiously. At times, they crept close to a friend and
of the mistakes I have made. I also found a few con- handed their paper over. At the end of the period,
stants: To become a community, students need more students got up on the stage Dianne built for her
than an upbeat, supportive teacher. They need to room and shared their poems. Students cried to-
understand the parallels of hurt, struggle, and joy gether as they shared their poetry written to absent
across race, class, gender, and cultural lines; they fathers, to dead grandparents, to themselves. That
need to uncover the roots of inequality in our soci- was a Thursday. The following Monday, they re-
ety and to work together for change. turned to class and wanted to share more. Trevon

CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS 5

caught me in the hall, “Are we going to share our
poems in class? I want to hear everyone’s.”
Although Dianne and I still struggled, that
poem cracked the class. That’s what curriculum that
puts students’ lives at the center does. It tells stu-
dents that they matter; that the pain and the joy in
their lives can be part of the curriculum.
The “Forgiveness Poem” lesson signaled the
importance of this work in bringing students’ lives
into our classroom. Micere Mugo, a Kenyan poet,
said, “Writing can be a lifeline, especially when your
existence has been denied, especially when you have
been left on the margins, especially when your life
and process of growth have been subjected to at-
tempts at strangulation.”
Students need to learn about each other’s lives
as well as reflect on their own. When they hear
personal stories, classmates become real instead of
cardboard stereotypes. Once they’ve seen how peo-
ple can hurt, once they’ve shared pain and laugh-
ter, they can’t treat people as objects to be kicked
or beaten or called names as easily. When students’
lives are taken off the margins and placed in the cur-
riculum, they don’t feel the same need to put down
someone else.
In order to create an authentic community in
my classroom, I develop lessons that help students
see the humanity of their classmates. At Jefferson
in the age of gentrification, students are both gen-
trified and gentrifiers—their distrust of each other
based on historic and contemporary evictions (see
“Rethinking Research” p. 156). But the class also har-
bors neighborhood kids who share a past history, in-
cluding a long-established pecking order from their
previous schools.
Students find someone whom they think is
weak and attack them. In my fourth-block class, the
victim was Jim. He’d been in my class the year be-
fore. I’d watched him progress as a writer and think-
er. In his end-of-year evaluation, he drew a picture
of himself as a chef; his writing was the dough. In
an essay, he explained how writing was like making
bread. He was proud of his achievements as a writer.
In class, Jim was a victim. He was going blind
because of a hereditary disease. It didn’t happen
overnight, but he struggled with terror at his on-
coming blindness. Because he was steadily losing
his eyesight, he was clumsy in the classroom. He
6 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
couldn’t see where he was going. He knocked into
people and desks. He accidentally overturned piles
of books. Students responded with laughter or anger.
Some days he cried silently into the fold of his arms.
He told me, “I know the darkness is coming.” Several
male students in the class made fun of him for crying
as well. One day, Amber was in a typically bad mood,
hunched inside her too-big coat and snarling at any-
one who came near. When Jim bumped her desk on
the way to the pencil sharpener and her books and
papers tumbled on the floor, she blew up at him for
bumbling around the room. Jim apologized profuse-
ly and retreated into his shell after her attack.
A few days later I gave an assignment for stu-
dents to write about their ancestors, their people.
First, they read Margaret Walker’s poems, “For My
People” and “Lineage” and others. I told them they
could imagine their people as their immediate an-
cestors, their race, their nationality, or gender. Jim
wrote:
To My People with Retinitis Pigmentosa
Sometimes I hate you
like the disease
I have been plagued with.
I despise the “sight” of you
seeing myself in your eyes.
I see you as if it were you
who intentionally
damned me to darkness.
I sometimes wish
I was not your brother;
that I could stop
the setting of the sun
and wash my hands of you forever
and never look back
except with pity,
but I cannot.
So I embrace you,
the sun continues to set
as I walk into darkness
holding your hand.
Students were silenced. Tears rolled. Kevin
said, “Damn, man. That’s hard.”
Amber apologized to Jim in front of the class.
At the end of the year she told me that her encounter
with Jim was one of the events that changed her. She dured by African Americans. In his essay on immigra-
learned to stop and think about why someone else tion, Dirk chose to write about the parallels between
might be doing what they’re doing, instead of im- Bulosan’s life and the experiences he’s encountered:
mediately jumping to the conclusion that they were
trying to annoy her. When I was growing up I thought African
My experience is that given a chance, students Americans were the only ones who went
will share amazing stories. Students have told me through oppression. In the reading, “In the
that my willingness to share stories about my life Heart of Filipino America,” I found that Fili-
with them opened the way for them to tell their pinos had to go through a lot when coming to
stories. Students have written hard stories about di- America. I can relate with the stuff they went
vorce, drug and alcohol abuse, imprisoned family through because my ancestors went through
members, sexual abuse. They’ve also written stories sort of the same thing.
about finding joy in becoming a camp counselor or
spending time with a grandparent. Through their Dirk went on to describe the parallels in hous-
sharing, they make openings to each other. Some- ing discrimination, lynching, name-calling, and
times it’s just a small break. A crack. A passage from being cheated out of wages that both Filipinos and
one world to another. And these openings allow the African Americans lived through.
class to become a community. Besides reading and studying about “others,”
Bill and I wanted students to come face to face with
Building Social Imagination people they usually don’t meet as a way of breaking
Building community in the classroom also means down their preconceived ideas about people from
getting students to enter the lives of characters in other cultures. During this unit we continued to hear
literature, history, or real life they might otherwise students classify all Asians as “Chinese.” In the halls,
dismiss or misunderstand. I don’t want their first we heard students mimic the way Vietnamese stu-
reaction to difference to dents spoke. When writing
be laughter or withdrawal. about discrimination, an-
Solidarity and courage are
Empathy is key in commu- other student confessed that
nity building. values to be prized in daily she discriminated against
I choose literature life, not just praised in the the Mexican students at
that intentionally makes abstract and put on the shelf. our school. We paired our
students look beyond their students with English-as-a-
own world. In a class I co- second-language students
taught with social studies teacher Bill Bigelow, we who had come from another country—Vietnam,
used an excerpt from Ronald Takaki’s Strangers from Laos, Cambodia, Eritrea, Mexico, Guatemala, Gha-
a Different Shore about Filipino writer Carlos Bu- na. They each interviewed their partner and wrote a
losan. Bulosan wrote, “I am an exile in America.” He profile of the student to share in class. Students were
described the treatment he received, good and bad. moved by their partners’ stories. One student whose
He wrote of being cheated out of wages at a fish can- brother had been killed at the beginning of the year
nery in Alaska, being refused housing because he was paired with a girl whose sister was killed during
was Filipino, being tarred and feathered and driven the war in Eritrea. He connected to her loss and was
from town. amazed at her strength. Others were appalled at
We asked students to respond to the reading by how these students had been mistreated at Jefferson.
keeping a dialogue journal (see p. 205 for more on di- Many students later wrote about the lives of their
alogue journals). Dirk wrote, “He’s not the only one partners in their essays on immigration (see “What
who feels like an exile in America. Some of us who Happened to the Gold Door?” p. 168).
were born here feel that way, too.” As he continued Besides making immigration a contemporary
reading, he was surprised that some of the acts of vi- rather than a historical topic, students heard the
olence Bulosan encountered were similar to those en- sorrow their fellow students felt at leaving home. In

CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS 7

our “curriculum of empathy,” we wanted our class
to see these students as individuals rather than ESL
students, “Chinese” students, or an undifferentiated
mass of Mexicans.
A curriculum of empathy puts students inside
the lives of others. By writing interior monologues,
acting out improvisations, taking part in role plays,
and creating fiction stories about historical events,
students learn to develop understanding about peo-
ple whose culture, race, gender, or sexual orientation
differs from theirs. This is imperfect and potentially
dangerous, of course, because sometimes students
call forth stereotypes that need to be unpacked.
In his end-of-year evaluation, Tyrelle wrote, “I
learned a lot about my own culture as an African
American but also about other people’s cultures. I
never knew Asians suffered. When we wrote from
different characters in movies and stories, I learned
how it felt to be like them.”
Students as Intellectual Activists
Community is also created when students struggle
together to achieve a common goal. Sometimes the
opportunity spontaneously arises out of the condi-
tions or content of the class, school, or community.
During the first year Bill Bigelow and I taught to-
gether, we exchanged the large student desks in our
room with another teacher’s smaller desks without
consulting our students. We had 40 students in the
class, and not all of the big desks fit in the circle.
They staged a “stand in” until we returned the orig-
inal desks. We had emphasized Frederick Douglass’
admonition that power concedes nothing without a
demand—and they took it to heart.
One year, our students responded to a nega-
tive newspaper article about how parents feared to
send their children to our school by organizing a
march and rally to “tell the truth about Jefferson to
the press.” Of course, these “spontaneous uprisings”
only work if teachers are willing to give over class
time for the students to organize and if they’ve high-
lighted times when people in history resisted injus-
tice, making it clear that solidarity and courage are
values to be prized in daily life, not just praised in
the abstract and put on the shelf.
But most often I have to create situations for
students to work outside the classroom. I want them
to connect our work in class and action in tangible
8 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
ways. Sometimes I do this by asking students to take
what they have learned and create a project to teach at
nearby elementary or middle schools. After students
critique the media (see “Unlearning the Myths that
Bind Us,” p. 49), they are usually upset by the negative
messages children receive, so I have them write and
illustrate books for elementary students. They brain-
storm positive values they want children to receive,
read traditional and contemporary children’s books,
critique the stories, and write their own. They develop
lesson plans to go with their books. For example, be-
fore Bev read her book about John Brown she asked,
“Has anyone here ever tried to change something
they thought was wrong?” After students shared their
experiences, she read her book. Students also created
writing assignments to go with their books so they
could model the writing process.
Students were nervous prior to their first teach-
ing engagements. As they practiced lesson plans and
received feedback from their peers, there was much
laughter and anticipation. They mimicked “bad” stu-
dents and asked improper questions that had nothing
to do with the children’s book: Is she your girlfriend?
Why are your pants so baggy? Why does your hair
look like that? When they returned from the other
schools, there were stories to share: children who
hugged their knees and begged them to come back,
kids who wouldn’t settle down and listen, kids who
said they couldn’t write. My students proudly read
the writings that came out of “their” class. They re-
sponded thoughtfully to each student’s paper.
The seriousness the students showed was in
sharp contrast to the seeming apathy they had dis-
played at the beginning of the year.
Through the years, I’ve come to understand
that the key to reaching my students and building
community is helping students excavate and reflect
on their personal experiences, and connecting them
to the world of language, literature, and society. We
move from ideas to action, perhaps the most elu-
sive objective in any classroom. Community and
activism: These are the goals in every course I teach.
The steps we take to reach them are not often in a
straight path. We stagger, sidestep, stumble, and
then rise to stride ahead again. Z
 Name Poem
To Say the Name Is to Begin the Story

“T
o say the name is
to begin the story,”
according to the
Swampy Cree Indians. In my lan-
guage arts courses over the years,
we begin our “story” together by
saying our names—and by tell-
ing the history of how we came to
have them. Because the first day
of class lays a foundation for the
nine months that follow, I want
our year to begin with respect for
the diverse cultural heritages and
people represented not only at
Jefferson High School, but in the
world as well. Initially, I started
the year with writing about our
names because I was appalled
that several weeks into the new
school year, students still would
not know one another’s names.
Telling about our names was my
way of saying up front that the
members of the class are part of
the curriculum—their names,
their stories, their histories, their
lives count.
BARBARA MINER

CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS 9

 But I realized that I was missing an opportuni- Eastern Europe had their names shortened at Ellis
ty to frame the question of naming more broadly— Island because their last names were too long and
and more politically. So this naming ritual has also too difficult for the officials to pronounce. When
become a way to say from the jump that naming is Africans were taken forcibly from their homeland,
personal, cultural, and political. In this case, to say their names and their history were stripped as well.
the name is also to begin questioning whose story I share the story that my friend, Bakari Chavanu,
is told. wrote about changing his name because he wanted a
I start class by asking students the name of the name that didn’t begin in slavery (see “Bakari Cha-
river connecting Oregon and Washington. When vanu’s Story,” p. 13).
they say “Columbia,” I tell them that the first peo- In addition to Bakari’s moving piece, I use an
ple here called it “Nch'i-Wána,” the “Great River” assortment of prompts to get students to start writ-
or “Big River.” I ask them to name the volcano that ing. I’ve stumbled across name poems or stories over
blew ash on Washington and Oregon in 1980; when the years that I read to students as a way of prim-
they respond “Mount St. Helens,” I tell them that the ing the writing pump. One of my favorites is Marge
Cowlitz who lived here first named it “Loo-Wit.” Piercy’s “If I had been called Sabrina or Ann, she
Then we talk about how people who have the said”. Piercy fools around with her name, playing
power to name also have the power to tell the story. around with alternatives and poking fun at its dull-
I explain that in this class we will listen for whose ness. Here’s an excerpt:
voices get heard and whose have been silenced.
I do this quickly without going into the linguistic […] Name
decimation of Indigenous cultures because we will like an oilcan, like a bedroom
study that later in the year. This is the initial con- slipper, like a box of baking soda,
versation—meant to say, “Whatever your name is, useful, plain; impossible for foreigners,
whoever you are, you are welcome. You don’t need from French to Japanese, to pronounce.
to change to belong here.”
Students and I talk about how naming tradi- Because my name is Linda Mae, I could identi-
tions differ depending on family, cultural group, fy with Piercy’s dismal view of her name. I wanted a
nationality, or religious affiliation. We look at some name like Cassandra, something fancy and long. My
of the naming traditions in Vietnam, Laos, Cam- name sounded like a farm girl’s, and I wanted to be
bodia, and Mexico. I give sleek and citified.
examples from my family, I also love Sandra
where the first son was Telling about our names was Cisneros’ “My Name”
named using the first ini- from her book The House
my way of saying up front that
tial and the middle name on Mango Street. Cisner-
of the father. My grand- the members of the class are os’ character, Esperanza,
father was William Mey- part of the curriculum—their uses delicious details to
er, my father was Walter names, their stories, their describe her name: “In
Meyer, and my brother English my name means
was William Meyer. My histories, their lives count. hope. In Spanish it means
brother broke the tradi- too many letters. It means
tion by naming his first sadness, it means waiting.
son Steven Troy. I broke tradition by not taking my It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the
husband’s name—and my mother and sister still Mexican records my father plays on Sunday morn-
addressed their letters to Linda Bigelow, not Linda ings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.”
Christensen, for many years. Let me also say that I teach this poem quickly. I
We also speak—using student knowledge as do this piece to set the tone for the year rather than
well as mine—of how historically some groups of teach poetic strategy. I want students to begin the
people were denied their names. Many people from year by sharing, by learning to be kind to each other.

10 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

I also attempt to crack them open, to get them to be
playful in their writing.
Teaching Strategy
I like to begin this activity with a combination of
story and poem, humor and seriousness, so students
can choose their own route to the assignment.
1. I pass out the name graphic organizer (see
“Name Poem Organizer,” p. 14), so students can
begin to collect ideas for their name piece when we
begin reading models. I tell them, “We are going to
look at the way different people wrote about their
names. There is no one right way. I’ve written this
poem in different ways over the years. Just begin col-
lecting some thoughts and memories as we read the
models.”
2. Students read Chavanu’s story, Piercy’s poem,
and Cisneros’ piece about names. We discuss how
differently each writer views his or her name. We
pause to look at lines and point out specific details.
For example, Piercy doesn’t say she hates her name,
she plays with it. We look at the metaphors in the
Cisneros vignette. I ask students, “Whose name has
a story?” I encourage them to share their histories,
pull the stories out of them.
3. After reading Cisneros’ piece, we look at how she
plays with language and uses metaphors and simi-
les. I ask students to write, “My name sounds like.”
One year, Isaiah noticed that Cisneros takes a “trip”
in her writing to talk about her grandmother’s his-
tory. “In your piece, think about the side trip that
you might include in your piece like Cisneros does
in hers.”
4. We read student samples from previous years.
I find it helpful to save these from year to year as
students often look up to their older schoolmates
and find it amusing and powerful to see examples
of their writing. The poem written by my student
Mary Blalock is a great example of how students can
mix personal history, songs, even religion into their
poems. After we read her poem, I ask students if
anyone has songs or rhymes that go along with their
names. With each piece, I attempt to elicit stories
and memories to create a classroom where students
CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS
are comfortable talking. Another student, Sekou
Crawford, wrote his name “poem” as a story about
how his mother came to name him Sekou. Because
it has dialogue and setting, it is a good model of how
the assignment can be written as prose.
5. After saturating students in name poems and
prose, I tell them, “Write about your names as a
story or as a poem. You can tell the history of your
name, the meaning of your name, memories or an-
ecdotes connected to your names. You can choose
to write about your feelings about your names or
your nicknames. The only boundary on the assign-
ment is that you must write something about your
name, and it can’t be an acrostic. Be playful. Be
outrageous.”
6. We start writing in class before the period
ends, and I encourage students to talk with their
parents—if they live with them—to find out the
history behind their names. If a student has hit
the mother lode and already has a piece written,
I encourage them to share to give ideas to class-
mates. Students’ homework is to finish the writing
and bring their piece to class the following day.
We share our work using the read-around meth-
od. (See the detailed description of read-arounds,
which begins on p. 15.) Z
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
Cisneros, Sandra. 1991. The House on Mango Street. Vintage.
Piercy, Marge. 1985. “If I had been called Sabrina or Ann, she said.”
My Mother’s Body. Knopf.
11

Linda Mae
by Linda Christensen
My name sounds like a country-western singer
wrangling cows and cowboy hearts
out on the range.
Linda Mae is my intimate name,
the name my family calls me when we’re laughing,
when there’s blackberry pie on the table,
and we spent the day swimming
at Grizzly Creek or Swimmer’s Delight.
My name is full of pinochle on summer nights,
lit by stars and firelight.
My name sounds like the jukebox
at the Vista Del Mar
where Dad poured Jack Daniels
for fishermen
while Mom served clam burgers
and chicken fried steak.
12 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
ALAURA SEIDL
Linda Mae is the lonely child
I became when my father died,
the Linda
who crawled beneath the overturned skiff
in the backyard,
and lit candles in the dark curve
of death.
Linda Mae is the name
Bill calls me when we’re happy,
when we hike Tamanawas Falls
or watch salmon leap,
silver acrobats
climbing the white water
of the narrow Klickitat canyons.
Linda Mae sounds like home.
u SAMPLE WORK

A Hand-Me-Down Name I didn’t know how I felt being named after some
by Mary Blalock inmate, but I’ve always been thankful for having it.
I couldn’t imagine hearing my name and wondering
Mary if they were talking to me or the other guy with the
Mary was a hand-me-down same name. I wouldn’t like walking into a little gift
from Grandma. shop and seeing my name carved onto a key chain.
I was I’ve heard that somewhere in Northern Africa my
the “Little Mary” name is quite common.
on holiday packages. My name has a special meaning. Sekou Shaka,
Merry Christmas. my first and middle name, together mean learned
Mary, mother of God, “warrior”. That’s the way I’d like to see myself: Fight-
who is a strong woman ing the battle of life with the weapon of knowledge.
in a male-dominated religion.
Me, ...............................................
a lone girl,
in a world of testosterone. Bakari Chavanu’s Story
Because of her, by Bakari Chavanu
it means sorrow and grief—
I am very sad about this. I changed my name to Bakari Chavanu six years ago
“How does your garden grow?” they often ask. and my mom still won’t pronounce it. The mail she
With colorful fruit like the pictures sends me is still addressed to Johnnie McCowan. I
I attempt to paint, was named after my father. When I brought up the
and beautiful flowers like the poems subject with her of changing my name, she said my
I try to write. father would turn over in his grave, and “Besides,”
They had she said, “how could you be my son if you changed
three little kids in a row, your name?”
and the middle one’s me. I knew she was responding emotionally to
Mary, Mary, not always contrary. what I decided to do. I knew and respected also
that she was, of course, the giver of my life and my
............................................... first identity, but how do I make her understand
the larger picture? That the lives of people are more
My Name Means Something than their families and their birth names, that my
by Sekou Crawford identity was taken from me, from her, from my fa-
ther, from my sister, from countless generations of
I have a very unusual name. Not as unusual as I my people enslaved for the benefit of others? How
used to think, because just last year I came face to do I make her understand what it means for a kid-
face with another Sekou. He didn’t look much like napped people to reclaim their identity? How do I
me, and we probably had very little in common, but help her understand the need for people of African
when I stood in front of him and shook his hand, I descent to reclaim themselves?
felt we had some kind of secret bond. I could tell he
felt the same way.
One day I asked my mom about my name,
“How did you come to name me Sekou?”
“Well,” she said, “I used to work with convicts,
tutoring them, and one day as I walked across the
prison courtyard, I heard someone yell, ‘Hey, Sek-
ou!’ I thought to myself, ‘Wow. What a great name.’
And I remembered it.”

CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS 13

u HANDOUT

Name Poem Organizer

History of name Stories about name

Associations with name Word play with name

Nicknames Interior monologue about name

14 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 The Read-Around
Raising Writers

T
he read-around is the
classroom equivalent
to quilt making or barn
raising. It is the public space—
the zócalo or town square—of
my room. During our read-
around, we socialize together
and create community, but we
also teach and learn from each
other. If I had to choose one
strategy as the centerpiece of
my teaching, it would be the
read-around. It provides both
the writing text for my class-
room and the social text where
our lives intersect and we deep-
en our connections and under-
standings across lines of race,
class, gender, sexual orientation,
and age.

Starting with What

Works
At the beginning of the year,
from the first day of class, I re-
quire that all students read their
poetry out loud to the class.
Some students are eager; their
hands are always in the air. Oth-
er students are too cool; this is
why I count sharing work as part RAFAEL LÓPEZ

of the grade. They can maintain

their smooth facade and act like they are just read-
ing for the credit. Sometimes students want to share,
but they need to be coaxed. I use National Writing
Project teacher Keith Caldwell’s technique of teas-
ing students into reading: “Who’s dying to share, but
doesn’t want to raise their hand?”
Before we start our read-around, I distribute
stacks of “compliment sheets”—paper strips—to
each student. I initiate the read-around by saying:
“I am always a little bit worried when I share my
writing. What if I don’t sound smart? What if my
piece isn’t as good as other people’s? In order to keep

CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS 15

me writing and the rest of the class writing, we have
to focus on what is good in a piece. Your piece will
not sound like someone else’s. It will sound like you.
And that’s great. You won’t recognize your brilliance
because it just sounds like you. We will recognize it
for you.”
I tell students: “You are going to write a compli-
ment to each student in the class about that student’s
piece. No one is allowed to make critical comments
about a poem or paper. We focus on the positive—
on what works. As each person reads, you will take
notes and give positive feedback to the writer. We
also applaud each writer for having the courage to
read in front of the class.”
In order for this to work, I discuss how gener-
ic comments like “Good poem” or “I like your im-
agery” aren’t specific enough to help anyone know
what they did right. Instead, I say, “List the words or
phrases, images, or verbs that make the poem come
alive. That’s what we mean by ‘Tell the writer what
is working.’” Students respond to the content of the
piece—what they like about the topic of the poem.
They also respond to the style, the way the poem is
written. “What line, what phrase did you like? Do
you like the imagery, the repetition?” Instead of
working on a deficit model—what’s wrong with this
piece—we work on a positive model: What’s right?
What can we learn from this poem? This writer? As
Pete noted in his class evaluation:
The way you have us make comments (what
did you like about the piece of writing) has
helped me deal with people. My skin is thick
enough to take a lot of abuse just because I’ve
always had a fairly high opinion of some of the
things I can do. I didn’t realize a lot of oth-
er people don’t have that advantage. After a
while I found out positive criticism helped me
more than negative, too.
The Read-Around as Writing Text
During the read-around, students provide accessible
models of writing for each other. When I encourage
them to listen for what “works” in their peers’ piec-
es, to take notes on what they like, I am also encour-
aging them to use those techniques in their own
writing. After students have shared their observa-
tions, I might point out particular writing strategies
16 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
that I want them to incorporate into their writing.
I might note how Aaron used a list in his poem or
how Brandon opened his poem with a repeating,
but changing line. I might ask Alisha to re-read a
stanza of her poem so that we can notice her power-
ful verbs. I do this consistently in each read-around
to bring students’ attention to the writers’ tools. In
her portfolio evaluation, Heather wrote about what
she learned from her classmates:
When I listen to other people’s writing, I hear
things I love or wish I’d written myself. Most
of the time that’s where I get my inspiration.
Sometimes I catch myself saying, “I wish I
could write like so-and-so.” Then I think,
“What was it about his/her piece that I liked?”
When I figure that out, I’m that much closer
to being a better writer. I use their papers as
examples. I steal their kernels of ideas and try
to incorporate them into my own writing. For
example, I love how Ki uses her personal his-
tory in her writing, so I try that out for myself.
I like Lisa’s use of unusual metaphors, so I try
as hard as I can to steer clear of the generic
type I’ve been known to use in the past.
Because students learn to listen closely to each
other’s poems for both ideas and literary tools, they
can identify those strategies and use them in their
own writing.
Students in every class I’ve taught have made
it clear that the read-around was the best part of my
teaching. Adam wrote:
There is so much to learn about good writ-
ing. I know that a lot of what shaped my
writing was not the diagramming sentenc-
es or finding the subject and verb that we
learned in grade school, but the desire to
learn more about what I’m hearing around
me. Just hearing the work of good writers
makes an incredible difference. When I find
something I really like, I ask myself, “What
was it about that piece that made me get all
goose-bumpy?” That’s why I think it is real-
ly important to have those read-arounds in
class. Not only does the author get to hear
comments about his/her work, but the rest
 of the class gets a chance to hear some pretty
amazing stuff. Like when we heard Nicole’s
home language paper, I don’t think there was
anyone who wasn’t touched by it. At some
point everyone had felt like that, and her pa-
per was able to capture those feelings and de-
scribe them perfectly. At the same time, ev-
eryone thought, “How can I write like that?”
We all learned from the paper. Now, this is
only one example, but almost every day we
share, something like this happens.
Pulling in Reluctant Writers
Not all students arrive on the due date with a paper
in hand. To be sure, some students haven’t taken the
time to do the work, but others can’t find a way to
enter the work; they either don’t know where to start
or they feel incapable of beginning. Even my pep
talks about “bending the assignment to find your
passion” or “just write for 30 minutes; I’ll accept
whatever you come up with as a first draft” don’t
entice these students. That’s why I’m not a stickler
about deadlines.
During read-arounds, the students who wrote
papers will spawn ideas for those who either couldn’t
write or who haven’t learned
homework patterns yet. Lis- As students listen to each
tening to how Amanda, Al-
yss, or Deanna approached other’s poems, they
the assignment helps teach feel what it’s like to be in
reluctant writers a way to someone else’s skin.
enter the writing. Sometimes
students write a weak “just
get it done” paper, then hear a student piece that
sends them back home to write with more passion.
There are advantages for both the strong and
the weak writer in this process. While the strug-
gling writer gets an opportunity to hear drafts and
figure out a writing strategy, the strong writer gets
feedback: What worked? Was there a spot where lis-
teners got confused? In reading their papers aloud,
writers often notice the places where the language
limps and needs tightening. They notice repetitions
that need to be deleted.
The Town Square
The read-around is also the place we share our lives.
As students listen to each other’s poems, they try to
feel what it’s like to be in someone else’s skin. Jessica
Rawlins wrote:
Never before have I sat in a circle and ex-
pressed my opinion about rape, internment,
and injustice with my peers and listened while
they agreed or disagreed. Never has the teach-
er said, “I didn’t know that … Tell me how you
feel.” Talking about our lives was a rare treat in
most classes and it only happened on holidays
and special free days. In here it was part of the
lesson. We educated each other through our
writing. We brought the beauty out of our skin
and onto plain paper.
While the read-around provides the writing text
and it helps us share crucial stories from our lives, it
can also miss some important teachable moments.
For this reason, Bill Bigelow and I developed what
we called the “collective text,” so we could step back
from the writing and figure out what our individual
poems/stories said about ourselves and our society.
For example, when students in my junior
class at Grant High School wrote their “Raised by
Women” poems, we stepped back and examined
the poetry for common
threads. I said, “Look back
over your notes from our
try to read-around. What do the
poems have in common?
What can we learn about
our class from listening to
these poems? Write a para-
graph about what you learned.” Students discovered
that most of them were raised by their mothers, that
their fathers were absent.
We don’t write a collective text after every
poem, but when we do, the poems help students un-
derstand some fundamental truths about contem-
porary society.
Creating a Safe Space for Sharing
Some students love to share their writing. Reading
aloud in class is a conversation, gossip session, a
chance to socialize in a teacher-approved way. Un-
fortunately, too many students arrive with bruises
from the red pen, so when we begin the year, it’s
necessary to build their confidence:

CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS 17

1. I seat the students in a circle—or the nearest ap-
proximation. This way they can see each other and
be seen as they read. The attention is focused on the
reader.
2. I distribute as many blank strips of papers as
there are students in the class. I ask students to write
a compliment to each classmate as they read, again
we focus on the positive and the specific.
3. I ask students to write each reader’s name on the
paper. So if Vonda volunteers to read her paper first,
everyone in the class writes Vonda’s name on their
strip. (This is also a way for students to learn their
classmates’ names.)
4. I tell students they must respond with a positive
comment to each writer. I emphasize that when they
listen and “steal” what works in their classmates’
writing, they will improve their own. I write a list of
ways to respond on the board:
 espond to the writer’s style of writing. What
R Some classes move into read-arounds like my
do you like about how the piece was written?
Do you like the rhyme? The repeating lines?
The humor? (Later, these points can change,
particularly if I am focusing on a specific
skill—verbs, lists, repeating lines, etc.)
 espond to the writer’s content. What did
R history; they had a present. A few students made fun
the writer say that you liked? Did you like the
way Ayanna used a story about her mother to
point out how gender roles have changed?
 espond by sharing a memory that surfaced
R blemakers and attempted to “control” their negative
for you. Did you have a similar experience? Did
this remind you of something from your life?
 s the writer reads, write down lines, ideas,
A but it’s worth it. As Jenni Brock wrote in her class
words, or phrases that you like. Remember:
You must compliment the writer.
5. As students write each compliment, I tell them to
sign their slips so the writer knows who praised them.
6. I ask for a few volunteers to share their praise with
the writer. This is slow at first, so I also model it. This
is an opportunity to teach the craft of writing poetry.
18 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
7. I tell students to look at the writer and give that
person the compliment. Usually, students look at
me as they talk about what they liked about their
classmate’s piece. I tell the writer to call on students
who have raised their hands. I establish early on that
all dialogue in the class does not funnel through the
teacher.
8. After everyone has read, I ask students to hand
out their compliment strips to each other. (This is
usually chaotic, but it’s another way for students to
identify who’s who in the class and to connect with
each other.)
9. After the first few read-arounds, I drop the strips
of paper and rely on oral feedback. But I find that
some classes need to take notes for the collective
text as a way of keeping on task—so they don’t write
love letters or complete a math assignment during
the read-around.
When It Doesn’t Work
black Lab, Nikki, to water. Others are more reluc-
tant. There are awkward silences after I say, “What
do you like about that piece?” Sometimes students
come in carrying past histories with each other that
make them fearful about sharing. One year Bill and
I taught a very difficult class. They not only had a
of classmates and held us all hostages to their anger.
We read more pieces anonymously that year. We
brought in graduates from previous years to model
appropriate behavior. Bill and I sat next to the trou-
comments by placing our bodies in their path.
Classes usually warm up during the first quar-
ter. The strategy takes time, persistence, and energy,
evaluation, “The read-arounds are totally awesome
stud vicious. They really helped the class to become
closer. They teach us so much about each other.”
And I would add—about writing. Z
 Where I’m From
Inviting Students’ Lives into the Classroom

BARBARA MINER

I
recall holding my father’s hand as he read my
story hanging on the display wall outside Mrs.
Martin’s 3rd-grade classroom on the night of
open house. I remember the sound of change jin-
gling in dad’s pocket, his laughter as he called my
mom over and read out loud the part where I’d
named the cow “Lena” after my mother and the
chicken “Walt” after my father. It was a moment of
sweet joy for me when my two worlds of home and
school bumped together in a harmony of reading,
writing, and laughter.
In my junior year of high school, I skipped
most of my classes, but each afternoon I crawled
back through the courtyard window of my English
class. There were no mass assignments in Ms. Carr’s
class: She selected novels and volumes of poetry for
each student to read. Instead of responding by cor-
recting my errors, she wrote notes in the margins of

CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS 19

my papers asking me questions about my home, my their lives, and the beauty of those facts adds up to a
mother, my sister who’d run away, my father who’d literary show-and-tell about students’ cultures.
died three years before. In his essay “The Ground on Which I Stand,”
These two events from my schooling capture August Wilson wrote,
part of what the editors of Rethinking Our Class-
rooms: Teaching for Equity and Justice meant when Growing up in my mother’s house at 1727 Bed-
we encouraged teachers to make students feel “sig- ford Ave. in Pittsburgh, Pa., I learned the lan-
nificant” in our classrooms: guage, the eating habits, the religious beliefs,
the gestures, the notions of common sense,
The ways we organize classroom life should attitudes towards sex, concepts of beauty and
seek to make children feel significant and justice, and the response to pleasure and pain,
cared about—by the teacher and by each that my mother had learned from her mother,
other. Unless students feel emotionally and and which could trace back to the first African
physically safe, they won’t share real thoughts who set foot on the continent. It is this cul-
and feelings. Discussions will be tinny and ture that stands solidly on these shores today
dishonest. We need to design activities where as a testament to the resiliency of the African
students learn to trust and care for each other. American spirit.
Classroom life should, to the greatest extent
possible, prefigure the kind of democratic and And this is what each of our students learned
just society we envision, and thus contribute in their homes: language, food, religion, the stories
to building that society. Together students (sometimes) of their people. We hear this in the do-
and teachers can create a “community of con- rags and prayer plants from Oretha Storey’s poem, in
science,” as educators Asa Hilliard and George the words of Lealonni Blake’s strict dad, “Sit yo’ fass
Pine call it. self down” (see p. 26). We hear the pain and resiliency
in Hend Abu Lamzy’s poem about Palestine, “I am
Mrs. Martin and Ms. Carr made me feel sig- from a village I’ve never seen.”
nificant and cared about because they invited my In my classrooms over the last 40 years, I’ve
home into the classroom. They allowed me to bring attempted to find ways to make students feel sig-
the “ground on which I stand,” as August Wilson nificant and cared about as well, to find space for
wrote, into school. When I their lives to become part
wrote and included details of the curriculum. I do this
about my family, they lis- There are just the facts of by inviting them to write
tened. They made space for their lives, and the beauty about their lives, about the
me and my people in the worlds from which they
curriculum.
of those facts adds up to a come. Our sharing is one
In the Oregon Writ- literary show-and-tell of the many ways we begin
ing Project, we talk about about students’ cultures. to build community togeth-
the “bones of the poem,” er. It “prefigures” a world
the structure of the poem. where students can hear
George Ella Lyon’s “Where I’m From” has good the home language—Diovana’s Pacific Islander
bones that help students organize their poems by heritage, Lurdes’ Mexican family, Oretha’s African
standing on ground she tilled before us, so students American home, my Norwegian roots—and cele-
of all ages can write about where they are from. This brate, without mockery, the similarities as well as
poem starts the year with a home run paper on the the differences.
wall from every kid in the classroom. There are no Sometimes grounding lessons in students’ lives
rhyme schemes to follow. There are no fancy literary can take a more critical role, by asking them to ex-
terms that too often separate students from the dai- amine how they have been shaped or manipulated
ly language of their lives. There are just the facts of by the media, for example. But as critical teachers,

20 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

we shouldn’t overlook the necessity of connecting
students around moments of joy as well.
Lyon’s poem invites my students’ families,
homes, and neighborhoods into the classroom. Ly-
on’s poem follows a repeating pattern (“I am from
…”) that recalls details, evokes memories—and can
prompt some excellent poetry. Her poem allows
me to teach about the use of specifics in poetry, and
writing in general. But the lesson also brings the class
together through the sharing of details from our lives
and lots of laughter and talk about the “old ones”
whose languages and traditions continue to perme-
ate the ways we do things today.
Teaching Strategy
I am mindful that my students do not all live in sin-
gle-dwelling homes with picket fences and big back-
yards. Many live in apartments or the “projects.”
In recent times, students’ living situations have be-
come more vulnerable, so some of my students live
in transitional housing, hotel rooms, and sometimes
cars. Other students
are in and out of foster
homes. I ask students
to think of a place they
consider “home” for
this exercise.
1. After students read
the poem out loud to-
gether, I note that Lyon
begins many of her
lines with the phrase “I
am from.” I remind the
class of William Staf-
ford’s advice to find a
hook to “link the poem
forward” through some kind of device like a repeat-
ing line, so the poem can develop a momentum. I
suggest they might want to use the line “I am from”
or create another phrase that will move the poem.
2. We go line by line through the poem. I ask stu-
dents to notice the details Lyon remembers about her
past. After we read, I ask students to write lists that
match the ones in Lyon’s poem and to share them out
loud. We write each list, share each list, laugh, and
add details. The idea is to fill the well so that when
CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS
they move to write the poem, they have many details
to choose from. This verbal sharing sparks memories
and also gives us memories to share as we make our
way through the lesson:
• I tems found around their home: bobby pins
or stacks of newspapers, grandma’s false
teeth in a jar by the bathroom sink, discount
coupons for a Mercedes. (They don’t have to
tell the truth. Sometimes the exaggeration
tells as much as the truth.)
• Items found in their yards, in the area sur-
rounding their “home”: broken rakes, dog
bones, hoses coiled like green snakes. (I en-
courage them to think of metaphors as they
make their lists.)
• Items found in their neighborhood: the cor-
ner grocery store, Mr. Tate’s beat-up Ford
Fairlane, the “home base” plum tree. I en-
courage them to be specific—include names
of people, stores, streets. For example, I live
on the corner of Fremont and Haight, around
the block from More for Less Foods, across
the street from the Living Gospel Church,
and two blocks from Senn’s Drive-Thru
Dairy.
• Names of relatives, especially ones that link
them to their past: Aunt Eva and Uncle Ein-
ar, the Christensen and Richert branches.
• Sayings that spill out and remind them of
home, “If I’ve told you once …” “Who gave
you the authority?” My students have great
lines for this one that either pull me back
to my childhood or make me want to steal
their families’ lines.
• Names of foods and dishes that recall family
gatherings: lutefisk, tamales, black-eyed peas,
chocolate mayonnaise cake, peach cobbler.
Be prepared to get hungry.
• Names of places they keep their childhood
memories: diaries, boxes, underwear draw-
ers, inside the family Bible.
3. We share our lists out loud as we brainstorm.
I encourage them to make their piece “sound like
home,” using the names and language of their home,
their family, their neighborhood. The students who
write vague nouns like “shoes” or “magazines” get
21
more specific when they hear their classmates shout
out “Jet,” “Latina,” “pink tights crusted with rosin.”
Out of the chaos, the sounds, smells, and languages
of my students’ homes emerge in poetry.

4. Once they have their lists of specific words,

phrases, and names, I ask students to highlight the
pieces from their lists that most clearly show where
they are from. The poet’s job is to cherry-pick the best
details, not use everything from their brainstorming.
I encourage them to find some kind of link or phrase
like “I am from” to weave the poem together, and to
end the poem with a line or two that ties their pres-
ent to their past—their family history. For example,
in Lyon’s poem, she ends with “Under my bed was
a dress box/spilling old pictures … I am from those
moments …”

5. After students have written a draft, we “read-

around.” (See p. 15 for a detailed description of
this activity.) This is an opportunity for students
to feel “significant and cared about,” in the words
of Rethinking Our Classrooms, as they share their
poems. Z

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES

Au, Wayne, Bill Bigelow, and Stan Karp (eds.). 2007. Rethinking
Our Classrooms: Teaching for Equity and Justice, vol. 1. Rethinking
Schools.
Blum, Joshua, Bob Holman, and Mark Pellington (eds.). 1996. The
United States of Poetry. Harry N. Adams.
Lyon, George Ella. 1999. “Where I’m From.” Where I’m From:
Where Poems Come From. Absey & Co.
Stafford, William. 1978. Writing the Australian Crawl. University of
Michigan Press.
Stafford, William. 1986. You Must Revise Your Life. University of
Michigan Press.
Wilson, August. “The Ground on Which I Stand: A Speech on
Black Theatre and Performance.” Speech presented at Princeton
University McCarter Theatre, August 1996. aas.princeton.edu/
publicatin/thegroundonwhichistand.

22 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

Where I’m From
by George Ella Lyon

I am from clothespins, I’m from Artemus and Billie’s Branch,

from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride. fried corn and strong coffee.
I am from the dirt under the back porch. From the finger my grandfather lost
(Black, glistening to the auger
it tasted like beets.) the eye my father shut to keep his sight.
I am from the forsythia bush, Under my bed was a dress box
the Dutch elm spilling old pictures,
whose long gone limbs I remember a sift of lost faces
as if they were my own. to drift beneath my dreams.
I am from those moments—
I am from fudge and eyeglasses, snapped before I budded—
from Imogene and Alafair. leaf-fall from the family tree.
I’m from the know-it-alls
and the pass-it-ons,
from perk up and pipe down.
I’m from He restoreth my soul
with a cottonball lamb
and ten verses I can say myself.

ALAURA SEIDL

“Where I’m From” appears in Where I’m From: Where Poems Come From. Absey & Co., 1999. Reprinted with permission.

CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS 23

u SAMPLE POEMS

Where I’m From

by Renée Watson

I’m made up of East Coast hip hop and island Where I’m from the whole neighborhood is
tradition. your family.
I’m from Baptist hymns and secular jigs. Ladies sit on their porches looking out for you
Tambourine playin’, late night stayin’ shooing away boys like flies.
at the church house, or my friend’s house, or their Callin’ your momma to tell what you did
friend’s house before you can get home and lie about it.
(on the weekends).
Where I’m from people ask my friend,
Where I’m from there are corduroyed “Is that your hair?” and she says, “Yeah it’s mine.
hand-me-downs I bought it!”
and family keepsakes.
Family pictures on the wall. Open Bible on the I’m from divorce being passed down to children
coffee table. like a family heirloom.
I’m from single mommas pushing strollers,
I’m from that side of town. praying that their babies don’t make the same
Where the media only comes for bloodshed. Blood mistakes as them.
wasted.
Never for blood restored, celebrated, or I’m from a little goes a long way, from sun gonna
regenerated. shine after the rain.
I’m from persevering souls and hard-working
I’m from hopscotch and double dutch. hands.
Hide-n-go seek and Pac Man. From a people destined to make it to their
promised land.
I’m from curry goat, rice and peas, and beef patties. I’m from been there, done that, can and will do it
From turquoise-blue water, white sand, and again.
dreadlocks. Now you, tell me—where you from?
Reggae is in my blood.

Grew up in the Pacific Northwest. A place where

rain falls
more than sun shines.
I’m from Douglas firs and pine trees,
where we walk under waterfalls,
drive up windy roads to Mt. Hood,
and escape to the beaches on the Oregon coast.

Where I’m from music takes away the blues.

I’m from Bob Marley. Mahalia Jackson. Aretha
Franklin. James Brown.
I’m from Jackson 5 records and New Edition tapes.
I’m from rewinding tapes over and over and over
again
so you can write down the lyrics and memorize
them.

24 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

I Am from Swingsets I Am from Pink Tights
and Jungle Gyms and Speak Your Mind
by Debby Gordon by Djamila Moore

I am from jars for change collections, I am from sweaty pink tights encrusted in rosin
cards from Grandma, bobby pins
and chocolate milk. Winnie-the-Pooh
and crystals.
I am from swingsets and jungle gyms
rusted metal mounted in dirt I am from awapuhi ginger
used by many kids, sweet fields of sugar cane
well broken in. green bananas.

I am from the cherry tree, I am from warm rain cascading over

and the pudgy faces climbing out on the branches taro leaf umbrellas.
for a piece of juicy red fruit. Crouching beneath the shield of kalo.

I am from tattle-tales, I am from poke, brie cheese, mango,

keep-it-froms, and raspberries,
and “shut-up and listen to me.” from Marguritte
I am from Rice Crispy Treats, and Aunty Nani.
and pretty rings,
from Melvin and Earline. I am from speak your mind
it’s OK to cry
I’m from Will and Sharon’s long branch, and would you like it if someone did that to you?
chunky peanut-butter and jelly,
from the house we lost to fire, I am from swimming with
and surgeries we all have had. the full moon,
Saturday at the laundromat,
I am from the old scrapbooks, and Easter crepes.
where pictures,
remind me of days that live only in the minds I am from Moore and Cackley
of those of us who were there. from sardines and haupia.
From Mirana’s lip Djavan split,
I am from the people who paved a way for me, to the shrunken belly
I am from the best that could be, my grandmother could not cure.
and I am the best I could be.
Seven diaries stashed among
Anne of Green Gables.
Dreams of promises
ending in tears.
Solidifying to salted pages.

I am from those moments of

magic
when life remains a
fairy tale.

CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS 25

I Am From…
by Oretha Storey
I am from bobby pins, doo-rags
and wide toothed combs.
I am from tall grass, basketballs, and
slimy slugs in front of my home.
I am from prayer plants that lift
their stems and rejoice every night.
I am from chocolate cakes and deviled
eggs that made afternoon snacks just right.
I am from older cousins and hand me downs
to “shut ups” and “sit downs.”
I am from Genesis to Exodus
Leviticus too.
Church to church, pew to pew.
I am from a huge family tree,
that begins with dust and ends with me.
In the back of my mind there lies a dream
of good “soul food” and money trees.
In this dream I see me on top makin’
ham hocks, fried chicken
and smothered porkchops.
I am from family roots and blood
Oh, I forgot to mention love.
26 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
I Am from Soul Food
and Harriet Tubman
by Lealonni Blake
I am from get-togethers
and Bar-B-Ques
K-Mart special with matching shoes.
Baseball bats and BB guns,
a violent family is where I’m from.
I am from “get it girl”
and “shake it to the ground.”
From a strict dad named Lumb
sayin’ “sit yo’ fass self down.”
I am from the smell of soul food
cooking in Lelinna’s kitchen.
From my Pampa’s war stories
to my granny’s cotton pickin’.
I am from Kunta Kinte’s strength,
Harriet Tubman’s escapes.
Phyllis Wheatley’s poems,
and Sojourner Truth’s faith.
If you did family research,
and dug deep into my genes.
You’ll find Sylvester and Ora, Geneva and Doc,
My African Kings and Queens.
That’s where I’m from.
 Sweet Learning

A
ccording to my friend
Eddy Shuldman, when
children first learned
to read Hebrew the rabbi placed a
drop of honey on each letter of the
alphabet. When children mastered
the letter, they licked the honey to
make the learning sweet.
I like the image of “sweet learn-
ing” because too often in school, we
speak of “rigor” and “getting tough”
without talking about the joy of ed-
ucation, the thrill of discovering
something new.
Some of my “sweetest” learn-
ing took place on Humboldt Bay in
Northern California. On Saturday
mornings, my father and I piled into
our old Ford and headed to Eureka’s
waterfront. We’d stop at the Cali-
fornia Fruit Market on 2nd Street,
where Pop bought a newspaper, a
pack of chocolate pinwheel cookies
for me, and a few groceries for his
friend Big Ernie. Then we’d climb
into the rowboat and my Saturday
lessons would begin. On Humboldt
Bay my father taught me how to cast SHANNON WRIGHT

off from the dock and how to row.

Once we moored our skiff at Big Ernie’s dock, my fa-
ther showed me how to secure the boat to the dock,
find tube worms on the pilings at low tide, thread
them on a hook, throw my line and reel in fish.
I no longer live on Humboldt Bay, but the mem-
ory of my father’s teaching stays with me. When I vis-
ited a Roma village outside of Letanovce, Slovakia,
I was struck by how much education took place in
the village. (The Roma are more commonly known
by the derogatory term “Gypsy.” Most prefer to be
called Roma.) Children learned to gather wood,
build fires, dip water from the well and carry it home.
They learned how to cook, clean, and sew from their
family members—just as my father taught me.

CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS 27

 This lesson on sweet learning brings our stu- 3. When it looks like most students have five or
dents’ lives, their families and cultures—whether six people on their lists, I ask them to share a few.
they are Roma, African American, Laotian, Irish, or Sometimes when students get stuck and can’t think
Norwegian—into our classrooms while we nurture of one person to write about, hearing their class-
students’ reading and writing skills. I use it at the mates’ lists helps get them started.
beginning of the year so I
can learn something about In my classroom, I want every 4. Before students begin
the cultural background of their drafts, we return to
my students, and so they
student to feel pride in where Laura’s and Alejandro’s sto-
can share their identity in they come from, in their ries and notice how they
positive ways with the rest heritage, and the people who put their stories togeth-
of the class.
clothe, shelter, and teach them. er, noticing the dialogue,
As a teacher, I want character description, and
to acknowledge the wis- setting description. I ask
dom that resides in my students’ homes. Because them to include these elements as they tell their sto-
we live in a society that honors the wealthy and ry about a sweet learning experience.
tends to hold in greatest esteem “high status” formal
knowledge, I attempt to find ways to honor the in- The Read-Around and Collective Text
telligence, common sense, and love that beats in the After the first read-around (see p. 15 for a complete
hearts of my students’ families. In my classroom, I description of this activity), I tell students to take
want every student to feel pride in where they come notes as they listen to their classmates read. In this
from, in their heritage, and the people who clothe, writing, I ask them to keep track of what “sweet
shelter, and teach them. learning” took place.
After everyone in the class has read their piece,
Teaching Strategy I say: “Read over your notes. What did your class-
1. As students read out loud two stories written mate learn? Where did the learning take place?
by my former students—“In My Father’s Kitchen” What were the conditions for the learning? What
by Laura Tourtillott and “Abuelita” by Alejandro did they learn by doing? Watching? Practicing? Did
Vidales (see p. 29)—I ask them to think about what someone give them a manual? Did they get praised?
Laura learned in her father’s kitchen and what Ale- Write a paragraph about how we learn. Please refer-
jandro learned from his grandmother. ence your classmates’ stories as you write down your
ideas.”
2. I start the writing by telling stories about my After students have read and shared, we talk
sweet learning experiences. I tell the story about my about the “collective text” of our stories. What were
father teaching me to fish on Humboldt Bay. As I the conditions that made for sweet learning? Who
talk, I make a list. did students learn from? Typically students discover
that they have learned a lot from the people in their
• My father taught me to row a boat and fish. homes. No one handed them a manual on “how to
• My mother taught me how to make clam build a fire.” Instead, they learned by watching and
chowder. practicing under the guidance of a significant adult.
• Billy, my brother, taught me how to find We talk about what schools could learn about teach-
egrets’ nests in trees. ing from these “experts” in our lives. Z
• M
 y friend, Katherine Weit, taught me how
to stand up for what I believe.

During my storytelling, I pause and ask stu-

dents to make their own lists of sweet learning
experiences.

28 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

u SAMPLE ESSAYS
In My Father’s Kitchen
by Laura Tourtillott
I enter the kitchen to a spiced earthy smell and
steamy windows. At the stove a tall, red-haired man
is stirring a large pot.
“What’re you making, Daddy?” I ask.
“Applesauce. Wanna stir while I knead the
bread?”
“Sure. But can I knead, too?” I try not to sound
whiny, but kneading is my favorite part. After Dad
goes through a few turns of the dough, we switch
places. My hands are smaller, and since I’m nearly
two feet shorter than he is, I have a hard time.
As I go back to stirring, I know the muscles in
my arms will complain tomorrow, and I may not be
able to use the monkey bars, but I am happy any-
way. After he puts the dough back on the fridge to
rise some more, he gives me instructions for the
applesauce.
“Laura, you hold the jar while I spoon the
sauce in, OK?”
“All right,” I say, careful not to let the hot apples
burn my fingers.
When we have filled three jars I ask, “Why is
there still some at the bottom of the pot?”
“Because I’m going to cook it down and make
apple butter,” he says with a smile, “but you don’t
have to eat any.”
I feel my eyes bulge. My tongue does a quick
pass over my lips. Daddy knows apple butter is my
favorite. “No!” I say. “I want some.”
And he wraps me in his arms where I can feel
his warm, deep laugh coming up from his belly
button.
We still commune in the kitchen, Daddy and I,
absorbed in the sweetest smells and brightest colors
in our small house. Spices, vinegars, oils, and expen-
sive fish all come out from their cupboards to be ar-
ranged by my father’s fingers into something more
beautiful to see and taste than they could ever dream
of being on their own.
In my father’s kitchen, I learned to read, multi-
ply, dance, hug, stand up straight, create, feel . . . and
I’m just now learning to cook. In my father’s kitchen
he makes magic.
CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS
Abuelita
by Alejandro Vidales
At the age of 6, I came to live in the United States.
My grandmother was so excited. She painted the
most beautiful images of how it would be. “Mijo, we
are going to go to a better place. We are going to a
place where the streets are made of gold, where dol-
lars grow on trees, and most importantly, where you
can become somebody.”
When I got here, we lived in San Diego, right
next to the ocean. I remember going to the beach,
listening to the seagulls, feeling the breeze on my
face, looking at the waves drifting to the shore, feel-
ing the last sun rays hitting my skin. It was mag-
ic. Every Saturday, my grandmother and I walked
along the shore, picking up sand dollars and sea-
shells. She helped me build sand castles. “No, aoi,
no. Primero tienes que hacer tu figura.” I would laugh
and hug her. She wasn’t only my grandmother; she
was my friend.
I didn’t like school because I didn’t under-
stand anybody. At the time, I didn’t speak English.
When I got home, my abuelita became my school.
She taught me how to read and write in Spanish.
And while learning Spanish, I was able to pick up
English.
I liked studying with my abuelita because after
we finished, she would cook dinner. Man, could she
cook! I remember her wrinkled hands grinding the
corn, then chopping fresh tomatoes, tomatillos, on-
ions, and chiles. Every cut exact, just how she want-
ed. She made the best salsa. Sometimes my friends
would come to my house for dinner. But most of the
time, it would only be the two of us having dinner
together because my uncles were never home and
my mom was too busy working.
I never met my grandfather or father, so my
abuelita took the responsibility of guiding me. She
taught me how to clean, sweep, mop, cook, and even
wash and iron my own clothes. She also taught me
how to be independent, respectful, responsible, and
how to treat women.
As I write this piece, I clearly remember her
words: “Mijo, I brought you here so you can do some-
thing with your life. I want you to get your education
and become a great lawyer or doctor or whatever you
want. Show everybody that a Mexicano can make a
29
difference and that you don’t need to shoot anybody
or steal to get attention. I believe in you, and I know
you will accomplish anything you put your mind to.”
Now that I am a senior in high school, I am
going to graduate and go to college because I don’t
plan on letting my abuelita or myself down. I want
to thank my abuelita for raising me to become a real
man.

30 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 Mapping Childhood
How Our Stories Build Community

N
arrative writing
is the center of
a social justice
classroom. These snap-
shots from students’ lives
build classroom commu-
nity and connect their
home worlds to the cur-
riculum. Too often these
days, though, testing and
standards push narratives
in the sidelines in favor of
argumentative writing.
This drive to “just
the facts, ma’am” teach-
ing is wrongheaded on
many levels. First, narra-
tive is at the heart of all
writing—stories, novels,
and essays. While David
Coleman, architect of the
Common Core, may be-
lieve that narrative writ-
ing is a waste of time,
every good journalist,
writer, politician, attor-
ney, and teacher knows SIMONE SHIN

that stories matter. At-

lantic, Harper’s, New York Times, Yes! magazines
certainly understand the pull of stories. When Mi-
chelle Alexander writes about prisons in The New
Jim Crow, she grounds her thesis in the lives of peo-
ple caught in the web of an unjust legal system by
opening her book with the story of Jarvious Cotton
and his family. Ta-Nehisi Coates, in his award-win-
ning article “The Case for Reparations,” portrays
Clyde Ross’ search for a home in a corrupt housing
market to propel understanding of how system-
ic racism has worked against African Americans.
These stories bring humanity to a thesis, showing

CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS 31

how abstract concepts like justice and inequality
work on a human level.
The exclusion of narrative from the curriculum
also silences students, erasing the political connec-
tions created by paralleling their own oppression,
struggle, and joy to the curriculum and the reading.
Our students’ stories about
their lives provide the bed-
rock that my curriculum Yes, most kids played hide-
rests on. Like Alexander and
Coates, I use the narratives
and-seek, but did they have
written in my class to help the kid on their block who
students understand broad- always broke the rules?
er issues in society. Whether
they are sharing stories of
neighborhood games, musings about their experi-
ences with inequality in education, telling tales of
pranks gone wrong, or moving us to tears about
injustices they have endured, their lives provide
insights about contemporary society. When we re-
orient the curriculum toward justice, we must pair
literary and social inquiry with examinations about
how these events play out in our students’ worlds.
Over the years, my students have been a delight-
ful blend of colors, sexual orientations, genders, and
economic statuses. They differ in the activities they
enjoy: Some love football and basketball; some love
ballet or African dance; others are into politics, hair-
styling, or music. They differ in their home languages,
access to wealth, healthcare, and housing. Sometimes
those differences create a loving atmosphere and
sometimes they create conflict. Because I want them
to get comfortable talking across these lines at the be-
ginning of the year, I take them back to their child-
hood to explore memories while they work on their
narrative writing skills. Their laughter and tears over
their shared experiences of toys, cartoons, books,
recess rituals, games, even clothing, pain, loss, and
shame contributes to creating a classroom commu-
nity that later makes our difficult conversations about
contemporary issues possible. But these seemingly
innocent childhood stories also carry lessons.
Getting students to write narratives is more
complicated than just saying, “Write about a child-
hood memory.” For some students, this comes easily
and naturally, but for most students—and adults—I
need to saturate them in stories and ground them in
the past, helping students dig through their child-
32 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
hood recollections to find those moments from their
lives that formed them. Nurturing strong writing
means giving them time to explore before they put
pencil to paper or fingers to keyboards. By reading
examples from my former students, I convince them
that their lives are full of stories, every bit as wor-
thy of writing and sharing as
published writers. Yes, most
kids played hide-and-seek,
but did they have the kid on
their block who always broke
the rules? Was there some-
one who found the best spots
and hoarded them? Did they
cheat and their sister told
their mother and they got in trouble? How we tell
our stories—the actions, the dialogue, the character
descriptions—can merely entertain or they can re-
veal the world that shaped us.
Stephenie Lincoln’s story “Neighborhood Has-
sle” (p. 36) describes Steph’s attempt to play basket-
ball with the boys. On one level, it is the story of an
episode in Stephenie’s neighborhood ball game. On
another level, it is about the assumption that girls
“can’t ball.”
I was always a tomboy, but I never let them
know I could ball because they were so mean.
But I was fed up. So I had decided it was time
to school ’em.
It was my ball again. I dribbled to my left,
crossed to my right, and busted a “J.”
“In yo face Timmy,” I said like I was
all that. “My ball.” I went right, tried to go
through my legs, and Timmy stripped me. He
laid it up and the score was 2-1, me. His ball.
All the fellas was jumpin’ up and down
now yellin’, “Go Timmy, don’t let no girl beat
you.” Little Ronnie was the fat one. He never
did anything but instigate and eat.
Stephenie’s triumph in the story teaches the
boys a lesson. Through her retelling of the event,
we learn about gender stereotypes and the impor-
tance of not giving in to other people’s perceptions
about us. But we also learn about defiance and
resistance.
In “My Name Is Not Kunta Kinte” (p. 37),
DeShawn Holden takes us to the berry patch to
pick berries with his family. But from the time his
mother wakes him until his grandmother admon-
ishes him for “chucking” dirt clods and hitting her
by mistake, we are in the world of a family: the
sayings, the teasing, the sibling and cousin rivalry.
And while I’m sure that DeShawn learned not to
hit his grandmother with dirt clods, the larger les-
son is about how these outings and rituals shaped
his family.
Rushed by parents and siblings, I walked right
out of the house with eye boogers still in the
corners of my eyes and slobber stretching
from my mouth to my ear. I didn’t care until
my grandmother, Mrs. Rise and Shine herself,
who goes to bed at 8 p.m. and starts her day
at 3 a.m. said, “Boy, why haven’t you washed
your face? You look like you been sleeping in
a barn. And you didn’t even bother to comb
yo’ ole nappy head. Looks like chickens been
having their way with it.”
She meant well, even though it sounded
pretty harsh. I love my grandmother. She was
light in spirit, but heavy everywhere else. She
was a strong woman, a warrior, and a survi-
vor. My grandmother loved me in spite of all
my mischievous, devilish, sneaky ways. She
always managed to speak life when I was bad
and everyone else wanted to speak death. She
said that I was going to be the one to grow up
to be a preacher.
DeShawn’s narrative demonstrates the impor-
tance of celebrating authentic storytelling in the
classroom, including “home language” and bringing
stories and people into our classroom who influ-
enced us. Our lessons from our lives should not be
separated from the curriculum.
The neighborhood map is a standard, one that
I learned from Vince and Patty Wixon and Kim
Stafford when I went through the Oregon Writing
Project in 1980. This narrative prompt uses stu-
dents’ lives as the material for the writing; it incor-
porates reading, drawing, and talking so students
have multiple opportunities to collect their memo-
ries and practice telling their story before they be-
gin writing.
CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS
Drawing and Modeling
To begin the lesson, I draw a map of one of the
neighborhoods where I grew up—K Street in Eu-
reka, California—on the board or document cam-
era. As I draw, I label streets and neighbors’ houses
on my map. I put an X in the backyard and tell the
story of the time my sister Tina got me to play den-
tist, tied me to a chair, and tried to take my teeth
out with our father’s rusty pliers. I can still taste the
rust when I tell the story. I put another X by the big
hill going down to Susan Runner’s house, and I talk
about the time my brother Billy built a go-cart and
pushed me down the hill before teaching me how
to use the brakes. Both of these stories highlight
lessons I learned—beyond my siblings putting my
life in danger—of weighing fun and danger against
boundaries. As I draw and tell stories, I point out
the importance of specific details, like names and
descriptions that help build the narrative. I don’t go
on too long—long enough for them to get the idea,
but too long and I lose them.
Because I also want students to surface and
critique fundamental aspects of our society, I also
extend my map to include my high school. I place
an X by Mrs. Bohanan’s room. I tell about the day
she humiliated me for “talking wrong” and made
me stand and pronounce words and conjugate verbs
as the wrong way to talk. I also place an X by Mrs.
Johanson’s room. This teacher pushed me to join
the debate team and spar with Daniel Chin about
the draft and alternative service during the war in
Vietnam. Instead of shaming me, she transformed
me by making me see myself as capable instead of
inferior. There’s an X for the day I demanded that
girls be allowed to wear pants to school. My efforts
failed, but the incident provided an understanding
that I need to work for change when I experience
oppression.
The stories I model help students surface
memories they might want to write along a scale
of safe to risky. When I risk sharing times I experi-
enced pain as well as transformation, the classroom
becomes a crucible where students’ collective stories
forge insights into our society, probe the fundamen-
tal inequalities that limit us, and move us to seek
justice—as well as laughter. Teachers who work in
places where kids have tough lives sometimes resist
asking them to write about their lives because they
33
have encountered tragedy. But they have also en-
countered joy as the poet Nikki Giovanni reminds
us in her great poem “Nikki-Rosa”:
Black love is Black wealth and they’ll
probably talk about my hard childhood
and never understand that
all the while I was quite happy
Our framing of narrative writing either pushes
students away or allows them the full expression of
their humanity.
I hand out crayons and legal-size paper and ask
students to draw a map of a neighborhood they lived
in that they want to write about. Some students have
moved a lot. Some are homeless. I tell them, “Some
of you moved a lot and might have fewer memo-
ries from one place. Some people who have only
lived in one place might not have as many stories
as you do exploring new
territory. You can make
multiple maps. There’s no If they don’t notice the dialogue, of their own life? How
way to be wrong. You can I will notice it for them.
also use the school as a
neighborhood like I did.”
Also, I tell them this is a messy map. They don’t have
to worry about it being correct or perfect. They just
want to get down street names, neighbor names,
nicknames of places like “spider tree,” and place an
X where incidents happened that they might want
to write about.
After students have created their maps, I ask
them to find a partner. “You are going to take turns
telling stories. First, one of you will be the story-
teller while your partner is the listener. Then you
will switch. Tell about the places where you marked
an X, just like I did. Listeners, I want you to help
the writer by asking questions: What else do you
want to know? What other details would help you
see this story? Draw the writer out. Also, notice if
their stories remind you of something you can add
to your map.” Because some students take longer to
come to stories, this partner share helps stimulate
ideas. Telling the story is a rehearsal for the writing.
While the drawing helps locate the story, talking
helps the writer recall more details. Once partners
have discussed their maps and stories, I ask for a
few volunteers to share from their map. Before they
34 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
speak, I tell the class, “Listen to these stories be-
cause they might trigger a new memory for you.”
Let me pause to say there are always students
who have a tough time finding a story, but this nar-
rative offers multiple points for students to raise up
memories: First with the mentor texts, next with my
map and stories, next by drawing, and then again by
partner sharing. Drawing the maps, especially in si-
lence, functions as a meditation that allows students
to travel back in time and recreate memories.
Reading the Models
Once students have located their own stories, I dis-
tribute “Super Soaker War” by Bobby Bowden (p. 38).
I start with this piece because most students can relate
to taking play a little too far and getting in trouble. I
read the story “with attitude” as students read along
silently. Then I ask students to read it again on their
own and make marginal notes: What do they like,
what questions do they
have, what reminds them
does the writer bring the
story to life? We discuss
their observations, but
also listen as their own stories of getting in trouble
bubble up after hearing Bobby’s story.
If they point out his character or setting de-
scriptions, I might add that describing characters is
a good way to make their writing come alive. If they
don’t notice the dialogue, I will notice it for them.
While I don’t over-teach the craft of narrative writ-
ing at this point, students need to understand that
elements like description and dialogue move their
piece from a one-sentence summary—Bobby got in
trouble for putting paint in Super Soakers instead
of water—to a story. We read Stephenie Lincoln’s
and DeShawn Holden’s stories so students see how
different people approached the same writing as-
signment, to develop “story sense.” The models help
writers hurtle into their storytelling without worry-
ing about whether they have all of the elements or
got it “right.”
Guided Visualization
I frequently take students on a guided visualization
before they start writing. The visualization provides
a quiet pathway from the chaos of churning up sto-
ries to the quiet zone of writing. They read over their
list and circle one childhood memory they want to
write about. I close the blinds, turn out the lights,
ask them to get comfortable, and close their eyes.
(I joke around as I do this. “I promise no one will
look at you. Put your head on the desk if you think
they might.” I exaggerate taking big breaths, rolling
my shoulders.) I pause about 40 seconds between
each question so they can raise the memory. I typi-
cally take them through setting, character, and then
put the story in motion. I say, “Remember the event.
Imagine the room or playground or park where the
memory took place. What does it look like? What
does it smell like? What sounds do you remember?
Who else was there? What did they say?” There are
no set questions for these visualizations, but I try to
get students to see, hear, smell, taste the memory—to
create a movie in their heads of the childhood mem-
ory so their writing will be more detailed. If they can’t
recall exactly what someone said, I tell them to make
up something that fits their memory of the event.
To transition from the guided visualization to
the writing, I tell students that when I turn on the
lights I want them to write as fast as they can be-
cause sometimes they will capture memories they
might otherwise forget. This is a first draft. I also say,
“Write this as if you were talking to a friend. Tell
the story. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Every-
thing can be cleaned up in revision.” Students start
writing in class and finish the draft at home.
Read-Around and Collective Text
As students write, I circle the room and a few push
their drafts to the edge of their desks inviting me
to look at their papers. I “read” the room. If I see
that the majority of students are on track, I move
ahead with a read-around. If a number of students
seem stuck, I might encourage a few who “got it” to
share their drafts, so that their classmates can push
off from their models. If more seem stuck than un-
stuck, I will move into some revision strategies to
teach them how to build a stronger story (see “The
Read-Around,” p. 15).
Before we begin the read-around, I tell stu-
dents that they must take notes on their classmates’
stories. Certainly, I want them to think about what
they like in the piece, including use of language, di-
alogue, description, and evocative details that help
CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS
them “see” the story. The read-around provides one
of the best teaching tools as we collectively figure
out why Tara’s story “works” or how the details
of dialogue created DeShawn’s grandmother as a
woman we want in our lives. Students learn writing
techniques from each other: how to use dialogue or
blocking, how to use metaphor as a tool for charac-
ter description. As each student reads their paper,
the rest of the class takes notes. After the “writer”
finishes, we applaud, then give specific feedback
about what “worked” in the piece. I begin part of the
read-around by saying, “We all need to learn what
we are doing right, so we can keep using that tool.
We also want to keep everyone writing. Give the
writer some love. Also think about what we learn
about society from this piece.”
But the read-around provides another vital
function in a social justice classroom—the connec-
tion between students’ lives and the world—in the
way that Alexander’s and Coates’ stories illuminated
the justice system and housing inequality. Bill Bige-
low, my teaching partner and husband, coined the
term “collective text” to describe these post-writing
discussions. Instead of just applauding the pretty
phrases or hilarious stories or even noting the tech-
nical prowess, which is important, we also want to
probe the lessons these stories teach us about our
childhood: what we learned to fear, how we learned
to treat others, how parents taught boundaries or
consequences on our way to adulthood.
Yes, we must teach students to write narratives
in this time when their stories are dismissed as irrel-
evant or unimportant or impractical in the world of
work. But we must also teach them to listen to other
people’s stories, to learn lessons from Stephenie’s re-
fusal to be sidelined by gender expectations, to cel-
ebrate a home that teaches the value of communal
work, or to remember that there are consequences
for destroying other people’s property. In a social
justice classroom, every lesson must build toward a
more just, inclusive society, including the seemingly
innocent stories of our childhood. Z
35
u SAMPLE ESSAYS
Neighborhood Hassle
by Stephenie Lincoln
“I wish you guys would hurry up,” I yelled, looking
up toward the hoop. I was standing by the wire fence
that was off to the right. The boys on the block were
playing basketball. They never let me play because I
was a girl and they didn’t want girls with them.
It was a sunny day. Birds were flying by and all
the neighborhood kids were out all over—playing
kickball, stickball, catch, tag, anything. I had just
come out from eating one of my favorite lunches,
peanut butter and jelly, so I was ready to ball.
“You ain’t playin’ so you might as well leave,”
Timmy said. Timmy was about an inch taller than
me. He wasn’t skinny, but he wasn’t fat either. He
had a nappy mini Afro and he always wore too-little
shorts and shirts with Coasters from Volumes.
“Oh yes I am, and just for that, you gone be the
first person I beat,” I said. All the other boys was like,
“OOH.” So when they got finished playin’, Timmy
called me out. The winner of one-on-one stays on
the court until he/she loses.
“Now, these is the rules: Game is 5, ain’t no
outs, and winner gets ball.”
“OK,” I said, and we started.
“You got first ball since you a girl,” he said. That
was his first mistake.
I took the ball out top. We were on the corner
of Michigan and Webster at the Frazier’s hoop that
had been nailed up to the top of the garage. On the
right side was a fence and on the left were bushes.
The bushes were very tall and had big green
leaves that were also glossy. On the other side of the
bush lived a lady that we all called crazy. She looked
like a monster cluck.
I had Timmy all to myself. I faked left, crossed
over to the right, went through my legs, and laid
it up with my left hand. Timmy was embarrassed.
Now all the rest of the boys were going crazy. They
never knew I could ball.
I was always a tomboy, but I never let them
know I could ball because they were so mean. But
I was fed up. So I had decided it was time to school
’em.
It was my ball again. I dribbled to my left,
crossed to my right, and busted a “J.”
“In yo face, Timmy,” I said like I was all that.
36 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
“My ball.” I went right, tried to go through my legs,
and Timmy stripped me. He laid it up and the score
was 2-1, me. His ball. All the fellas was jumpin’ up
and down now yellin’, “Go Timmy, don’t let no girl
beat you.”
Little Ronnie was the fat one. He never did any-
thing but instigate and eat. He had on one of those
polyester T-shirts that was brown and orange, with
some brown pants. They looked like they both had
been painted on. He had curly hair and the prettiest
white teeth.
Jimmy was Timmy’s lil brother. He was the lit-
tle tagalong with Timmy’s old pants and shirt on.
But Jimmy wore those little brown Dexters, and his
hair was always combed. He had a cute little dimple
in his left cheek and some of the most chocolate-col-
ored skin.
Timmy was grinnin’ now. He had the ball and
pulled up for a two pointer. I blocked it, turned and
laid it up. Score was 3-1, my ball. I drove in strong to
the right and pulled up for another “J.”
“Cheating,” I said. “Yes. Money.”
The boys were laughing now. Timmy got so
mad that on my next out he knocked me down so
hard I could have cried.
He had a little grin on his face like, “Yeah, now
what Steph?”
I was wearing my favorite jean shorts and my
Aries T-shirt with my blue-and-white old-school
Nikes. I was lookin’ too cute. And he had pushed
me onto the dirty ground. My shorts were all dusty.
I think I might have even had a few pebbles in my
pants. Anyways, I was pissed off and hurt. But I got
up and socked him in the face.
“Oh my goodness,” yelled Jimmy, his little bro.
“She socked him,” yelled Ronnie.
By then other neighborhood kids were watch-
ing. They had never seen me play either. Plus, I was
playing Timmy, the best boy baller on the block.
“Get up, Timmy, get up,” they all started yelling.
I just walked down the little so-called court
and turned left leading home. As I walked, I kicked
the cherry tree that was on the right of me. By the
time I turned the corner, I saw Mr. Johnson.
“Steph, wus the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said, sounding as if it was his fault
I had been pushed on the ground in my favorite jean
shorts.
 The next day I went outside. I was sitting un-
der the tree in front of our house. I had on my pink
overalls and white T-shirt and sandals. I was making
some mud pies and was interrupted by Timmy.
“I’m sorry, Steph, for treating you like that.” He
continued, “Do you wanna play again?”
Feeling kind of fresh ’cause I had got the best
of him, I said, “Yeah, but don’t let me have to kick
yo butt again.”
So I washed my hands on the side of the house
and went in to put on my old-school Nikes. When
I came out Timmy, Jimmy, and Ronnie were stand-
ing at the end of my steps. When I walked down the
stairs, they moved out of my way.
We walked to the Frazier’s hoop and we got our
ball on. From then on, they never told me I couldn’t
play with them.
...............................................
My Name Is Not Kunta Kinte
by DeShawn Holden
I am not Kunta Kinte, I recited to myself after be-
ing woke up by my mother. If she called my name
one more time, I might as well have breathed my last
breath. I didn’t care that lions roar. That didn’t scare
me one bit, but my mom did. Hey, I figured I could
take my time since she was waking me up the butt
crack of dawn.
The obnoxious sun rays beamed into my eyes.
I really didn’t want to go to the berry field, but I
had to go in order to make some pocket change.
This didn’t motivate me too much. What do you
expect? A 9-year-old to take money over sleep? I
don’t think so.
Rushed by parents and siblings, I walked right
out of the house with eye boogers still in the corners
of my eyes and slobber stretching from my mouth
to my ear. I didn’t care until my grandmother, Mrs.
Rise and Shine herself who goes to bed at 8 p.m. and
starts her day at 3 a.m., said, “Boy, why haven’t you
washed your face? You look like you been sleeping
in a barn. And you didn’t even bother to comb yo’
ole nappy head. Looks like chickens been having
their way with it.”
She meant well, even though it sounded pret-
ty harsh. I love my grandmother. She was light in
CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS
spirit, but heavy everywhere else. She was a strong
woman, a warrior, and a survivor. My grandmother
loved me in spite of all my mischievous, devilish,
sneaky ways. She always managed to speak life when
I was bad and everyone else wanted to speak death.
She said that I was going to be the one to grow up to
be a preacher.
We finally made it to the land flowing with
rows of raspberry bushes and big ole dirt clods that
me and my brother Bunky and my nephew Mario
used to throw at one another when no one was look-
ing. Bunky was the oldest, then me, then Mario. I
was the strongest, Bunky was the smartest, and Ma-
rio was the skinniest. Boy, was he skinny. He was so
skinny he could be on the “Feed the hungry” com-
mercials and make millions. When we stepped out
of the car, I could smell the sweet perfume of berries.
“Come on, y’all. Let’s get started. The quicker
we get started, the quicker we can get out of here,”
my impatient sister insisted. I was with her on this
one. The 13 adults and three children crowded the
untouched ripe rows of berry bushes. Everyone tied
the berry-stained bucket to their waist and scarves
to their heads, ready to sing the old slave field songs,
“I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired.” Each adult took the
mile-long rows for themselves and Bunky, Mario,
and me took a row together. These rows were too
big to handle by ourselves.
After working in the hot 90-degree weather for
hours, the three of us grew tired. Ka-plunk. “Ouch,
Shawn. That hurt. I’m tellin’ on you.”
“Tell tell, go to jail. Hang yo’ draws on a rusty
nail,” I teased Mario.
“Y’all betta stop that before Mama sees you,”
Bunky said, sounding afraid.
“Oh hush, yo’ ole scaredy-cat before I make
you eat this dirt clod,” I tried to sound tough, even
though I wasn’t.
“Do it and see if I don’t hurt you.”
I looked at Bunky and started building up my
inner strength because I knew if I made him eat dirt,
I’d need to run for my life. Bunky could beat me up
even though I didn’t want to admit it. Pow! I did it
and I wasn’t afraid. Bunky bent over spitting chunks
of dirt out of his mouth.
“What does it taste like?” Mario asked while he
rolled on the ground cracking up and laughing at
Bunky.
37
 “You stupid baldheaded monkey, I’m gonna
get you,” Bunky had steam comin’ out of his ears.
I saw that and took off running. He chased me
and I ran through the berry vines, sliding in the dirt,
in the outhouse, out of the outhouse, hiding behind
a bush. I had outsmarted him.
My grandmother was walking on her way to
our row to check up on us. We had started up our
war again. Every man for himself. But Bunky was es-
pecially trying to go after me. He was throwing dirt
clods with all his might at me. He threw his last dirt
clod so hard it went past me, past Mario, down three
rows of berry vines at the speed of light. Smack! It
hit my grandmother right square in her back.
Now, my grandmother is always stickin’ up for
me and takin’ my side and never blaming me, but
this time, she cried out from the pit of her belly,
“SHAWN, COME HERE NOW!” On my way com-
in’ she found a switch and went to whoopin’ on my
head. “Now didn’t I tell you about chuckin’ that dirt?”
“But …”
“Don’t but me boy. I’m gonna beat that devil
outta you. Now get over there and pick that row by
yourself. And I better not see one berry left behind.”
Walking to my new row, mad and hurt, “Shoot,
that wasn’t even me,” I thought to myself. “Grand-
ma’s not fair.” My heart was shattered and my ears
grew irritated by the teasing laughter of smart aleck
Bunky and “feed the hungry” Mario.
...............................................
Super Soaker War
by Bobby Bowden
It was a hot day on Mississippi Street. The sun was
blaring down like a heat lamp, and the sky offered
no protection with clouds or smog. My older broth-
er and Roxie our dog were on the porch. The dog’s
tongue hung out of his mouth like a pink slug.
The four of us: Damon the biggest and stron-
gest of us; Maquinji, a big, plump, asphalt Black kid,
only a little taller than me; me the dirty white kid
with skinned knees and dirty pro-wings; and Na-
than, the fastest and the littlest. All of us had de-
cided to play war. Now everyone wanted to be on
Damon’s team. It just happened that I was his best
friend that week. So he picked me to be on his team.
38 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
Man, on Damon’s team I felt that we could be like
twin brothers.
Now, this game was played with Super Soakers.
The object was to tag one of the other team’s mem-
bers with water from the water gun. One team had a
base, and the other tried to take it over.
“Garage is our base,” I shrieked.
“Nuh-hu,” replied Maquinji, idly picking at one
of the numerous scabs on his elbow.
“Rock, paper, scissors for it,” said Damon.
One, two, three. They both threw scissors. The
game continued—one, two, three. Damon threw
rock and Maquinji threw scissors. “Yeeaaa, we got
it!” I shouted like a lotto winner.
Maquinji glared at me, “So what man? You got-
ta be so loud?”
Damon and I hurried to Damon’s garage. The
garage was about six trillion years old and had seen
more that a million of our wars. It had been the
home and base of numerous amounts of clubs and
had been my pouting place for four years. If it could
talk, it would probably be in an asylum. Damon
took the secret way up to the roof, and I guarded
the front door.
After three minutes of waiting, Damon and I
became impatient and decided to hunt down Ma-
quinji and Nathan. We saw Maquinji hiding in some
bushes, crouched like a cat. We got him in a crossfire
and started shooting. Damon’s stream of water went
over the bush and hit me.
“Got you, got you, we win!” exclaimed Ma-
quinji streaking out of the bushes.
“What are you talking about? It was Damon
that got me not you, so I am still alive,” I retorted,
shaking my gun at him.
“Man you are lying!” shouted Maquinji getting
in my face.
Then, just on time to save me from getting my
ass kicked, Damon had a lightbulb.
“Hey guys, my dad just finished painting my
room, we could use the leftover paint.”
“Yeah, each team could have a different color,”
said Nathan as though it had been his idea.
What a good idea. Our team was white paint
and theirs was brown. Now it was easy to tell who
killed who. We played with our paint-filled Super
Soakers for a full three hours. Then we went home.
My dad saw me and my clothes and quietly asked
me if I preferred paper or leather.
“Whatcha mean, Kit?” I inquired innocently,
not knowing he was offering me a choice between
a book or a belt.
I got a beating for punishment. All four of us
also had to give that garage a well-deserved clean-
ing, and then we had to paint it entirely by hand.

CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS 39

u HANDOUT

Elements of Fiction
1. Dialogue
Dialogue helps the reader understand the characters. Use real language and make each character sound distinct.
Each person’s “voice” is like a fingerprint—unique. Find places in your story where you tell, instead of using
dialogue, to make your characters come alive:
Tell: Her mother told her to go to her room.
Dialogue: “Tina, you had better get in here and clean up this nasty bedroom. If you’re not in that room cleaning
by the time my foot hits the stairs, you’re in big trouble,” my mom said as she stood at the bottom of the stairs.

Helpful Hints: When creating dialogue, avoid words like exclaimed, bellowed, and proclaimed. The more sensation-
al the speaking verb is, the more likely it will call attention to itself. You want your reader to focus on the dialogue.

2. Blocking
Think of blocking as “stage directions.” It tells where the characters are and what they are doing while they
are talking. The blocking sets the scene and creates a place for the dialogue to happen. Ask yourself: Are
your characters disembodied voices? What are they doing while they are talking? Walking? Looking out the
window? Tapping a pencil? Make us see them. Where is the character? In the kitchen? Sitting on the sofa? In
the third desk in a science classroom? Be specific.
Example: In this example from the book Coffee Will Make You Black, note how April Sinclair uses blocking
to show the reader what the character is doing while she’s speaking. This gives the reader a visual image of the
scene. The italicized section is blocking.
Mama sat down on my unmade bed. She rubbed her hands nervously against her housedress. “What are you
talking about? What did they say?”
In the following excerpt, from a piece by student writer Michelle Lee, notice how the blocking helps the
reader visualize the speaker and his actions:
“You betta’ listen to yo’ little sista,” ordered Justin. The rest of the kids stood with their backs to the sun looking
at me and Justin standing face to face.

3. Interior monologue
What is the character thinking and feeling while the dialogue and action are happening? This literary device
helps the reader discover more information about the character or the story.
Example: Interior monologue from “The Bracelet” by student Chetan Patel:
“Hi,” I whispered to a girl staring at me. She answered with a roll of her blue eyes. Back then I wished I had
those eyes. Life would have been so much easier. No more standing on the bus, no dirty bathrooms! Would it
make a difference to wash in a clean sink? Or use an unclogged toilet? I liked having a bathroom that smelled
clean, without bugs crawling at my feet. The bell rang, and I came back to reality.

4. Setting description
Describe the setting. Where is this story taking place? In Escape from New York Pizza? Make us smell the salami
and tomato sauce. Let us hear the cooks talking in the background. Tell us the color of the restaurant walls.
Example: Setting description from “My Nerves Wasn’t All She Got On” by student Pamela Clegg:
I knew she had opened up the hall closet, and I’ll be the first to say this closet was a mess. This was the
reserve closet for me and my sister. Whenever we heard our mother coming up the stairs, we would throw
anything and everything that was on the floor in this closet: shoes, underwear, clean socks, dirty socks,
towels, dolls, paper, pop cans, books, anything.

40 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

5. Character description
Describe the characters. What do they look like? What are they wearing? What are their habits? Their background?
Example: Character description from What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, by Pearl Cleage:
The Good Reverend himself was a revelation. Tall, white-haired, and 60-ish, the Rev looked like an
aging Cab Calloway and preached like Jesse Jackson. He had a long, black robe with full sleeves that
billowed out like wings when he raised his arms in praise or flung them wide in surrender. His voice was
rich and more powerful than his slender frame would lead you to believe.

6. Figurative language—metaphors and similes

Figurative language makes the reader see everyday things and people in a new way—metaphors and similes
make comparisons, sometimes between the known and the unexplored. For example, in the sentence “His
teeth were like a weasel’s, sharp and pointed, but twisted and bunched at the roots,” a person’s teeth are
compared to a weasel’s teeth. Although we think of using figurative language in poetry, it helps strengthen
narrative and essay writing.

7. Personification
This literary device gives human qualities to nonhumans. For example, if I wrote, “The moon wept at the end
of each month,” I would be giving the moon the human quality of emotion.
Example: Personification from Billy by Albert French:
“The shades had been drawn in the room where Lori lies, the late-afternoon sunlight coming through the
window is weakened and lets the darkness cuddle up in the corner.”

8. Flashback
You create a flashback when the character remembers something from their past that helps build the story. A
flashback is not essential, but it is a good tool to give background on a character. Usually something triggers
the memory:
As she drove down the highway, she saw a lone light in the distance. It reminded her of the time her father …
Sometimes you can just begin: “He remembered …”

9. Scene and summary

A summary gives the reader a quick sketch of what is happening or what has happened. Often these are places
that you need to go back and fill out with more details. Scenes, on the other hand, create a mental movie for
your readers—they can see, hear, sometimes even smell what you’re writing about.
Example of summary: from a piece by student Erika Mashia:
I was excited about the game against Benson. It was an important game, and I was nervous about the
outcome. Sarah Green was an obstacle our team would have to overcome. Benson had a clear height ad-
vantage, but that’s never stopped me. I beat both Imé and Kenny at the hoop. Steph and I have our outside
shots down, and …
Example of scene:
A wave of must and heat hit me when I ran through the doors to Benson’s gym. The crowd rose to their
feet shouting, “Tiger power!” as we made our entrance. “It’s on,” Steph said as we took off our huge, yellow
warm-up shirts. “We can do it.”

Steph’s the talker. I get clear and focused. When I’m playing, the band, the cheerleaders, even the yelling be-
tween the “boys” teams melts into the walls. It’s just me, the ball, my team—and in this game, Sarah Cooper.

CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS 41

u HANDOUT

Narrative Criteria Sheet

Mark each of these elements on your draft. If you have a highlighter or colored pencils, color each of the ele-
ments with a different color. If not, put the number of the element in the margin of your paper. For example,
every time you use dialogue, put #1 in the margin next to it.

_________ 1. Dialogue
• What are the characters saying?
• Do they each have a “voice print?”

_________ 2. Blocking
• What are the characters doing while they are talking? Leaning against a wall? Tossing a ball in the air?
• Where are they located?

_________ 3. Character Description

• Physical description
• Attitude description—how they walk, talk, act

_________ 4. Setting Description

• Where does the story take place?
• What does it look like?
• Smell like?
• What’s on the walls?

_________ 5. Sentence Variety

• Parallel sentence
• Coordinating conjunction

_________ 6. Interior Monologue

• What is going on inside the character’s head?
• What is the character thinking while the action is happening?

Add a cumulative sentence to your paper. For example:

 rs. Bohanan was an unkind woman, singling out her favorites for rewards, picking on students who didn’t
M
speak Standard English, humiliating lower-class students. Forty years later, I still don’t forgive her.

 rs. Johansen pushed me to take risks, demanding that I debate Daniel Chin on the national service poli-
M
cy, thrusting me into the world of speech teams, insisting that I move out of my comfort zone and into an
intellectual frenzy. I loved her.

42 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 Discipline
No Quick Fix

C
reating a climate of respect
is easy to talk about and
hard to practice. Ideally, we
want our classrooms to be a space
where students listen respectfully
and learn to care about each other.
A sign in our school hallway reads:
“No Racist or Sexist Remarks.” I’ve
often said, “I just don’t tolerate that
kind of behavior.” But sometimes it’s
like saying, “I don’t tolerate ants.” I
occasionally have ants in my kitch-
en. I can spray chemicals on them
and saturate the air with poison and
“not tolerate” them, or I can find
another solution that doesn’t harm
my family or pets in the process. If
I just kick kids out of class, I “don’t
tolerate” their actions, but neither
do I educate them. Plus, this strategy
works about as well as stamping out
a few ants—more show up to replace
the ones I eliminated. I prepare them
for repressive solutions where mis-
behavior is temporarily contained
by an outside authority but the root
problem is not really addressed.
Sometimes I am forced to that po-
sition, but I try not to use “outside
force” as a solution to my classroom
disruptions.

Dealing with Discipline

In one Literature and U.S. History
class Bill Bigelow and I co-taught,
students were often rude to each
BARBARA MINER

CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS 43

other. Their favorite put-down was “faggot.” (This in believe in everyone’s potential, but in practice could
a class where a young woman came out as a lesbian.) not act on this belief? It’s a complex issue. I don’t
During the first weeks, several young women com- want to keep the class from progressing because of
plained that boys in class called them names. They one or two students, but I don’t want to “give up” on
felt the hostility and wanted to transfer out. They students either. On bad days, I threw Wesley out.
didn’t feel comfortable sharing their work or even On good days, I tried to look behind his behavior
sitting in the class because they were pinched, hit, and figure out what motivated it.
or called names when Bill and I turned our backs. In teaching students to read for race, class, and
One of the main instigators, Wesley, wrote in his gender biases in books, I tell students to look behind
end-of-year evaluation, “I started the year off as I the words to discover what the text is really saying.
finished the last year: bad, wicked, and obnoxious. I Likewise, in working with “problem” students in
was getting kicked out of class and having meetings class, I need to look behind students’ actions. What
with the deans about my behavior every other day.” motivates this behavior? How can I get to the root of
For teachers trying to build community, this the problem? In my experience, the more negatively
creates a serious problem. Do we eliminate this students feel about themselves and their intellectual
student? When—after trying time-outs, calling his ability, the more cruel or withdrawn they are in the
home, talking with his coach, and keeping him after classroom.
class—we finally kicked Wesley out, his friends said, Tyrelle, Wesley’s classmate, wrote early in the
“They’re picking on him.” Not true. But it set us up year that he felt stupid. “My problem is I don’t like
as the bad guys and divided us from the students we to read because I don’t think the class would like it.
wanted to win over. Every time I try to write or do something, my teach-
Increased police presence in the school neigh- ers told me, ‘That’s stupid, you did it wrong, or you
borhood and the growing list of Black men killed can’t spell.’ My friends [who were classmates] say it
by police officers carries tension from the street too. I don’t say anything. I just act like I don’t hear
to our class, where we represented the same white it, but I really do.”
authority as the police until students got to know One day I overheard his friends teasing him
us. While Wesley was not skilled in traditional ac- about his spelling. After class I talked with him
ademics, he was brilliant about it. I arranged for
in other ways. He was an him to come in so we
artist at toeing the line He knew the game better than could work privately
between acceptable and we did even if we’d taught on his skills. Because so
unacceptable behavior many of his friends were
while creating total chaos
longer than he’d been alive. in the class, he was afraid
in the process. He’d raise to ask for help. His way of
his hand and make perfectly nice comments about dealing with the problem was to close down—put
someone’s paper in such a way that the entire class his head on his desk and sleep—or make fun of peo-
knew he was mocking the whole procedure. Even ple who were trying to do their work. This did not
with Bill and me both in the classroom, he defeated totally stop, but once he found a way into his writing
us at every turn. Clearly, we were playing on his ter- he would usually settle down and work.
rain, and he knew the game better than we did even During the second semester, Tyrelle wrote,
if we’d taught longer than he’d been alive. “You guys have helped me become a better person
Here we were, teaching about justice, tolerance, because you were always after me, ‘Tyrelle, be quiet.
equality, and respect; yet when we had a problem Tyrelle, pay attention.’ After a while I learned how
with a talented student who didn’t want to go along, to control myself when it was time to.” He’d also
we turned him over to the deans. Ultimately, what learned to separate himself from his friends so he
lesson did that teach our students? That we talked could work.
a good game but when pushed we responded like Wesley, who admitted to being “bad, wicked,
other traditional teachers? That we might profess to and obnoxious,” was also a victim of poor skills and

44 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

low academic self-esteem. He’d sneak in after school
for help with his writing, or I’d go over the home-
work readings and teach him how to “talk back” to
the author. Sometimes he’d call me at home when
he was stuck. At the end of the year his mother said,
“He told me that he didn’t think he could write. Now
he says he knows how.”
With both of these students, recognizing the
cause of the behavior—embarrassment over poor
skills and helping them achieve success—helped to
change their behavior.
And once the with-
drawn or antisocial
On some
actions stopped, they backslid to day one, but most times myself and in my
contributed to the com- there was steady improvement.
munity rather than sab-
otaged it. This was not
a miraculous, overnight change. On some days, the
behavior backslid to day one, but most times there
was steady improvement.
Why did Wesley and Tyrelle come in after
school to work one-on-one? Ultimately, they knew
we cared about them. Everything, from the curric-
ulum (an anti-racist curriculum that tackled issues
they confronted in their lives) to the home phone
calls in the evening to see if they understood the
work, to attending their sports games, demonstrated
that we were on their side.
The journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, in an inter-
view with Terry Gross about his book Between the
World and Me, shared another reason students act
up: disrespect. During the interview, Coates dis-
cussed the day he threatened one of his high school
teachers because the teacher had yelled at him. Ter-
ry Gross laughs.
COATES: He yelled at me in front of the
class, like, really, really loudly. And again, I
mean, this was the sort of thing that you, you
know, you couldn’t tolerate.
GROSS: That is what teachers do sometimes
[laughter].
COATES: I know. I know. But, see, it sounds
like you’re laughing because, like, it’s funny if
you’ve never been in the environment …
GROSS: No, I get it. I get it.
COATES: … And all you have is your dig-
nity. That’s all you have. I mean, you know,
CHAPTER 1: CREATING COMMUNITY OUT OF CHAOS
teachers yell loudly at kids from time to time.
You’re exactly right. But if you live in an en-
vironment, [if you’re] from a place where all
you have is, like, the basic […] sort of physical
respect …you will talk to me in a respectful
way. You don’t have anything else to lean on.
That’s very serious. That’s really, really, really
serious, you know? If somebody yelled at me
now, […] I’d [probably] walk away and laugh.
I’ve accumulated certain things. I have cer-
tain things. I have a
family. [I feel] great
days, the behavior personal value in
work and in what I
do. I feel, you know,
deeply loved by ev-
eryone around me. I don’t feel like I live in a
particularly violent environment. I wouldn’t
perceive being yelled at, you know, as neces-
sarily communicating to other people around
me that they, too, could disrespect me at any
moment.
If we look behind student behavior, we might
see the history of disrespect that Coates discusses in
this interview. Students—especially students of col-
or—carry a history of racism through the classroom
doorway each day. To break through that history
means that teachers have to disrupt the disrespect
and racism through actions and curriculum.
Insider Tricks:
Parents and Coaches as Allies
I have yet to discover a quick fix for out-of-control
behavior. I try calling my students’ homes in Sep-
tember to establish contact and expectations. I usu-
ally ask parents or grandparents, “Is there anything
you can tell me that will help me teach your child
more effectively?” Parents know their child’s histo-
ry in school and can give important insights. One
parent, for example, told me that her son needed to
have instructions in writing as well as orally because
he didn’t process oral information.
When my daughter didn’t turn in a project, her
teacher called me. I discovered that her class had
long-term work that students needed to complete
at home. I appreciated the call because Anna had
45
insisted that she didn’t have homework. That call
made me realize how much parents need to hear
from teachers—not only for keeping track of home-
work, but so we can work in tandem.
Often working with a coach or activities advi-
sor helps because they’ve established strong one-on-
one relationships. They also have access to an area
where the student feels successful. One coach, for
example, told me that Jeremy had just realized that
he would play high school basketball, maybe col-
lege ball, but he’d never be a pro. He’d turned from
gangs to sports in the 7th grade, and the vision that
had fueled him was the NBA. Suddenly, that dream
crashed against reality. He practiced for hours every
day, but he knew he wouldn’t make it. His attitude
had been sour and nasty for weeks. He needed a new
vision. This information helped me to understand
Jeremy and allowed me to get out the college guide
and talk about choices. His final essay was “Life Af-
ter Sports.”

The Night Life of a Teacher

Mostly, I call students at night and talk with them
after the day is over, their friends are no longer
around, and both of us have had a chance to cool
down. Students joke about how they can’t get away
with anything because Bill and I call their homes. I
overheard one student say, “Man, I got to go to class
today otherwise they’ll call my uncle tonight.”
Perhaps it’s just letting them know we care
enough to take our time outside of school that turns
them around. Z

46 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

Chapter 2

Unlearning the Myths

that Bind Us
 Unlearning the Myths
that Bind Us
Critiquing Cartoons and Society

O
ur society’s culture
industry colonizes
our students’ minds
and teaches them how to act,
live, and dream. This indoctri-
nation hits young children es-
pecially hard. The “secret edu-
cation,” as Chilean writer Ariel
Dorfman dubs it, delivered by
children’s books and movies
instructs young people to ac-
cept the world as portrayed in
these social blueprints. And
often that world depicts the
domination of one sex, race,
class, or country over a weak-
er counterpart. After studying
cartoons and children’s litera-
ture, my student Omar wrote,
“When we read children’s religiously, or socioeconomically different
books, we aren’t just reading cute little stories, we are from ourselves—does not come as a result of
discovering the tools with which a young society is firsthand experience. The secondhand infor-
manipulated.” mation we receive has often been distorted,
Beverly Tatum, who wrote Why Are All the shaped by cultural stereotypes, and left in-
Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, helps complete … Cartoon images, in particular the
explain how children develop distorted views of Disney movie Peter Pan, were cited by the chil-
people outside of their racial/cultural group: dren [in a research study] as their no. 1 source
of information. At the age of 3, these children
The impact of racism begins early. Even in our had a set of stereotypes in place.
preschool years, we are exposed to misinfor-
mation about people different from ourselves. Children’s cartoons, movies, and literature are
Many of us grow up in neighborhoods where perhaps the most influential genre “read.” Young
we had limited opportunities to interact with people, unprotected by any intellectual armor, hear
people different from our own families … or watch these stories again and again, often from
Consequently, most of the early information the warmth of their mother’s or father’s lap. The
we receive about “others”—people racially, messages, or secret education, linked with the se-

CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US 49

curity of their homes, underscore the power these
texts deliver. As Tatum’s research suggests, the ste-
reotypes and worldview embedded in the stories
become accepted knowledge.
I want students to question this accepted
knowledge and the secret education delivered by
cartoons as well as by the literary canon. Because
children’s movies and literature are short and visual,
we can critique them together. We can view many in
a brief period of time, so students begin to see pat-
terns in media portrayals of particular groups and
learn to decode the underlying assumptions these
movies make. Brazilian educator Paulo Freire wrote
that instead of wrestling with words and ideas, too
often students “walk on the words.” If I want my stu-
dents to wrestle with the social text of novels, news,
or history books, they need tools to critique media
that encourage or legitimate social inequality.
To help students uncover those values planted
by Disney, Nike, and contemporary movies—and
construct more just ones—I begin this “unlearn-
ing the myths” unit with several objectives. First,
I want students to critique portrayals of hierarchy,
inequality, sexism, imperialism, patriarchy, xeno-
phobia, and heteronormativity in children’s mov-
ies and cartoons. Through this unit, I endeavor to
develop a critical framework to take into our study
of literature and society. Then I want to enlist stu-
dents to imagine a better world, characterized by
relationships of respect and equality.
50 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
Exposing the Myths:
How to Read Cartoons
I start by showing students old cartoons because
the stereotypes are so blatant. We look at the roles
women, men, people of color, and poor people play
in the cartoons. I ask students to watch for who
plays the lead. Who plays the buffoon? Who plays
the servant? Who are the villains? I encourage them
to look at the race, station in life, and body type of
each character. Through the unit, we explore a series
of questions: What are the characters’ motivations?
What do they want out of life? What’s their mis-
sion? If there are people of color in the film, what
do they look like? How do they sound? Notice their
languages. How are they portrayed? What would
children learn about this particular group from
this film? What about women other than the main
character? What jobs do you see them doing? What
do they talk about? What are their main concerns?
What would young children learn about women’s
roles in society if they watched this film and be-
lieved it? What about overweight people? What
roles do money, possessions, and power play in the
film? Who has them? Who wants them? What do
children learn about what’s important in this soci-
ety? Obviously, I don’t ask these all at once, but these
are the questions that I surface as we begin to “read”
the cartoons more carefully. More recent cartoons—
like Frozen, Brave, and Mulan—are subtler and take
more sophistication to see through, but if students
warm up on the old ones, they can pierce the surface
of the new ones as well.
As they view each episode, students fill in a
chart answering the questions: Who is the viewer
supposed to root for? Whose lives “count”? Who is
given voice? Who is silenced? Who is marginalized?
What assumptions does the creator make without
explanation? How does the creator use language to
develop character? What understandings might a
child make about men, women, people of color, or
militarism from this cartoon? (See “Charting Car-
toons” handout p. 56.)
I start with Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba and
the 40 Thieves, which depicts each outlaw with the
same face, same turban, same body, same clothes—
and all are “thieves” swinging enormous swords. At
one point in the cartoon, Popeye clips a dog collar on
helpless Olive Oyl and drags her through the desert.
Later, the 40 thieves come riding through town steal- our thought process collective and transparent be-
ing everything—food, an old man’s teeth, numbers cause the strips and evidence remain on the walls,
off a clock, even the stripe off a barber pole, as well as and it gives students visual reminders to refer back
Olive Oyl, who screams for Popeye to save her. At the to during our class discussions. “What do you no-
end of the cartoon, Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Wimpy tice about men, women, people of color, language,
ride on top of a wagon and violence in this car-
loaded with riches, pulled toon? Someone give
by Ali Baba and the 40 Young people, unprotected by me an example.” Elijah
thieves, who are in chains.
any intellectual armor, hear or writes: “Less words, less
This is the only cartoon we power.” When I ask what
watch in its entirety, albeit watch these stories again and that means, Emmanuel
with frequent stops. This again, often from the warmth of says that only Popeye and
Popeye episode establish- their mother’s or father’s lap. Ali Baba talk. Olive Oyl,
es a pattern that students Wimpy, and the other
can pick up from shorter characters have little or
clips as we move through the unit: People of color no dialogue. Other themes students write include:
are evil or incompetent, women are weak, violence “The military will defeat the thieves. White men are
solves our problems, poor and “ugly” people live to meant to be saviors. Female characters are weak. All
serve the beautiful and the rich, English is the best people of color look the same.” As one student puts
language, and more. it, “If you aren’t white, you aren’t right.”
I stop Popeye during the desert scene when he As class ends, I ask students to look for places
drags Olive Oyl by a leash and ask students what ob- in the real world that resemble the lessons we learn
servations about men’s and women’s roles they can from Popeye. From the first day of the unit, I want
detect in the first few scenes. Students typically ob- students to read the world with the same critical
serve: “Men are strong. Women need to be saved. eye they bring to Popeye: advertisements, television
The U.S. military’s job is to go to ‘foreign’ countries shows, the news, things that may be happening in
and save the people.” Olivia indignantly shouts, “Is their neighborhoods, etc. The next day, Inyla tells
he really dragging her by a leash?” I stop to ask what me, “I watched The Lion King last night, and I saw
they notice about Ali Baba and his 40 thieves. “They that Scar, the mean lion, was darker than Mufasa
all look alike. They all wear the same clothes. Only and the cub. So were the hyenas.” Inyla’s comment
the leader is dressed differently. Even their hors- was a great segue into talking about patterns.
es look alike.” I stop again after Popeye, reading a As I set up the cartoon showing for the sec-
menu, states, “This Chinese is all Greek to me.” The ond day, I say, “If we just see something once, it may
waiter folds the paper until it reads “bacon and eggs.” be an anomaly. But if we see a pattern over time,
I ask, “What do we learn about languages? Which we need to examine that pattern because it reflects
ones count? Which ones don’t? What do we learn some aspect about the society we live in. It’s some-
from this scene?” I show Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali thing that is taken for granted in our society, and
Baba and the 40 Thieves early in the unit, and I need what is taken for granted can be harmful. As you
to stop frequently because students, as well as the watch today, think about the specific cartoon, but
rest of us, tend to watch for entertainment unless we also start thinking about the patterns you see across
turn on our critical lenses. the cartoons about men, women, how problems get
Before the end of class, I distribute sentence solved, and what people want.”
strips and markers. I ask students to write down Over the next week, we watch a series of short
emerging themes from this Popeye video. We col- five-to-seven-minute clips featuring men, women,
lect the sentence strips and evidence throughout and people of color. Of course, every cartoon con-
the unit for several reasons. This concrete activity tains the intersection of all these, but each day of the
gives students an opportunity to pause and capture unit, I isolate segments to frame each of these cate-
their thinking as we move through the unit, it makes gories specifically. Jayme Causey, a fantastic teacher

CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US 51

who collaborated with me on the revision of this
unit, noticed the hypermasculinity of men in car-
toons—from their body types to their penchant for
solving all problems with violence. I start our sec-
ond day by viewing the fight scene in Sleeping Beau-
ty. During Prince Phillip’s scene of riding through
a dark forest to save Aurora, he fights the evil witch
Maleficent with the help of the three chubby fairy
godmothers. I show several of these end-of-movie
savior scenes in a row—Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs, Lady and the Tramp, Beauty and the Beast,
The Little Mermaid—so that students can see the
man-saving-helpless-woman pattern as well as the
portrayal of the villain as dark and evil.
Students fill out the chart on each cartoon seg-
ment. Once they complete their charts, I ask, “What
did you notice? Did this repeat a pattern you saw in
Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves?”
Students have lots to say about each clip. They don’t
focus just on men because there is so much intersec-
tionality across the cartoons. Kids point out differ-
ent things. Some pick up on dark/light imagery, that
men always save the women, that villains are always
dark; others note that magic or fighting solves prob-
lems in every episode. For example, Eli notes, “At bad
moments, things are darker, and in good moments
things are light. For instance, in Lady and the Tramp,
when the dogs chase Lady, the lighting in the movie
gets darker, and when Tramp rescues her, the scene is
light again. This gives people the idea that dark things
are bad. Another thing that makes people think that
dark things are bad is that the villain’s equipment is
dark or black like Gaston’s horse.” Larry talks about
52 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
how he learned to fight from watching cartoons and
how daily on the playground he and his friends re-en-
act fight scenes from cartoons. He also notes that he
learned it was a man’s job to save women.
I stop about 20 minutes before the end of class
and ask students to write a one-page response. I re-
mind them of the remarks they made during class.
“You can just answer the questions on the back of
your sheet, or you can start thinking about those
patterns we talked about earlier that you noticed.
For example, this morning, Inyla talked about the
darker colors in The Lion King and how that shows
up in these clips as well, so you can write about that
topic and give examples/evidence from today’s clips.
Emmanuel noticed that violence is used to solve
problems across the movies, so he can write about
that and give specifics.” All of the note-taking and
one-page responses provide students pathways—
concrete examples and commentary—into their fi-
nal essay about cartoons. They gather evidence and
insights daily as we move toward the essay.
At night, I read over their responses and refer
to them the following day to fuel our conversations.
“Here are a couple of comments from your class-
mates. Let’s talk about what you think about their
take on cartoons so far.” Then I read a few, checking
with students ahead of time for their permission.
Emmanuel writes, “In all of these cartoons … it is
showing kids at a young age that it’s OK to fight to
solve problems. Another thing is that every single
enemy in every single movie was dark colored, put-
ting the idea in kids’ minds that dark-colored people
are bad and are our enemies.”
Throughout the unit, I pause to give students
time to discuss the cartoons and make connec-
tions to the world. I want their ideas to be authentic
ponderings, not a repetition of my beliefs. In their
post-essay reflections, the majority of students noted
that our in-class discussions helped them frame their
essays and also develop their ideas, learning from
each other’s insights as they watched and discussed.
During the following days, we watch short
bursts of YouTube clips featuring women. Again,
we start the section with older cartoons like Sleep-
ing Beauty, Peter Pan, and Lady and the Tramp, then
move forward through time to see if anything has
changed. Although these movies are old, students
still watch them and often sing along; clearly they
have viewed the films over and over during child-
hood. And many students go home and watch them
again after class. These clips focus on messages young
people receive about what it means to be a woman
in our society. In the opening lesson on Popeye, we
briefly touch on this idea by looking at Olive Oyl, but
with these films, I concentrate on the ways women
and girls are portrayed. Using the
same tools (annotating sheet, car-
toons chart, sentence strips, and We move through
commentary) from the previous
clips from Sleeping
lessons, I challenge students to
think about multiple perspectives. Beauty,
We look at how the definition of students shout, “There the right to her hand through her
“woman” is drawn. Does it in- was no consent!”
clude women of color? Lesbians?
Transgender people? Which so-
cial class of women is depicted? Which women are
humans and which are animals? How are their bod-
ies portrayed? How do they resolve conflict?
During this section, for example, we look at
the scene of Tinker Bell checking out her hips in the
mirror, her burst of jealous fury over Wendy and
Peter Pan’s relationship, and Wendy’s jealousy over
Peter Pan and Tiger Lily’s. These clips show wom-
en worrying about their weight and size, as well as
depicting jealousy between women over men. We
watch a few Snow White segments, which lay down
the tracks of women’s friendships, which are typi-
cally with birds and animals and magical creatures,
rather than with other women. The scene with the
evil queen mirrors the idea that women compete
with each other over their beauty instead of building
friendships or working together.
We move through clips from Sleeping Beauty,
and a few students shout, “There was no consent!”
when the prince kisses Aurora. We examine a few
scenes from Beauty and the Beast in which movie
Belle tames the Beast—a sure setup for women to
believe they can change a man who exhibits violent
tendencies. We watch the scene of Ariel giving up
her voice so she can be with her man. The curves of
Jasmine in Aladdin, Belle in Beauty and the Beast,
Ariel in The Little Mermaid, and even Merida in
Brave demonstrate that not much has changed in
terms of cartoon depictions of a woman’s shape.
As Karmann writes, “I love Disney. Don’t get me
wrong. I just think they give unrealistic expectations
CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US
for women, like magazines. Belle’s waist was about
the size of two of my fists put together. Aurora slept
through the entire movie and woke up looking fine
as hell. As a kid, I remember asking why my mom
didn’t look like that when she woke up.” And Estelle
says, “All of these movies show men and women to-
gether. None of them show gay relationships.”
We end the day by watch-
ing Brave because it demon-
strates ways that cartoons have
both changed and not changed.
As students point out, Princess
and a few Merida challenges her suitors for
own expertise as an archer, and
she saves herself and her moth-
er at the film’s end. On the other
hand, she’s still a petite and pretty princess, and the
townspeople are depicted as unattractive buffoons.
After students share their thoughts and add to
our emerging theme wall about women in cartoons,
I say, “Write ‘Cartoons in the World’ on the top of
your paper. Now think about the emerging themes
you noticed in the cartoons. Where have you seen
sexism, violence, and racism in the world? Have you
noticed any changes or improvements in cartoons or
in the world? What hasn’t changed?” I ask a couple
of students to give examples before students begin
writing: Nicole says she watched a Shrek sequel and
noticed that Shrek saved everyone in the first film,
but in the new film, Fiona saves everyone. Mykala
says she saw the “white savior” in To Kill a Mocking-
bird when Atticus saved Tom Robbins, and also that
Calpurnia was like the servants in the cartoons, only
caring about Atticus’ family, like she didn’t have a
home and family she cared about.
When students share their writing at the end
of class, Karmann reads hers, “There is a band
that reverses the roles called Bikini Kill. They use
stage presence to show the injustice of the common
American household. Kathleen Hanna says, ‘Wait
until your father gets home!’ She is often singing
from the point of view of someone who follows/be-
lieves in gender roles. ‘My body must always be a
source of relief.’ She tromps around the stage, with a
lipstick word on her forehead: ‘whore,’ or ‘slut’.”
Olivia talks about a show that changes the script:
“I watched a new show called Pitch. In the show a
53
girl joins the MLB [Major League Baseball]. In her Americans in this 1953 Disney film. Dominic no-
locker room—she has a separate locker room from tices how the Native Americans, like the Arabs in
the male players—she overhears the men saying she’s Popeye, mostly look alike. Estelle points out that
only there to sell tickets and that she’ll only last a few their language, like the language of the Arabs in
games because of this. She feels she needs to prove Popeye, makes them look ignorant. “In Popeye, Ali
them wrong because she’s a girl and she’s Black and Baba says, ‘You make fool from me.’ In Peter Pan,
for all of the little girls who are looking up to her.” the female Native American says, ‘Squaw no dance.
Bunny doesn’t share in class, but she writes a piece Squaw get firewood.’” A few years ago, one student
that she reads the following day: “I’ve noticed that noted that the Indians play with the children as if
in a lot of Disney movies the only independent and they are children themselves.
strong women are labeled as villains and bad guys, Before we watch the hyena scene from The
like in Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Lion King, I remind them of Inyla’s “aha moment”
and many more, and in some cases this is reflected from the first day about the hyenas and Scar being
in real life.” darker and ask them what they notice about that.
Elijah says, “I’ve noticed that women can’t Mykala says, “They sound Black, too.” Emmanuel
do nothing without a man, and women are sup- interrupts her: “Right, because Whoopi Goldberg
posed to cook, clean, and make the man happy. It plays the part of the hyena.” Watching The Little
happens in the world today. A lot of women are Mermaid, students observe Ursula becomes darker
dependent on men to make them happy.” On his the more evil she gets. They see similar patterns with
emerging-theme sentence strip, he writes, “Women Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty and the dogs in Lady
only exist for men’s pleasure.” Hakeem talks about and the Tramp. One student writes on his emerging
a football video game: “I play Madden NFL 17, and theme for the day, “In cartoons, people of color are
the men are playing and evil, mean, dangerous, and the
women are cheering them enemy.”
on, and women get treat- Cartoons have improved As we discuss this last
ed unfairly in the world since the days when Popeye batch of films, I ask students
and get treated as if they cracked a whip over the to make connections to oth-
are less than men.” er works. Larry says, “Even in
Students also dis- backs of Arabs in chains. some video games I play, it’s the
cuss the role of servants But cartoons continue to man who does everything and
as we travel through our promote stereotypes. is the hero. I don’t see many
cartoon journey. After women in the games and them
watching scenes from being the hero. Also a lot of
Beauty and the Beast, Fayth says, “All of the servants video games have violence. And the darker-skinned
are tools or equipment. Like the candlestick and the people are the bad guys.” Dai Won also makes con-
broom.” At the end of the unit, one student writes, nections between the cartoons and video games.
“All servants get no credit,” on the theme wall. Ni- He says, “In the first game of the Super Smash Bros.
cole loves Mushu, the red dragon voiced by Eddie there were no female characters, but over the 18
Murphy in Mulan, but is quick to point out that the years this game’s been out, the character roster has
servants are typically animals, while the major char- become more and more diverse.” Others disagree,
acters are people, usually royalty. saying that women are still not represented in vid-
By the time we look specifically at the role of eo games except as cheerleaders, but they agree that
people of color in cartoons, students have already there are more diverse characters.
identified that the majority of their roles are as vil-
lains, but they also bemoan the continued absence Student Reflections
of diversity in cartoons. We start the day by remem- I have taught this unit for more than four decades
bering Popeye. Then I show a few clips from Peter to both freshmen and seniors, and I’ve found the
Pan, in which viewers see the depiction of Native current group of students more willing to engage

54 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

in critique than my previous students. In my earlier
years, I started with Ariel Dorfman’s preface to The
Empire’s Old Clothes: What the Lone Ranger, Babar,
and Other Innocent Heroes Do to Our Minds, first
published in 1983. Dorfman writes:
Industrially produced fiction has become one
of the primary shapers of our emotions and our
intellect in the 20th century. Although these
stories are supposed to merely entertain us,
they constantly give us a secret education. We
are not only taught certain styles of violence,
the latest fashions, and sex roles by TV, movies,
magazines, and comic strips; we are also taught
how to succeed, how to love, how to buy, how
to conquer, how to forget the past and suppress
the future. We are taught more than anything
else, how not to rebel. [emphasis added]
In the current iteration of the course, I start
with the question, “What do cartoons teach children
about the world, men, women, people of color, etc.?”
The difference between opening with a question and
opening with a statement is that opening with a
question leads to student willingness to engage in-
stead of resistance, as in some previous years. I end
the unit by asking students to respond to Dorfman’s
words.
One student writes about how the unit devel-
oped her awareness of racism and sexism, how she
had been unknowingly shaped by Dorfman’s “secret
education”:
Before we watched these cartoons in class, I
wasn’t even aware that so much racism and
sexism took place in these cartoons. I never
watched much Disney as a child, but even if
I did, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed
that it was influencing my opinion on men,
women, whites, and people of color … The
fact that I wasn’t even aware of the racism and
sexism in these cartoons shows how effective
watching these cartoons as a class and discuss-
ing it was.
Sabrina says, “I realized these problems weren’t
just in cartoons. They were in everything—ev-
ery magazine I picked up, every television show I
CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US
watched, every billboard I passed by on the street.”
By the end of the course, my goal of honing students’
ability to read literature and the world through the
lens of justice has been accomplished, at least in part.
Students ended the unit with strong essays
tackling sexism and racism, as well as U.S. impe-
rialism. This year, because I asked them to explore
cartoons in the world throughout the study, stu-
dents made more connections between cartoons
and other “texts”—elections, ads, video games, and
contemporary movies. (See “Writing the Cartoon
Essay,” p. 58.)
Yes, cartoons have improved since the days
when Popeye cracked a whip over the backs of Arabs
in chains. But cartoons continue to promote stereo-
types, even as they move forward in some respects.
Many still promote heterosexual love stories as the
norm, unattainable women’s bodies as natural, vio-
lence as the way to solve problems, and wealth and
power as the definition of success.
As a teacher, I want to use my classroom space
to critique the mass media machine that continues
to promote a vision of society fueled by the worship
of wealth, the standardization of beauty and white-
ness, and the glorification of those at the top at the
expense of everyday people. One unit, no matter
how well constructed, cannot make this happen,
but by developing students’ ability to critique and
giving them language and tools to examine and de-
construct their secret education, students can begin
to move from mindless consumption to awareness.
And because these commercial values do not serve
the interests of the majority of our students, that
awareness can lead to rebellion—in all the best sens-
es of the word. Z
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
Au, Wayne, Bill Bigelow, and Stan Karp (eds.). 2007. Rethinking
Our Classrooms: Teaching for Equity and Justice, vol 1. Rethinking
Schools.
Dorfman, Ariel. 1983. The Empire’s Old Clothes: What the Lone
Ranger, Babar, and Other Innocent Heroes Do to Our Minds.
Pantheon.
Shor, Ira, and Paulo Freire. 1987. A Pedagogy for Liberation. Bergin
& Garvey.
Tatum, Beverly. 1997. “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together
in the Cafeteria?” And Other Conversations About Race. Basic
Books.
55
 u HANDOUT
Charting Cartoons

56
As you view the cartoons, fill in the following table. Note the character’s actions and appearance (human/animal). Are they in positions of power? Are
they servants? What is their “mission” in life? Notice the way their language is characterized. Are they male or female? Are they a positive or a negative
character? What do children learn about racial/ethnic groups as they watch the video?

Characters Appearance Mission in Life Speech/Language Who Has Power?

(Race/Class/Body Type)
.......................................................................................................................................................................
Main Female
Characters

READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

.......................................................................................................................................................................
Main Male
Characters

.......................................................................................................................................................................
 Characters Appearance Mission in Life Speech/Language Who Has Power?
(Race/Class/Body Type)
.......................................................................................................................................................................
Servants

.......................................................................................................................................................................
Villains

.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Critical Literacy Questions:

• Whom is the viewer supposed to root for? Whose lives “count”?

CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US

• Who is given voice? Who is silenced? Who is marginalized?
• What assumptions does the creator make without explanation?
• How does the creator use language to develop character?

57
• What assumptions might a child arrive at about men, women, people of color, or militarism from this cartoon?
 Writing the Cartoon Essay
F rom the moment I trip the switch for the first
cartoon to flicker across the screen, I want
students engaged in an exploration of the messag-
es delivered by these goofy, colorful stories filled
with sexism, racism, poverty, nationalism, military
might, and more. I design lessons to teach critical
literacy while building students’ academic skills.
The cartoon essay, like almost every essay I teach,
begins on the first day of the unit, with students’ in-
sights and passions leading the way.
I don’t assign essay topics because I want stu-
dents’ writing to emerge from their interests and to
be shaped by a variety of resources—including our
classroom discussions, in which students hone their
arguments and evidence in community with their
classmates. When I control the prompt, I control the
evidence and the inquiry. The result? Students are
less invested in their writing. Real literacy and real
58 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
writing rises up when students flex their intellectual
muscles.
I also do not give students five-paragraph for-
mats, detailed rubrics, or blank boxes to fill in as
they prepare to write: There is no formula. An essay
is an exploration into thinking. Sometimes unex-
pected insights occur while we write, like a chem-
ical reaction created when the right conditions ig-
nite—knowledge, attitude, and time. Prescriptions
that are too tight don’t allow for bursts of clarity or
connections. Unfortunately, these days I see student
thinking narrowed and confined by handouts. These
fill-in-the blank rectangles and paint-by-numbers
directions ensure an essay that students don’t want
to write and teachers don’t want to read. Well-mean-
ing teachers use these as scaffolding to help students
(especially “at-risk” or struggling children) construct
their essays and also as a means to cut down grading
time with growing class sizes, but these “aides” un-
dermine real student thinking and writing. Students
like to be smart. Patterned essays might pass state
tests with higher scores, but they don’t elicit the in-
tellectual prowess that comes when students are im-
mersed in a topic over an extended period of time,
surrounded by evidence and argument.
Collecting and Analyzing Evidence
On the first day of any unit, students collect evi-
dence (see “Charting Cartoons” handout, p. 56).
They take notes on both major and minor char-
acters, noticing who played the hero, the buffoon,
the servant, and the villain. Their evidence collec-
tion looks different in each unit I teach, but the
approach is the same. By reviewing the charts,
students discover emerging patterns as well as
connections to their lives, music, other movies,
video games, and news. The charts become refer-
ence material they consult during our discussions.
Because we watch multiple cartoons daily, these
charts stack up.
Theme and Evidence Wall
I start an emerging theme and evidence wall on the
first day of the unit as well, which students add to
daily. This wall is one of my go-to writing strategies
to help students understand how to build essays
based on their own passions and interests. I use a
large board in the classroom (see photo, p. 202).
Tracking developing themes and collecting evidence
is a practice I want students to in-
ternalize as writers, which is why
I make it big and transparent. Whom
Typically, I stop class before supposed to root for?
the end of the period and say, Whose lives count?
“What came up for you today?
What themes or messages did
you learn from what we watched (or read)?” If no
one says anything, I might refer back to something
a student brought up in class. “Mykala said she no-
ticed that there was a white savior complex happen-
ing in some of the cartoons. That could be an emerg-
ing theme, right?” Then I write “white savior” on a
sentence strip. “Is there any evidence for that?” As
students list the evidence—Popeye saving Olive Oyl,
Prince Phillip saving Princess Aurora and so on—I
write each piece of evidence on a sticky note and
CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US
place them on the edge of the sentence strip. Then
I hand out sticky notes and sentence strips. “Work
on your own or with a partner or a small group and
come up with some themes and evidence. Help each
other out. When you are done, get some blue tape
and tape them to the back wall.”
We grow the emerging theme wall throughout
the unit. At the end of a class discussion, students
get in small groups and create sentence strips with
themes that they see emerging or ideas they want to
follow. Sometimes they just add more evidence to
the themes already on the wall. Some of these will
not bear fruit. This is a good real-life lesson: Some-
times our original ideas need to be tweaked, amend-
ed, or abandoned as we read deeper into a unit, nov-
el, history, or science.
In-the-Midst Writing
Because students need time to put their thoughts
together, I frequently stop along the way and ask
students to respond to a question or quote or to
make connections to their lives or the world. During
our study of Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba and
the 40 Thieves, I give them a series of questions:
Whom is the viewer supposed to root for? Whose
lives count? Who is given voice? Who is silenced?
Who is marginalized? How does the creator use lan-
guage to develop character? What understandings
might a child arrive at about men, women, people
of color, or militarism from this cartoon? On anoth-
er day, I say, “Make connections between your in-
sights about cartoons and your
world—where else do you wit-
is the viewer ness sexism, racism, etc.?” At
the end of our study, I give stu-
dents a quote by Ariel Dorfman
and tell them to write a com-
mentary about the quote (see p.
55). Do they agree or disagree with Dorfman’s idea
of cartoons feeding children a “secret education”?
These “in-the-midst” writings serve multiple
purposes. They allow thinking time for students to
gather the multiple stories we watch and to make
sense of the content and the messages, and they push
students to find links between the classroom and
the outside world. Quiet, written contemplations
provide space, especially after animated class talk,
for students to develop new theories and analyses
59
out of our shared materials. The silent minutes of
writing bring the recollection of a memory, caught
by a thread and reeled in, a new understanding that
sheds light on the shadows of concepts that leaned
just out of their grasp previously. In addition, as I
read over student papers, I uncover gems—exam-
ples of innovative thinking or observations that I
want to bring back for discussion.
Throughout the weeks exploring cartoons,
students wade into territory I hadn’t even thought
about. Larry recalls the role of violence, which
moved from cartoons into his playground battles in
elementary school. Bunny’s insight during the day
we focus on women leads her to realize the inde-
pendent, creative women in cartoons were often the
evildoers in most of these films. As students raise
issues and observations during our discussions, I
pause and say, “Write that down. That would make
a great essay.”
Selecting a Topic and Evidence
Before we launch the essay writing, I distribute the
cartoon assignment, which is wide open. I tell stu-
dents, “You might want to focus on an overarching
theme like Mykala had with her white savior topic
and then show it in multiple cartoons. You might
write about one cartoon and explore it more fully, ex-
amining the race, class, gender, and/or nationalism in
one piece. You bring in your own life or other media
for support, like Mykala did by using Atticus Finch in
To Kill a Mockingbird as one her white saviors.”
Then we jump into the selection of a topic
and support for their essay. “Today, we are going to
start writing our essays. I want you to think about
what you might want to write about. You have all
done some smart thinking and talking throughout
the unit. What made you mad? What excited you?
What new insights did you get? Go back and take a
look at the evidence wall. Take a look at your notes.
Then make a list of potential topics you could write
about.” We do this for about five to 10 minutes. If
this sounds redundant, it is. Essays topics are con-
ceived and discarded throughout our inquiry be-
cause new revelations push student thinking for-
ward. What they wrote on the theme wall on day
one might hatch into a new essay idea and become
more complex, more nuanced than the original. The
theme wall marks our progress, becoming a histor-
60 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
ical marker we return to for inspiration, but those
topics do not always land in the final essay.
Once students write down a few topics, I pull
out specific examples from the class discussions
from their in-the-midst papers. For example, I
say “Bunny wrote that strong, independent wom-
en in cartoons were portrayed as evil and she also
saw that in real life.” I place this sentence on the
document camera and ask students, “Is this true?
Where do you see it?” Students list Ursula in Lit-
tle Mermaid, Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, and
so on. “This is what it looks like to find your topic
and gather your evidence.” Then I turn them loose.
“Write down your topic and evidence. Use the
theme wall and your neighbors as resources when
you need help.”
Some students dive in. They are ready to write.
They have a topic and evidence. Some walk back to
the theme wall, take a photo, or bring the sentence
strip and sticky notes to their desks. Other students
struggle. I walk around and work with students who
are not writing and remind them of things they said
in class or wrote the previous day. For example, Ni-
cole, who talked nonstop, didn’t have a word on her
paper. When I asked her what lessons she learned
from the cartoons we watched, she said, “Cartoons
teach family values, like love your family.” This was
so far from what she said during classroom critiques
and analysis; it was like she had grabbed some mun-
dane words from the air in order to say something
that sounded wise. I reminded her that she talked
about the way women dressed provocatively, wore
low-cut dresses, and only seem to want men. Then
she whispered, “The cameras are bullies.” I said,
“What does that mean?” After more conversation,
she wrote, “According to cartoons, everyday peo-
ple are not important. They are only put in to sup-
port the important people—princesses, royalty. The
camera stays on the rich, the royal, and the everyday
people disappear unless they need to help the royal-
ty in their mission.” Smart.
Dominic was also stuck, so I reminded him
of his comments about the way music videos de-
humanize women. He wrote a quick draft of his
thoughts about this: “I think that most Disney prin-
cess movies were made for little girls to look up to
and be like and so that makes the girls of our gen-
eration think they need a man always to be there to
protect them, take care of them, always relying on
someone else to provide for them. So I do think that
cartoons have a secret message and that they have
always been shaping the minds of boys and girls for
years.” I left him to find specific evidence to support
his theory.
The following day, I put my file folder (which
I create ahead of time) with topics and sticky notes
under the document camera: “This is what you are
going to do: You will write your idea for the car-
toon at the top of the page, then list your evidence
on sticky notes. Mine is ‘Language in cartoons of-
ten leads to racist stereotypes.’ On sticky notes I
write down my pieces of evidence: ‘Popeye: Bacon
& Eggs,’ ‘All Chinese to me,’ ‘Abu Hassan’s language.’
What can I put on this last sticky note?” I leave one
note blank and ask them to help me think of another
example.
Once I distribute folders and sticky notes to
each student, I say, “Your turn. Get your topic/thesis
that you generated yesterday and put at least four
pieces of evidence on sticky notes. One piece of
evidence per note. You have seven minutes.” After
they have their oars in the water, 10 minutes in, I tell
them, “You can ask your neighbor for help or look
up names of characters on your phone.” Typically,
students get right to work. The novelty of the fold-
ers, the saturation of the video clips, and both the
classroom talk and my kneeling conversations move
them forward. Sometimes I use legal-size paper in-
stead of file folders. The point of this activity is to
secure the evidence and make sense of it before they
move into writing.
Raising the Bones: Examining Models
Earlier, I wrote that I do not give out prompts or
encourage students to write five-paragraph essays.
Instead, I use models to help students understand
what essays look like. We annotate the models to-
gether, “raising the bones” of the essay, which means
we figure out the “work” each paragraph does. While
most nonscripted essays have their own personality,
they do have some elements in common. My job
is to help students read these “bones” of the essay.
How did this writer construct the essay? What kind
of introduction did they use? How did they weave
the evidence through the essay? What kinds of ex-
amples did they use? Did they use anecdotes from
CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US
their own lives? Where can we find their voice and
opinions? What about transitions and conclusions?
To begin this bone raising, I pass out Lila John-
son’s essay, “Looking Pretty, Waiting for the Prince”
(see p. 65). I read it out loud, stopping at every para-
graph to ask, “What does this paragraph tell us?
What do we learn?” I annotate Lila’s piece under the
document camera as we read. I elicit student com-
ments and responses, which I write in the margin.
Students take notes on their copy. We note her the-
sis and what she promises the reader: “Animated
material touches on such sensitive issues as roles of
men and women in society and people of color.” If
students don’t bring it up, I point out that she used
evidence from her own life and that she referenced
specific cartoons. In this constructivist approach to
teaching writing, students don’t always have the lan-
guage to describe what is happening, but by working
through the essay together, most learn it. This is a
process we return to throughout the year.
I stop again when we get to “What is not seen
in relation to people of different cultures can be as
harmful as some of the things that are seen. People
of color are rarely seen as the heroes of animated
presentations.” I say, “This is a reflection. Now I’m
going back to my folder, and where it says ‘Popeye,’
I am going to add a reflection to my sticky note.
‘Popeye teaches us that English is the only lan-
guage that matters.’ Now you go back to your sticky
notes and write a reflection about one piece of your
evidence.”
Sierra’s topic was: “Children’s ‘secret educa-
tion’ is that the people’s outside is more important
than their inside.” One piece of her evidence was
from The Little Mermaid. Her sticky note said, “Ari-
el would be willing to go mute just to transform
herself into Prince Eric’s idea of beauty.” Her reflec-
tion: “Ariel teaches children that looks and physical
beauty is how you get true love.” Elijah’s topic was:
“Darker people are bad or the enemies, and whites
are the heroes.” One of his pieces of evidence was
from The Lion King: “Hyenas were black and they
were the bad characters, and Scar was a darker
lion.” His reflection drew out an analysis: “The Lion
King taught me that darker people are portrayed as
evil.” I call on a few students to read their evidence
and reflections out loud to demonstrate what this
looks and sounds like.
61
Constructing a Criteria Sheet
In earlier decades of my work, I handed out crite-
ria sheets, which listed the elements of an essay that
I wanted students to include: introduction (with a
thesis statement that may or may not be stated), ev-
idence (different kinds depending on the content),
transitions, and conclusions. Now I step back and
ask students to develop the criteria for the essay.
This might seem like a small revision, but it was an
important one in my practice. Some students began
demanding a criteria sheet for every assignment.
They had not internalized the structure of an essay.
While I was not assigning a five-paragraph essay,
even the structure of the criteria sheet became a
crutch that students used instead of learning to tune
into their own structure.
Now I say, “We have looked at a model essay.
So let’s make a list of what we think should go into
the cartoon essay. Anyone have any ideas?” As stu-
dents discuss what should go in, I make a list on
the document camera. The end result of this col-
laborative approach looks like my earlier criteria
sheets, but the critical change is that students cre-
ate it. (See “Cartoon Essay Criteria Sheet,” p. 67.)
Sometimes they add elements I wouldn’t add be-
cause they don’t have to occur in every essay. This
opens a discussion about whether every essay has
to include that piece. For example, after reading
Lila’s essay, Marty said, “Evidence from your own
life.” I responded, “OK, let’s think about this. Does
every essay have to include personal experience? Is
that optional or nonnegotiable?” Students decide
that personal anecdotes are optional. Once we have
a list, we go back to what is optional and what is
nonnegotiable.
Crafting the Essay: Introductions
Once students mostly have their evidence, I pass out
sample introductions. We read the samples out loud.
Because many of these came from cartoon essays, I
ask students to think about what evidence the writ-
er might use. Every essay I teach has its own teach-
ing and writing rhythm, but since the cartoon essay
opens 9th grade, teaching the essay in chunks helps
students internalize the process.
Students write an introduction to their cartoon
using one of the styles or creating their own. The
models are meant to inspire, not handcuff. During
62 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
this time, I also ask students to think about a po-
tential audience for their writing. “Thinking about
an audience can help you write your essay because
you hone your arguments to convince them of your
points. Who needs to hear your message? Teach-
ers? Parents? Other teens? On the outside of your
folder, write who you think your target audience
might be.” Mykala writes “teachers and teenagers”;
Elijah writes “teens my age”; Ada writes “women’s
magazines.”
Before the end of class, I ask a few students to
share their draft openings to help the uninspired
and uncertain find their way. Mykala shared hers:
When I was a little kid, I loved cartoons and
Disney movies. I really liked Sleeping Beauty
and Beauty and the Beast. Then as I got older, I
realized that my favorite cartoons and Disney
movies display discrimination. Almost every
one of them had a white savior. As a young
Black girl, I feel offended. The white guy
doesn’t always have to save the day.
After she shared, I asked, “What evidence
will Mykala need to add to her essays to prove her
point?” Then Kate read her introduction:
Physically inadequate, stupid, fat, unable,
flawed, incomplete, inept, inappropriate, un-
fit, clumsy, awkward. Imperfect. We are rid-
iculed from a young age and told that our
bodies should be hidden, and this starts with
stereotypical companies like Disney.
Once students have the sharing and helping
procedure down, I ask them to get into small groups,
read their openings, and discuss what evidence the
writer needs to prove their opening statement.
Crafting the Essay: Evidence Paragraphs
Once most students have an introduction, I hand
out another cartoon essay, “Help Me Syndrome” by
Hasina Deary, a previous student. We examine how
Hasina constructs her evidence paragraphs, moving
from questions into evidence, naming characters
and cartoons as she discusses her thesis that wom-
en in cartoons are viewed as helpless and in need of
rescue.
 Why wasn’t Olive ever smart enough to lock his thesis, transition sentence, the specific cartoons
the doors so Bluto couldn’t get in or clever and characters he names, and his reflection/analysis
enough to save herself? It is a disgusting ex- about what children learn from this depiction of a
ample of the “Help Me Syndrome” so often Black female character. Then I ask students to anno-
portrayed in cartoons. In Sleeping Beauty, the tate the next paragraph with a partner in the same
silly little princess pricked her finger, causing way I annotated the first evidence paragraph. I trav-
an entire kingdom to slumber. Peace was re- el around the room to see that students understand
stored after the prince rode into town, fought the concepts.
with a witch in dragon’s form, then kissed the Then I tell students, “Now, return to your es-
Sleeping Beauty … Why are women constant- says and annotate your paragraphs. Have you named
ly in need of male rescue? cartoons and characters? Do you discuss your evi-
dence? Does this support your thesis? Write notes
Because Hasina wrote this piece years ago, we to yourself about what you need to fix in your essay.”
also talk about what has and hasn’t changed, and
whether that could be added to the essay now. Crafting the Essay: Conclusions
Then students dive into their own essays. I re- Conclusions are the toughest part of the essay. When
mind them to look at their folders. “Remember, each to end? How to end? When students have most of
of your sticky notes will become one or more para- their essay completed, I ask them to look back at the
graphs as you write. Get specific. If you get stuck, two model essays to see how Lila and Hasina wrap
go back to our model essays and see how they used up their writing. Lila ends with a personal reflec-
their evidence. Notice their sassy attitudes. Look at tion, tying back to her opening where she discussed
how Lila Johnson wove her life in.” adopting cartoon identities with her brothers. In her
conclusion, she lands a punch, asserting her new-
Revising in the Midst of Writing found freedom from cartoon and media messages:
While revising before students finish an essay isn’t
always my standard practice, sometimes noticing My newfound awareness has enabled me to
trends during the heat of student writing can save better understand those messages absorbed
heartache down the road. In the last iteration of and the ones I observe daily, whether on bill-
the cartoon essay unit I boards, in movies, or in
taught, I glanced through magazines. I see them
student work at the end
Noticing trends during the in a new light. A critical
of the first writing day. heat of student writing can one. I don’t have to be
As I read their introduc- save heartache down the road. a princess to be happy
tions and first and sec- or pretty. I don’t need
ond evidence paragraphs, to rely on characters to
I discovered a pattern that I wanted to interrupt. learn about real people. I proudly perceive
Students were making general statements—“dark myself as an exuberant, creative, responsible,
characters are seen as evil” and “cartoon women open-minded individual who will never be
conform to a standard of beauty”—but they lacked reduced to a carbon copy of a fictional being.
specific details from the cartoons to support their
generalizations. I created a craft lesson based on I call this “circling back to the beginning.” I
Joe Robertson’s essay to redirect their writing. (See tell students, “Look back at your opening paragraph.
“Essay Craft Lesson,” p. 289.) Is there something there you might return to at the
We start by reviewing Joe’s introduction and end of your essay? Is there a phrase or image that can
first evidence paragraph. I annotate this paragraph bring your essay to a close? My essay on language
on the document camera, pointing out the details discrimination in cartoons opens with an anecdote
that support his assertion that Black characters are about my English teacher humiliating me for the way
missing or ridiculed in cartoons, as well as noting I spoke. I might want to come back to this story at the

CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US 63

end to say something about how cartoons promote
the kind of painful discrimination that I experienced
in my 9th-grade English class.”
Hasina ends her essay with a summary and a
demand for change from the makers of cartoons: “I
think it is time to change the outdated formulas of
love and near-death rescue scenes. I challenge the
cartoon makers to find a new happy ending.” Once
students have explored these options, they head
back to their essays and pound out a conclusion.
Student Essay Reflections
At the end of the unit, I ask students to reflect on
what helped them write their essays and what they
learned from the unit. The most-cited strategies
were the charts where they gathered notes from
multiple cartoons, the classroom discussions, the
models from former students, and the organizing
folder I created with them. One student’s words
echoed most students’ reflections:
There were several things that helped me
write this essay. One of them was watching
so many clips. Having so many examples to
draw from made the process of writing this
essay much easier. Another thing that helped
was seeing all of the example introductions,
evidence paragraphs, and conclusions. They
gave me many more ideas on where I wanted
to go with the essay. The folder idea was also
helpful. It made it easy to see all of my ideas
clearly when they were laid out. This helped
me organize my paper and helped me decide
what to write about next.
What surprised me was how much indepen-
dent research some students took on during the
unit. Most of this was in the form of rewatching en-
tire cartoon movies or finding movies that we didn’t
watch in class like Zootopia or The Princess and the
Frog. Kate discussed her research:
My research on Brave was easy. I watched a
couple clips, maybe looked at an article, and
found my resolution. This was because I didn’t
need to learn much about the movie; it was all
on the surface. It was a kind of sexist movie,
but not as bad as many others. Popeye was also
64 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
easy because it was so incredibly sexist and
discriminatory. I really didn’t have to do any
research after we watched the show. Howev-
er, The Princess and the Frog was much, much
harder. I had to go beneath the surface, and
that meant watching multiple clips from the
movie, and looking at many articles. I am glad
I did that because it really seems like an OK
movie, but it’s not, not even close. If I hadn’t
done much research I would have been wrong-
ly praising it, and that is so far from correct.
It wasn’t discriminatory, which is great, but it
was very sexist, just not in the main characters.
My favorite repeating response from students
was the role their classmates played in shaping their
thinking. In attempting to build a social justice class-
room, I want students to listen to each other and learn
from each other. As Eva noted, “A lot of the things that
my classmates shared out I would’ve never noticed,
because it was so subtle, or so casual that I thought
nothing of it. But once they shared it, usually I real-
ized that I agreed, and I ended up using some of the
things that they noticed in my cartoon essay.” Engag-
ing students in real dialogue about social problems
is critical to their learning how to write and think, as
well as to figuring out how to share the planet with
other people, especially in a diverse classroom.
Authentic essay writing emerges when teachers
create conditions that allow students to voice their ob-
servations about subjects that matter, like uncovering
legacies of racism, sexism, and xenophobia. When we
ask students to do real intellectual work about sear-
ing contemporary problems that intersect with their
lives, students write with strength and power. Z
u SAMPLE ESSAYS
Looking Pretty, Waiting for the Prince
by Lila Johnson
My two brothers and I lived for our daily cartoon fix.
We hungered for the vibrant reds, blues, and yellows
that raced around our screen for an insane hour or
two. When we were away from the tube, we assumed
the roles of our favorite characters: Bugs Bunny, that
wisecracking, carrot-munching rabbit; Yosemite
Sam, a rough and tough shoot-’em-down cowboy;
and Popeye, the all-American spinach-guzzling
sailor. We took our adopted identities outside and
to school where our neighbors and friends did the
same. Now, as a senior in high school, I see that car-
toons are not just lighthearted, wacky fun. Animat-
ed material touches on such sensitive issues as roles
of men and women in society, and people of color.
Cartoons are often the birthplace of the cultur-
al stereotypes we learn and remember, as I do to-
day: the idea that Indians are savages—tomahawks
and moccasins, tepees and war paint—the bad guys
who pursued my favorite cowboys; or the belief that
Arabs have nothing better to do than to tear across
deserts in robes while swinging fierce swords and
yelping like alien creatures.
These notions didn’t just occur to my broth-
ers and me magically. We saw Native Americans in
our afternoon cartoons and on some of our favorite
Disney movies like Peter Pan. We witnessed villain-
ous Arabs thieve their way through violent episodes
of Popeye. What is not seen in relation to people of
different cultures can be as harmful as some of the
things that are seen. People of color are rarely seen
as the heroes of animated presentations.
Children search for personal identity. In 1st
grade, I adored Bonnie Bondell, a girl in my class.
She wasn’t a cartoon character, but she could have
been. She had glossy blonde hair and blue eyes. She
had a sparkly smile and a sweet voice. She could have
been Cinderella’s younger sister or Sleeping Beauty’s
long-lost cousin. For those reasons, I longed to be
just like her.
I look at old photos of myself now, and have
decided that I was pretty cute. I wasn’t a “tradition-
al” cutie, and that’s exactly what bothered me then.
My father is African American and my mother is
German and Irish. Put the two together, and I’m
the result. Olive complexion, dark curly hair, brown
CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US
and green eyes. All wrong. At least according to the
“Fairy Tale Book of Standards.” The pride that I had
in myself as a person with a colorful heritage did not
blossom before it was crushed. The pride that I had
in myself as a female was following the same path.
Women’s roles in cartoons lack the clever-
ness and depth of their male counterparts. Instead,
they are laced with helplessness and ignorance. The
women are often in need of rescue—they seem in-
capable of defending or helping themselves. When
they aren’t busy being rescued, they spend their time
looking pretty, waiting for a prince.
In 1st grade, these illustrations moved me to
action. They influenced me to push aside my slacks
and rustic bike and turn to dresses and dolls. I had
to start practicing perfection if I was going to be
happy, weak, helpless, boring. I struggled to be all
of those; then I could call myself a princess, an awk-
ward one, but a princess nonetheless.
At the same time, my brothers swung guns
and swords like they were attached to their hands.
They tossed aside their piles of books and tubs of
clay—heroes didn’t read or create—they fought! So
they flexed their wiry muscles and wrestled invisible
villains. They dressed, ate, talked, became miniature
models of their violent heroes.
Sometimes it was fun, like a game, all of us
playing our parts. But we began to feel unhappy
when we saw that some things weren’t quite right.
As I said—I wasn’t Bonnie Bondell or Cinderella. My
brothers, never destined to be hulks, went to great
lengths to grow big, but gallons of milk and daily
measurements didn’t help. It wasn’t a game anymore.
I have some fond memories of those afternoons
with my brothers, yet I know that I will also remem-
ber them for the messages I swallowed as easily as
gumdrops. My newfound awareness has enabled
me to better understand those messages absorbed
then and the ones I now observe daily, whether on
billboards, in movies, or in magazines. I see them
in a new light. A critical one. I don’t have to be a
princess to be happy or pretty. I don’t need to rely on
characters to learn about real people. I proudly per-
ceive myself as an exuberant, creative, responsible,
open-minded individual who will never be reduced
to a carbon copy of a fictional being.
65
Help Me Syndrome
by Наsina Deary
It’s a typical cartoon scene: Popeye off sailing or tot-
ing a sledgehammer doing whatever Popeye does to
make a living, while Olive Oyl, who does not have a
job, lounges around. Olive is skinny to the point of
hospitalization. Popeye obviously does not share his
spinach. Olive Oyl, in her frail condition, has a ten-
dency to be vulnerable to Bluto’s frequent abductions.
Bluto is the big, brawny bully who Popeye grapples
with from cartoon to cartoon. Poor Olive is whisked
away by the hair or thrown kicking and screaming
over Bluto’s shoulder. Her only salvation is knowing
that Popeye will be coming to save her. “Help me,
help me, Popeye!” Magically, he hears Olive’s call for
help. Popeye, her hero. He struggles with his can of
spinach, but in the end the tattooed avenger saves
Olive Oyl. It is so silly. Olive Oyl’s only redeeming
quality as a woman is the fact she is never stuck in the
kitchen. Popeye, the strong and courageous man, also
prepares his own meals. Why wasn’t Olive ever smart
enough to lock the doors so Bluto couldn’t get in or
clever enough to save herself? It is a disgusting exam-
ple of the “Help Me Syndrome” so often portrayed in
cartoons.
In Sleeping Beauty, the silly little princess
pricked her finger, causing an entire kingdom to
slumber. Peace was restored after the prince rode
into town, fought with a witch in dragon’s form, then
kissed the Sleeping Beauty. All is well, another prin-
cess saved. Why are women constantly in need of
male rescue? Does the industry feed on some wom-
en’s twisted fantasy to be saved by a make-believe
Prince Charming? It might be said that these are old
cartoons and women today have evolved. But Dis-
ney’s three later productions have at least one scene
where the female character’s life is in jeopardy, only
to be spared by her male counterpart.
In The Little Mermaid, Prince Eric steers a
ship’s mast through the evil Ursula’s torso, freeing
Ariel from the curse. After Belle from Beauty and
the Beast tries to leave the castle, she is attacked by
wolves. Lucky for her, the Beast comes and fights off
the angry hounds. A sigh of relief is breathed, anoth-
er pretty face saved. Even in Aladdin, Disney’s most
progressive cartoon, Aladdin, the street-smart hero,
first comes to Princess Jasmine’s aid when she nearly
66 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
has her hand cut off after being accused of thievery.
In the end of the movie, we see Jasmine trapped in a
huge hourglass. Her cries for help are drowned out
by the sand filling the glass. Finally, Aladdin breaks
the glass to save Jasmine. Ahh.
While the women in Disney’s more recent car-
toons are a step up from the nonstop pathetic whin-
ing of Olive Oyl, they still lack independence and
basic survival skills. They may be called heroines,
but by no means are they the woman hero. Indeed,
they are merely girls in need of rescue. The miscon-
ception that females must be male-dependent is re-
iterated, even if they basically have things going for
them. Belle wanted more than her “provincial life.”
So they want more, but never can they attain it by
themselves.
Rarely do we see brave women saving others.
Wonder Woman is the only woman cartoon char-
acter who has ever been the rescuer. She saves men,
women, and children (but mostly women and chil-
dren). Of course, she has to have Super Heroine
powers to do it. She could not just be Mindy Mac-
Gyver, the normal girl, who uses her mind to solve
problems. Instead, cartoons are made about beauti-
ful girls who sing and read, and bright-eyed, head-
strong princesses who are all capable of thinking,
but ultimately succeed because of the love of a man.
I think it is time to change the outdated formulas of
love and near-death rescue scenes. I challenge the
cartoon makers to find a new happy ending.
u HANDOUT

Cartoon Essay Criteria Sheet

Assignment: Write an essay about cartoons. While the essay is primarily about cartoons, you might also
include evidence from your own life, advertising, other movies, and media.

Criteria: Attach this sheet to your essay.

____1. Thesis Statement: Stated or implied? Write it in the space below.

____2. Introduction: What kind of introduction did you use?

Question
Anecdote
Quotation
Metaphor

____3. Evidence: Prove your point. Check which of the following types of evidence you used below.
On your essay, mark each type of evidence with a different color:
Catroons
Personal experience—evidence from your daily life
Anecdotes—stories you’ve heard that illustrate your point
Examples from magazines, TV, movies, video games
Other _______________________________

___4. Conclusion: What kind of conclusion did you use?

Summary
Circle back to the beginning
Possible solution
Restate and emphasize thesis
Further questions to think about

___5. Tight Writing:

Active verbs
Lean language
Metaphoric language
Sentence variety

___6. Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling: Check and correct.

On the back of this page, describe what you need to do to revise this essay.

CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US 67


I always look for opportunities where students can
act on their knowledge. In my Literature and U.S.
History class, unfair tests and outrageous newspaper
articles about Jefferson High School provoked spon-
taneous student activism. But in my Contemporary
Literature and Society class, I discovered that I had to
create the possibility for action.
In addition to writing critiques about cartoons,
I asked students to create projects that would move
68 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
Cartoons: Taking Action
beyond the classroom walls. Who
could they teach about what they
learned? I wanted their projects
to be real. Who could their anal-
ysis touch enough to bring about
change? Students filled the board
with potential readers of their
work: parents, peers, teachers,
children’s book authors, librarians,
Disney, advertisers.
My only rule was that they
had to write a piece using evidence
from cartoons or other media.
“Don’t just rant in general,” I told
them. “Use evidence to support
your thesis. The examples might
come from cartoons, advertise-
ments, novels, your mother or fa-
ther’s advice. You might use lines
from TV or movies. You don’t
have to stick to cartoons—use the
world.”
One group of playful stu-
dents wanted to create a pam-
phlet that could be distributed at
PTA meetings throughout the city.
That night, they went home with
assignments they’d given each
other—Sarah would watch Sat-
urday morning cartoons; Sandy,
DOROTHY SEYMOUR Brooke, and Carmel would watch
after-school cartoons; and Kristin
and Toby were assigned before-school cartoons.
They ended up writing a report card for the various
programs. They graded each show A through F and
wrote a brief summary of their findings:
Duck Tales: At first glance, the precocious
ducks are cute, but look closer and see that the
whole show is based on money. All their ad-
ventures revolve around finding money. Uncle
 Scrooge and the gang teach children that mon-
ey is the only important thing in life. Grade: C-
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Pizza-eating
ninja turtles. What’s the point? There isn’t any.
The show is based on fighting the “bad guy,”
Shredder. Demonstrating no concern for the
townspeople, they battle and fight, but never
get hurt. This cartoon teaches a false sense of
violence to kids: Fight and you don’t get hurt,
or solve problems through fists and swords in-
stead of words. Grade: D
Popeye: This show oozes with horrible mes-
sages from passive Olive Oyl to the hero
“man” Popeye. This cartoon portrays ethnic
groups as stupid. It is political also, teaching
children that Americans are the best and con-
quer all others. Grade: F
On the back of the pamphlet, they listed some
tips for parents to guide them in wise cartoon
selection.
Catkin wrote about the sexual stereotyping
and adoration of beauty in children’s movies. Her
article described how she and other teenage women
carry these messages with them still:
Women’s roles in fairy tales distort reality—
from Jessica Rabbit’s six-mile strut in Who
Framed Roger Rabbit? to Tinker Bell’s obses-
sive vanity in Peter Pan. These seemingly inno-
cent stories teach us to look for our faults. As
Tinker Bell inspects her tiny body in a mirror
only to find that her minute hips are simply
too huge, she shows us how to turn the mirror
into an enemy … And this scenario is repeated
in girls’ locker rooms all over the world.
Because we can never look like Cinder-
ella, we begin to hate ourselves. The “Barbie
Syndrome” starts as we begin a lifelong search
CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US
for the perfect body. Crash diets, fat phobias,
and an obsession with the materialistic be-
come commonplace. The belief that a product
will make us rise above our competition, our
friends, turns us into addicts. Our fix is that
Calvin Klein push-up bra, Guess jeans, Chanel
lipstick, and the latest in suede flats. We don’t
call it deception; we call it good taste. And
soon it feels awkward going to the mailbox
without makeup.
Catkin wanted to publish her piece in a maga-
zine for young women so they would begin to ques-
tion the origin of the standards by which they judge
themselves.
Most students wrote articles for local and na-
tional newspapers or magazines. Some published in
neighborhood papers, some in church newsletters.
Both Lila Johnson’s article “Looking Pretty, Waiting
for the Prince” (p. 65) and Hasina Deary’s “Help Me
Syndrome” (p. 66) have been published nationally.
The writing in these articles was tighter and
cleaner than regular classroom essays that only
teachers would see. These articles had the potential
for a real audience beyond the classroom walls. The
possibility of publishing their pieces changed the
level of students’ intensity for the project. Anne,
who turned in hastily written drafts last year, said,
“Five drafts and I’m not finished yet!”
More importantly, students saw themselves as
actors in the world; they were fueled by the oppor-
tunity to convince some parents of the long-lasting
effects cartoons impose on their children, or to en-
lighten their peers about the roots of some of their
insecurities. Instead of leaving students full of bile,
standing around with their hands on their hips,
shaking their heads about how bad the world is, I
provided them the opportunity to make a difference.
69
u HANDOUT

End of Unit Project: Cartoons

To close the unit on cartoons, you may work alone or with a partner to produce an “Out into the World”
project. I am providing a few samples, but I encourage you to think about ways to educate others about what
you’ve learned:

• Cartoon report card

Using the “Bechdel Test” as a model, create a report card for cartoons. Think about audience. Who needs to
know this? Where could you distribute this?

• Write a short story

Using David F. Walker’s short story “The Token Superhero” from the book Octavia’s Brood as a model,
create your own short story that places a superhero—or cartoon character—in real life. Or create your own
genre-bending story based on cartoons.

• Create your own cartoon

Create your own cartoon, which entertains but also attempts to remedy some of the historic
misrepresentations or absences.

• Write a review of a contemporary cartoon

Watch a contemporary cartoon, movie, or series. Look at newspapers and magazines that publish reviews,
including the school newspaper, and decide who your audience might be.

• Create your own assignment

See me. This must include writing and cartoons.

70 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 The Danger of a Single Story
Writing Essays About Our Lives

A
s a high school lan-
guage arts teacher
who has taught in a
predominantly African Amer-
ican school, I’ve witnessed the
suspensions, expulsions, and
overrepresentation of Black
males in special education
classes for more than 40 years.
In The New Jim Crow: Mass In-
carceration in the Age of Color-
blindness, Michelle Alexander
tells readers that the number
of African Americans in pris-
on, jail, or on probation today
is greater than the number of
African Americans enslaved
in 1850; in 2004, there were
more African American men
who could not vote because
of felony disenfranchisement
laws than in 1870, when Black
people were explicitly denied
the right to vote based on race.
The vulnerability of Black JORDIN ISLIP
males came home for me some
years ago when I co-taught a handful of young, men, I witnessed the intersection between children
mostly African American male 9th graders. Their surprised by the racism that their brown bodies
ability to get crossways with teachers and security brought them, like the unwanted attraction of yel-
guards troubled me. Their stories of stops by police low jackets to a barbecue, and the tough-boy masks
officers weren’t new, but in these boys-turning-into- they created to survive. As I listened to their stories,

CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US 71

I thought about the Daniel Beaty poem that laments ers who have come to bear what Brent Staples calls
the “lost brilliance of the Black men who crowd pris- the “unwieldy inheritances” of stereotypes. Adi-
on cells,” and I thought about my moral obligation chie’s and Staples’ work become models for students
to tap into this injustice, this birthplace of anger and learning to write a personal essay, using vignettes
rage, to expose it and validate students’ experienc- (small stories) from their lives as evidence.
es. But if I unleashed this As an introduction to
rage and pain, I knew I the assignment, I tell sto-
had the parallel moral ob- I thought about my moral ries about how people have
ligation to teach students made assumptions about
obligation to tap into this
how to navigate a society me because I taught at pre-
that discriminates against injustice, this birthplace of dominantly Black Jeffer-
them and to teach them anger and rage, to expose it and son High School. During
how others have dealt validate students’ experiences. the almost three decades
with these injustices. So I I taught at Jefferson, I fre-
designed a curriculum to quently found myself de-
address the needs of these Black youth, and also the fending the school. When I won teaching awards,
needs of all my students who feel singled out because folks would come up to me and say, “Now maybe
of a defining feature that turns them into a target. you can get a job at a good school.” When I held af-
Creating assignments that do the double duty of ter-school workshops at Jefferson, I was warned that
teaching students to read and write while also exam- no one would come because they didn’t want to be in
ining the ways race and class function in our society the neighborhood after dark.
is absolutely fundamental today. As I write this arti- I read my students the beginning of a vignette
cle—to discuss an assignment that pushes students essay that I wrote on the topic:
to analyze how their lives have been shaped by the
“single stories” told about them—I am also writing to “I don’t understand how you could walk into
talk back to the galloping standardization movement that building day after day for 22 years,” the
that expects all students to reach higher standards older woman standing at the copier told me. “I
through uniform readings that either bore them or have to go in there once a week, and I fear for
have little relevance in their lives. When students are my life every time I walk up those stairs. All of
pulled from police cars, followed in stores, or sus- those Black boys with their hoodlum clothes—
pended for refusing to obey ridiculous orders, our sweatshirt hoods pulled up over their heads,
job as teachers must be to produce a curriculum that baggy pants—I’m afraid they’re going to knock
demonstrates that they are not alone and not crazy. me down the steps and steal my purse.”
At the same time, we must give them tools to disman-
tle those mistaken assumptions. I choose the Jefferson story because our school
is a joy and burden that we share. Jefferson is per-
Single Stories and ceived by many—some newspapers, some neigh-
Unwieldy Inheritances bors, some students and/or teachers from other
“The Danger of a Single Story,” the title of this read- schools—to be a failing school, and a dangerous
ing and writing assignment, comes from a talk by one. Students know the litany of supposed “sins” of
Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie that is part Jefferson: Students are not smart, girls get pregnant
of the TED series. “The single story creates stereo- early, students fight, bathrooms aren’t safe, students
types,” Adichie says, “and the problem with stereo- bring weapons to school, kids in gangs go to Jeffer-
types is not that they are untrue, but that they are son, teachers are weak.
incomplete. They make one story become the only
story.” I have adapted and recreated the lesson in a Exploring Vignettes
number of classroom situations over the years as I’ve Once I have established the idea of a “single story,”
come to appreciate the vulnerability of all teenag- I start the lesson by reading Brent Staples’ power-

72 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

ful essay, “Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders
His Power to Alter Public Space.” In this article,
originally published in Ms. magazine in 1986, Sta-
ples discusses “the unwieldy inheritance” he came
into—“the ability to alter public space in ugly
ways”—with his presence as an African American
man. It both saddens and enrages me that in the
nearly three decades since its first publication, Sta-
ples’ story is still relevant. Throughout the essay, he
shares vignettes of times when he was identified as
a threat:
The fearsomeness mistakenly attributed to me
in public places often has a flavor. The most
frightening of these confusions occurred in the
late 1970s and early 1980s, when I worked as
a journalist in Chicago. One day, rushing into
the office of a magazine I was writing for with
a deadline story in hand, I was mistaken for a
burglar. The office manager called security and,
with an ad hoc posse, pursued me through the
labyrinthine halls, nearly to my editor’s door. I
had no way of proving who I was.
He discusses the shame and humiliation—as
well as the rage—that come from being designat-
ed as a potential crim-
inal. There is “no so-
lace against the kind of We read Staples’ essay
alienation that comes of eating a gourmet meal, pausing
being ever the suspect, to savor morsels of language and
a fearsome entity with
whom pedestrians avoid
story along the way.
making eye contact.”
Staples’ essay is a writing teacher’s dream. It
provides a clear model of how to write a person-
al essay, and it illuminates a compelling topic with
which many students identify. That said, it is not
an easy read for struggling students. Before we
begin, I ask students to keep track of Staples’ vi-
gnettes in the margins of the essay—women mov-
ing away from him clutching purses to their chests
“bandolier style,” a jewelry store incident in which
the proprietor brought out a Doberman pinscher
“straining at the end of a leash” when he entered
the store. We take frequent breaks to talk about his
examples and his language and the structure of the
essay. Students share their own experiences along
CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US
the way—times strangers’ car door locks clicked
down when they walked past, times they were fol-
lowed in stores, times when white women hurried
away from them, times when teachers made as-
sumptions about their ability or intelligence based
on their skin color. We read Staples’ essay like we
are eating a gourmet meal, pausing to savor mor-
sels of language and story along the way.
Once we finish reading Staples’ piece, we watch
Adichie’s talk. Adichie, like Staples, develops her
theme, “The Danger of a Single Story,” through a se-
ries of vignettes about times when she has had a “sin-
gle story” told about her because she is from Africa.
She is charming as she regales her audience about how
people sometimes fail to distinguish her country—Ni-
geria—from the continent of Africa, how her college
roommate wanted to hear her “tribal music.” In an
opening vignette, she describes how her British colo-
nial education taught her through its book choices that
writers were white, drank ginger beer, and talked about
the weather, so when she started writing stories in ele-
mentary school, her characters were white, drank gin-
ger beer, and talked about the weather. Through these
small stories, she shows how colonial education made
African lives invisible: Their art, their language, their
literature were not seen as worthy of study. This is a
story that, unfortunately,
resonates with many U.S.
like we are students, who also expe-
rience the literary canon
as white.
Adichie also dis-
cusses times when she
has fallen into the “sin-
gle story” rut as well. Her language, like Staples’, is
beautiful and poetic. Much to my students’ chagrin,
I stop the video along the way to discuss each story.
I ask students to record how Adichie develops evi-
dence in her vignettes to support her ideas about the
danger of a single story.
Making Lists, Telling Stories
Once students have the big picture of using per-
sonal stories to create an essay about the danger of
a single story, we brainstorm the potential single
stories that people have created about us. My list
includes: Jefferson teacher, white teacher, person
over a certain age, person over a certain weight,
73
person who lives in a gentrified neighborhood.
When I create my list, I attempt to make it broad
enough so that all students can find a way into the
essay: Race, age, weight, class, gender, neighbor-
hood, and school are categories that allow most
students to find traction.
This year, students wrote about being Black
males, Black females, Latinx students at Jefferson,
poor, male dancers, boys who sag; one young
woman wrote about the danger of her hair.
After students create lists, I say, “Do you have
stories that support your topic? For example, if I’m
writing about how I was disrespected because I
taught at Jefferson, I need to give examples of times
when that happened. What stories do you have?” We
read a model that Deion Guice, a Jefferson student,
wrote when he was in the 9th grade. (As a side note,
we discuss the “N-word.” I developed an essay lesson
on this based on the NAACP’s burial of the “N-word”
and Michael Eric Dyson’s discussion and debates on
the topic several years ago. Our class policy is that
we do not say the “N-word” in class.) Deion’s model
is more accessible than either Staples’ or Adichie’s,
and it also occurs in the Jefferson neighborhood. De-
ion begins his essay with a series of questions, then
moves into his first vignette:
Why must people make me feel like I’m a
criminal? Is it because I’m 6 feet 2 inches tall
and weigh 215 pounds? Or is it because I have
a beard and look like I’m older than I am? Is it
because I’m Black?
During the summer of my 12th year,
I walked to a corner store by my house. I
went to go get something to drink. When
I walked into the store, the clerk gave me a
look as if he looked into the future and saw
me stealing something. I went to the bever-
age section to get a Coke and when I turned
around, I bumped into a white man in his
late 50s. He turned around and got one
good look at me then yelled out, “I HATE
YOU N——S!” and poured his drink on my
all-white shirt. I was surprised that, even
though I was the one who was disrespected,
the clerk and the bystanders in the store gave
me disgusted looks. The clerk yelled at me, “I
am going call the cops if you don’t leave this
74 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
store.” So I ran all the way home and cried
when I got there (I never told anyone that,
though).
In another vignette, Deion writes about an in-
cident with the police:
Friday: Game night, and we’d just won our
basketball game. My friends and I were ex-
cited and happy. After shooting hoops in the
driveway, we decided to play crackhead race.
In this game, we spin around and around until
we’re totally dizzy, then we race to see who can
get to the corner first.
When we are getting to the end of the
block, the cops pulled up and I’m thinking to
myself, this is gonna be trouble. When a cop,
a white cop at that, sees two Black teenagers
wobbling down the street, that’s a bad start
from the get-go.
The cops stepped out of the car, walked
up to us, and asked if we knew what time it was.
I said, “Yes, it’s 11:45.” I was reaching
into my pocket to get my ID. Without hesi-
tation, the cop pulls out his gun and puts it to
my head. At this point, I don’t know what to
do. I’m just frozen. I’m speechless.
My friends are yelling at the cop, say-
ing, “What are you doing?” The cop cusses at
them. Tears of anger come out of my eyes and
burn my face …
After the cop leaves, I stomp down the
street armed with my anger, and as I turn the
corner, I bumped into one of John’s neighbors.
When I look at him, I picture the cop, and I go
off. I punched him two times until he drops.
John came and got me off him. I didn’t sleep
that night.
Deion’s essay provokes testimonies. Several
African American juniors—Terry, Daniel, and
Kurt—tell parallel stories to Deion’s. Latina/o
students—Marcos, Maria, and Juanita—bring in
slightly different versions. Their stories are more
about “Are you legal?” and “Do you speak English?”
and “When will you get pregnant and drop out?”
The classroom erupts with tales of being followed
or fielding comments about their hair or weight or
gang affiliation—and this year, many stories about
being disrespected as a Jeffersonian.
I find it is important to pause at this point in
the assignment because, as I mentioned earlier, we
are not only learning to write essays, we are explor-
ing how students feel disrespected and discriminat-
ed against because of their identity—topics that are
not always discussed in school.
Through the conversation about these painful
accounts, I want to cement the
idea that these accusations,
these “unwieldy inheritances,” The act of raising the
are not only wrong, but also
issues and talking about
dangerous misconceptions
that we need to counter. The them helps take the
act of raising the issues and out of the wounds.
talking about them helps take
the sting out of the wounds:
“Oh, how great that you are still in school. Most Mex-
ican girls drop out and get pregnant by the time they
are your age.” We answer, “How dare someone say
that to you?”
Once we’ve raised the stories and discussed
them, I ask students to write one vignette, one of
their stories. We look back at the models—Brent
Staples’ and Deion Guice’s. “What do you notice
about the way they wrote this vignette?” I ask. In
the language of the Oregon Writing Project, we call
this “raising the bones” of the model. When stu-
dents look at model essays, I want them to recog-
nize how the writing is structured, so when they
have a new essay, narrative, or poem to write, their
understanding of the “bones” or skeleton of the
model piece will help them enter their own. In this
case, students notice that the vignettes are short—
just a paragraph; that they sometimes have the ele-
ments of a narrative—dialogue, characters, setting;
that they make their point quickly. They also notice
that the first paragraph, the introduction, frames
the rest of the vignettes, setting up the idea for the
essay. If they don’t notice, I nudge them to pay at-
tention to the transitions between the paragraphs,
how the writer weaves the separate stories into one
essay. For example, in the excerpt from Staples, his
transition ties back to his thesis statement about
Black men in public places, and moves the reader
into the time and place of the vignette he is prepar-
ing to share:
CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US
The fearsomeness mistakenly attributed to
me in public places often has a perilous flavor.
The most frightening of these confusions oc-
curred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when
I worked as a journalist in Chicago.
Modeling: Sharing the First Vignette
Because I believe in the power of students’ writing to
provide great models for their classmates, I try to end
our first writing session with a
brief reading from those who
caught some fire on their first
draft. As students share their
first vignettes, their pieces
sting help the stuck student, the
couldn’t-find-a-topic student,
the I-don’t-know-where-to-
start student out of their help-
less state better than my talks. For example, Desi
Barksdale wrote about the single story of Jefferson:
I looked out the window at Alberta Street
passing by. I watched the barbershops blur
with the record stores, the houses with the
boarded-up windows and graffiti mix with the
organic produce markets.
I was so deep in thought that I didn’t
notice a boy with dark curly hair and small
brown eyes slide into the seat in front of me,
I didn’t notice when he turned around and
stared at me, I almost didn’t even notice when
he started talking.
“What?” I took the headphone out of my
left ear and frowned at him.
He laughed, “I said, what’s your name,
cutie?”
“Oh. Desi.”
“That’s a nice name, Desi. You go to
school around here?”
I took the other headphone out of my
ear. “Yeah, Jefferson.”
He let out a whistle, real low and long.
“Jefferson,” he repeated. Then he laughed.
“What’s a white girl like you doing going to a
n—— school like Jefferson?”
“Excuse me?”
I couldn’t believe he just said that! I was
so surprised that someone could have the
75
 audacity to say something so racist, so ste-
reotypical, so wrong. I couldn’t even imagine
thinking that narrow-mindedly, and here this
boy was spitting out that garbage about my
school.
Melissa Ferguson wrote about the stereotypes
of young, Black women—from being in gangs, to
getting pregnant early, to leading tragic lives, to be-
ing illiterate. Her vignette sets the stage:
I had just got out of a hard day of practice and
my mom called and said, “You have to catch the
bus home because I will not be able to get there
in time from work.” So I walked down to the
bus stop pissed off, sore, cold, tired, and hun-
gry. Sitting at the bus stop for almost 15 min-
utes, a woman that is there every time that I’m
there sits next to me and we begin to small talk.
“It’s raining hard out tonight, huh?”
“Yeah, and it’s really cold too,” I say.
“Yes it is. Do you go to the school down
the street from here?” she asks.
“Yes, I just got out of practice,” I say.
“Oh, really, what sport do you play?”
“I run track.”
“Oh that’s good, you look like you are
very athletic and can run really fast.”
“Yeah, I love it, it helps me release my
stress.”
“That’s good. Track was always my fa-
vorite sport, but let me ask you this: Is Jeff a
gang-related school?”
“NOOOOOOOO, why?”
“Oh well, it’s just every time I see you,
you got on blue, and isn’t blue a gang color?”
“Yes, it is!”
“Are you a gang member?”
“No, I just love the color blue. I get good
grades in school and am doing a sport and also
working. I have no time to gangbang and be in
the streets. I’ve seen too many of the people
that were near and dear to me lose their life to
a bullet from gangbanging and that’s not how
I am deciding to live my life, always in fear of
me and my family and what they will do to us,
due to the fact that I bang a certain hood that
they don’t like.”
76 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
She nods and looks out to the street.
“Well, here is the bus; you’re a smart kid, keep
your head up,” she says.
I walk on the bus after her with a feel-
ing that I proved once again that someone
who looks at me thinks because I’m Black
and young that I am a good-for-nothing
troublemaker.
In this first share, typically during the last 10
minutes of a 90-minute class, I want students to get
the feel of writing vignettes—from the use of dia-
logue and setting to the power of a short story to
evoke the larger idea of what it means to be young
and Black, or white and poor, or a student who chose
to come to Jefferson. But I also use these first-draft
readings to point out elements that I want students
to put in their essays. At the end of Melissa’s vignette,
for example, she sums up her experience by stating
how she felt as a result of this exchange at the bus
stop, “I proved once again that someone who looks
at me thinks because I’m Black and young that I am
a good-for-nothing troublemaker.” I tell students
this is one way to land the ending of the vignette—to
state how the incident makes you feel.
Writing and Revising Vignettes
Over the course of a two-week period, students
write, type, share, and revise their essays. Students’
vignettes become mentor texts for the students who
come late, miss class, or need another nudge in or-
der to move forward. If a student is stuck on a part,
I send them to talk with a student who knows how
to navigate the stories, the opening, the transition,
or the conclusion.
Let me confess: This is a messy process. Our
students exhibit diverse skill levels. A few have al-
ready passed college-level writing courses taught at
the community college across the street, others are
emergent bilingual learners or have learning dis-
abilities, so the timeline stretches, as do our expec-
tations. I conference with students who have strong
essay writing skills about sentence structure, using
stronger verbs, or refining their vignettes. For strug-
gling students, we focus on the big idea of essay: in-
troduction, evidence through story, and conclusion.
Everyone revises. For all students, we discuss their
stories and talk through the issues that erupt from
their vignettes. This is how untracked classes work.
As the director of the Oregon Writing Proj-
ect, I find that teachers sometimes initially come to
our writing institutes expecting that we know how
to fix students’ writing problems. We do. And we
don’t. Writing takes time. Students don’t get it all at
once. There’s no miracle except this: Give students
meaningful assignments that they want to write and
revise. When I interviewed a group of Latina/o and
African American juniors after one of our first es-
says, I said, “I noticed at some point you stopped
doing this because it was an assignment, and you
became passionate about writing the essay.” Their
answer: We got to write about issues that were real
in our lives, and someone listened and cared.
So What?
Ultimately, I use Staples’ essay—and the vignette es-
say assignment—not only because of its relevance,
but because Staples provides insights into how he
has dealt with his “unwieldy inheritance”:
Over the years, I learned to smother the rage
I felt at so often being taken for a criminal.
Not to do so would surely have led to mad-
ness. I now take precautions to make myself
less threatening. I move about with care,
particularly late in the evening. I give a wide
berth to nervous people on subway platforms
during the wee hours, particularly when I
have exchanged business clothes for jeans.
If I happen to be entering a building behind
some people who appear skittish, I may walk
by, letting them clear the lobby before I return,
so as not to seem to be following them. I have
been calm and extremely congenial on those
rare occasions when I’ve been pulled over by
the police.
And on late-evening constitutionals,
I employ what has proved to be an excellent
tension-reducing measure: I whistle melodies
from Beethoven and Vivaldi and the more
popular classical composers. Even steely New
Yorkers hunching toward nighttime destina-
tions seem to relax, and occasionally they even
join in the tune. Virtually everybody seems
to sense that a mugger wouldn’t be warbling
bright, sunny selections from Vivaldi’s Four
CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US
Seasons. It is my equivalent of the cowbell that
hikers wear when they know they are in bear
country.
I abhor the fact that my students must create
“precautions” to keep themselves safe, but I also
know the alternative, as multiple murders of Black
men have sadly exemplified. So far, no one has start-
ed whistling Vivaldi in class, but over the course of
the year, students have learned both the danger of
a single story that others have created about them,
and the value of reclaiming their own identity. As
Troy states at the end of his essay:
As a Black male in America, I never let my
guard down to racism. Because if I do, it will
smack me right in the face. We are easily
stereotyped and people automatically think
we are up to no good. One thing I will nev-
er do is try to flip out on people because that
would only prove them right about us. When
encountering racism, I just move on with my
life, so I will stop being affected by other peo-
ple’s portrayals of me.
Of course, this writing assignment is not
enough to save our children. Not wearing hoodies
isn’t enough, not walking in neighborhoods where
their presence is seen as a threat isn’t enough. Even
ending the “Stand Your Ground” law in Florida is
not enough. As schoolteachers, we must use the
tools we have—stories and history—to teach stu-
dents that the only way change happens is when
people come together and act. Z
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
Adichie, Chimamanda. “The Danger of a Single Story.” Presented at
TEDGlobal 2009. Oxford, England, July 2009. Available: youtube.
com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg
Alexander, Michelle. 2012. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in
the Age of Colorblindness. The New Press.
Staples, Brent. 1986. “Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His
Power to Alter Public Space.” Ms. 15:54.
77
u SAMPLE ESSAYS
A Single Story
by Deion Guice
Why must people make me feel like I’m a criminal?
Is it because I’m 6 feet 2 inches tall and weigh 215
pounds? Or is it because I have a beard and look like
I’m older than I am? Is it because I’m Black?
During the summer of my 12th year, I walked to
a corner store by my house. I went to go get something
to drink. When I walked into the store, the clerk gave
me a look as if he looked into the future and saw me
stealing something. I went to the beverage section to
get a Coke and when I turned around, I bumped into
a white man in his late 50s. He turned around and got
one good look at me, then yelled out, “I HATE YOU
N——S!” and poured his drink on my all-white shirt.
I was surprised that even though I was the one who
was disrespected, the clerk and the bystanders in the
store gave me disgusted looks. The clerk yelled at me,
“I am going call the cops if you don’t leave this store.”
So I ran all the way home and cried when I got there
(I never told anyone that though).
On Sept. 26, 2008, my football team and I went
down to play Marshfield High School in Coos Bay,
Oregon. Before we even started the game, the refs
talked to all the players and coaches on Marshfield’s
side and just mean mugged our team. We started
the game, and from the start, the refs called a whole
bunch of phantom calls. They called back every sin-
gle touchdown we got. One time I was on defense
and I sacked the quarterback, and when I attempted
to get up, the running back on Marshfield stepped
on my hand with his cleat. I stood up quickly, try-
ing to talk to the ref as calmly as possible, “Ref! Did
you just see that?” He took out his yellow flag and
threatened to call a penalty on me if I didn’t shut up,
so I did. Even though we lost that game, I personally
don’t think it was because they were better than us.
In another incident, I went down to Eugene,
Oregon, for a basketball tournament last spring. Af-
ter our first game, my basketball team and I went to
the mall, and a couple of white girls came up to us
asking if we could rap for them. Now I’m guessing
they asked this of us because my team and I are all
Black, so I turned around and looked at my team-
mates, and I gave my friend Andrew the cue. He
started making banjo sounds with his mouth as if
he were actually playing one, then the whole team
78 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
started singing, “O my darling, o my darling.”
The most troublesome episode included the
police. Friday: Game night, and we’d just won our
basketball game. My friends and I were excited and
happy. After shooting hoops in the driveway, we de-
cided to play “crackhead race.” In this game, we spin
around and around until we’re totally dizzy, then we
race to see who can get to the corner first.
When we are getting to the end of the block,
the cops pull up and I’m thinking to myself, this is
gonna be trouble. When a cop, a white cop at that,
sees two Black teenagers wobbling down the street,
that’s a bad start from the get-go.
The cops stepped out of the car, walked up to
us, and asked if we knew what time it was.
I said, “Yes, it’s 11:45.” I was reaching into my
pocket to get my ID. Without hesitation, the cop pulls
out his gun and puts it to my head. At this point, I
don’t know what to do. I’m just frozen. I’m speechless.
My friends are yelling at the cop, saying, “What
are you doing?” The cop cusses at them. Tears of an-
ger come out of my eyes and burn my face.
After the cop leaves, I stomp down the street
armed with my anger, and as I turn the corner, I
bump into one of John’s neighbors. When I look at
him, I picture the cop, and I go off. I punch him two
times until he drops. John came and got me off him.
I didn’t sleep that night.
Yes, I’m young. I’m Black. And in this society,
I’m a target.
Hair
by Uriah Boyd
My mom always had a hard time getting me to sit
still long enough. Combs frightened me, brushes
were useless, and the very thought of somebody
touching my scalp angered me. Even as a little girl,
I did not like people touching my hair. I would kick
and scream and cry for hours. “Tender-headed,” my
mother called it. But now, looking back, I think I
was just genuinely stubborn.
Early one morning when I was about 6 years
old, I shuffled out of my bedroom and into the kitch-
en. My mother was leaning on the counter on the
phone, but at hearing the sounds of my footsteps, she
turned and looked me up and down. My legs were
dry and ashy, my pajama pants were all bunched
up—one at my knee and the other in the middle of
my thigh. I had on an undersized T-shirt so my bel-
ly stuck out at the bottom, and atop my head was a
matted something that more closely resembled tum-
bleweed than hair. “Oh, Riah,” she said, chuckling.
She spoke into the telephone, “Girl, Imma call you
back.” She hung up the phone and tended to the eggs
that were sizzling away in the skillet.
I lifted my hand to scratch my head, but found
that my index finger was trapped in a snare of en-
tangled hair. I tried to wrestle it free by twisting my
finger back and forth, back and forth, but that was
not sufficient. With my free hand, I held down my
hair and yanked my enslaved finger free. With it
came a few stubborn strands of hair, but I simply
flicked them away and watched them float down to
the kitchen floor.
I glanced up and found my mother’s eyes fixed
on me in disbelief.
“Uriah,” she muttered, almost in fear, “we’ve
gotta do something about your hair, baby.”
My hair has never really been consistent. It
seemed that it was always changing more quickly
than I could adapt, and it took countless bad hair
days for me to grow somewhat accustomed to its
pattern. My mother told me that I had beautiful hair.
That some women would pay millions to have hair
as thick as mine and that I should be grateful that
I inherited the genes that she did not. I, however,
considered it a curse that atop my head was a coarse,
nappy, ever-changing mess of hair.
CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US
All throughout elementary and middle school,
students in my classes were amazed by the versatil-
ity of my hair. Some days my mother would braid
it, tying barrettes around the roots and ends, and
other days it would be in tiny little twisties. Even
the Black girls had questions about it—disregarding
an unspoken rule of Black culture to never inquire
about another Black person’s hair. Even some teach-
ers let their curiosity get the best of them.
One day in 8th grade, I arrived at school about
two hours late because of a dentist appointment.
I walked into a class discussion about how long it
takes students to get ready in the morning; shower-
ing, getting dressed, eating breakfast, etc. A friend
of mine, Mitchell, had the floor. Despite my efforts
to close the door silently, it slammed shut at the last
second. Everyone turned and looked at me. Mitch-
ell, abandoning the sentence he had just started, said
to me, “Uriah how long does it take you to get ready
in the morning? With hair like yours, I’m surprised
that you even make it to school on time!”
Hair like mine? What was that supposed to
mean? I stood in silence for a moment, contemplat-
ing the many ways in which I could respond. Sud-
denly though, the entire classroom filled with an
incomprehensible blend of questions, statements,
and observations about my hair. My classmates
were treating me like some animal in a zoo. I looked
across the room to my teacher, hoping for some re-
lief from this pressure. She stood and began walking
in my direction. “Class, settle down now.” She came
to my side and placed her hands on my shoulders.
“This is not a discussion about Uriah. However, I’m
sure she wouldn’t mind answering a few questions,
would you, Uriah.” The way she punctuated that
sentence made it a statement, not a question. And
plus, I was already two hours late for school so I felt
like I owed her.
“I guess not,” I muttered. Hands immediately
shot up around the classroom. But Ms. King decid-
ed that the importance of her question surpassed
that of my peers.
“So, Uriah, would you say that your hair is …”
she trailed off as if searching for the word that she
wanted to use. I could see that it was on the tip of her
tongue, “… nappy?”
I heard faint gasps and muffled giggles around
the room. The air was still and time seemed to freeze
79
as everybody waited for my response. My palms
were growing sweaty and my face was hot. Again,
I contemplated the ways in which I could respond
and the outcomes of those responses. “You know,”
I began, without really realizing that I was speak-
ing, “I would say that my hair is nappy. I would also
say that my hair is curly and thick and versatile. But
you know, since this is a classroom, wouldn’t you
say that we should be focusing on what’s inside my
head, as opposed to on top of it?” I didn’t pause for
a response. “My hair is a lot of things. But I am not
my hair.”
I’d like to think that after that day, everyone in
that class saw me a little differently. I certainly did.
My entire life, I’d put so much time and energy into
the upkeep of my hair, but never did I ask myself
why it was so important to me. Once I switched my
focus onto what I was putting inside my head, as
opposed to on it, my hair seemed to comply much
more easily. Of course, I still have my bad hair days,
but remembering that my hair is only a small reflec-
tion of who I am keeps me from placing too much
importance on the way I look. The way I see it, if I
work to make myself as great of a person as I know
I can be, I’ll never feel ugly. Beauty works from the
inside out.

80 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 Talking Back
Teaching “what the mirror said”

I
love the story that prompt-
ed Lucille Clifton’s poem,
“what the mirror said.”
During an interview, Clifton
told the story of visiting her
husband when he was teach-
ing at Harvard. She was in
Cambridge Square and looked
around and “everyone was 18
and thin.” She said, “I felt like a
woman in a world of girls.” So
she wrote this sassy poem in ad-
miration of herself.
In the poem, Clifton looks
into a mirror and says, “listen,
you a wonder./you a city of a
woman./you got a geography
of your own./listen, somebody
need a map to understand you./
somebody need directions to
move around you.” She praises
the fullness of her body and not
only reclaims her right to be in
the world, but establishes that
she is intricate and complex be-
cause someone would “need di-
DAMON LOCKS
rections” to know her. Alluding
to the story Clifton told in the interview, she pushes “you a wonder” instead of “you are a wonder.” She
back against her sense of being out of place, “a wom- drops the “s” on third-person verbs: “somebody
an in a world of girls,” by claiming her womanhood need a map” instead of “somebody needs a map.”
as a distinction set against girlhood: “listen, woman, This use of the oral language legitimizes the home
you not a noplace anonymous girl.” language many of my students speak or hear in their
In addition, Clifton writes in the language of families. Try putting this poem in “standard” En-
her people: African American Vernacular English, glish, and the sassiness and rhythm are lost.
otherwise known as Black English or Ebonics. She Even before our class talks about standards
drops the “to be” linking verb throughout the poem: of beauty and materialism in the “Unlearning the

CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US 81

Myths that Bind Us” unit (see p. 49), I create as-
signments like Clifton’s poem to give students per-
mission to criticize commercially produced images
about the way they should look, sound, or act. In
writing about themselves, students learn to praise
their beauty that the world overlooks or cannot see,
especially if they are not white, thin, wealthy, and
English speaking. Teenagers are especially vulnera-
ble to slights about their image, so getting them to
channel their inner sassy self by talking back to a
society that tells them they are too thick or too thin,
too dark or too light, too
loud or too quiet, too curly In writing about themselves,
or too straight, too mascu-
line or too feminine is part students
of my role as a teacher. their beauty that the world
Plus, kids love to talk back, overlooks or cannot see.
and this puts that outrage
to good use.
Lucille Clifton may have died a few years ago,
but she is alive in my classroom. I use her “homage
to my hips” in the same kind of way I use “what the
mirror said” (see p. 81). Sometimes these are stand-
alone assignments, slipped in between units or on
those weeks cut short by snow or testing or whatev-
er other ways administration saws apart my careful-
ly constructed plans. Other times, this assignment
is part of The Color Purple, gender studies, cartoon,
or language units or any other place where a charac-
ter—real or imagined—needs to learn to love them-
selves after being torn down.
Teaching Strategy
I begin by reading the poem out loud to students,
or I cue up Lucille Clifton’s The Writing Life inter-
view with Roland Flint and let students hear her
voice reading the poem. Then I open the discussion
by asking, “What do you like about this poem?” or
“What is going on this poem?” After the students
talk about the poem, I ask, “Clifton needs to talk
back to a standard of beauty and womanhood that
makes her feel like an outsider. What are some
things people your age need to talk back to today?”
As students talk, I begin constructing a list on the
document camera: weight, hair, clothes, etc.
Then I say, “In this poem, Clifton praises her-
self. She talks about what’s right about her body. I
want to share a few of my former students’ poems
82 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
and see how they took the spirit of Clifton’s poem
and created their own.” We read Curtina Barr’s poem
“What the Mirror Said” (p. 84) and notice the way
she uses the same frame as Clifton, looking into the
mirror and praising her color, her body: “Yo’ skin
the color of coffee/after the cream’s been poured in./
Yo’ body’s just the right size—/not too plump,/not
too thin.” We also talk about the way Curtina, like
Clifton, uses home language in her poem. I encour-
age students to do the same in theirs.
After reading Chetan Patel’s poem “Tiger Eyes”
(p. 84), we look at how his
opening parallels Clifton’s
poem and then how he lifts
learn to praise off and moves in his own
direction by discussing his
heritage. “I look into a mir-
ror/and watch the history
inside of me/flood out./I
see the Kshatriya warrior,/sword in hand,/the Sudra
laborer,/working hard at his feet.” Chetan uses the
repeating line “I see” to tell the story of his people. I
love this adaptation of Clifton’s original piece.
We read the other two student poems, “I’m
Here!” and “Stand Up” (p. 85) to demonstrate how
students have taken the defiant tone of Clifton’s
model without using her opening frame of looking
in a mirror.
Every poem I teach feeds two birds with one
hand. In this assignment, I want students to defy a
society that attempts to demean them in any kind
of way, but I also want to seed for them a way of
looking at and reading poetry that will keep them
reading and writing after they leave my class. By
teaching them to look for the poetic hooks, patterns,
content, and tones in poetry, they take with them
not one poem, but hopefully a future where defiance
and poetry continue to live on long after the last bell
rings in our classroom. Z
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
Clifton, Lucille. 2012. The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton
1965–2010. Edited by Kevin Young and Michael S. Glaser. BOA
Editions Ltd.
The Writing Life: Lucille Clifton. Sept 1991. Howard County
Poetry and Literature Society. Available: youtube.com/
watch?v=PPr6EOggzm0&feature=youtu.be&t=1366.
 what the mirror said
by Lucille Clifton

Lucille Clifton listen,

you a wonder.
you a city
of a woman.
you got a geography
of your own.
listen,
somebody need a map
to understand you.
somebody need directions
to move around you.
listen,
woman,
you not a noplace
anonymous
girl;
mister with his hands on you
he got his hands on
some
damn
body!

From The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton. Copyright © 1987, 1991 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted with the
permission of The Permissions Company Inc. on behalf of BOA Editions Ltd., boaeditions.org.

CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US 83

u SAMPLE POEMS

What the Mirror Said—

In admiration of Lucille Clifton’s poetry
by Curtina Barr

The mirror told me,

“Yo’ skin the color of coffee
after the cream’s been poured in.
Yo’ body’s just the right size—
not too plump,
not too thin.
Yo’ lips like cotton candy
sweet and soft.
Yo’ sho’ done good. Tiger Eyes
Yo’ like a city, by Chetan Patel
strong and tall,
though deep in yo’ eyes I look into a mirror
I can still see yo’ pain, and watch the history inside of me
yo’ smile and laugh. flood out.
Keep doin’ yo’ thang. I see the Kshatriya warrior,
sword in hand,
the Sudra laborer,
working hard at his feet.
I see the stories passed
under the Banyan tree
and the cleansing Ganges,
slicing down the Himalayas.
I see the village Panchayat,
the Lok Sabha,
the House of People.
I see the deep-fried samosas,
full of carrots and peas,
wrapped in flour,
ready to eat.
I see the river flooding
in the monsoons,
the locus lying
in the fields of Jammu.
I see the tiger eyes
waiting in the high grass,
for me to come back
and relive the past.

84 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

I’m Here!
by Christine Leone

I may not be a size 6 or have blond hair,

but I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.
I might not have blue eyes or long legs to match,
but let me tell you something:
I am a good catch. Stand Up
I don’t need your approval. by Lulu Garfield
I don’t need your consent.
I do what I want without my head bent. Stand up, oh breaking girl.
Take a look at yourself,
I live my life only for myself because it is true find your strength and beam.
life wouldn’t be worth living You are not alone,
if my soul belonged to you. but you stand apart.
Let a tear fall or two
My struggles and my problems and taste it, the taste of you.
you don’t need to understand. Tastes like fire and joy,
They fill my life with a colorful pride, knowledge and wisdom.
so strong is how I stand.
Stand up, oh shattered girl.
Once again I tell you Be proud of who you are.
with my feet planted I’m standing tall. You are ancient,
I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. always have been,
always will be, girl.
Shining in people’s faces, too bright to see,
a descendent of the tribe
that fights for beauty.

Stand up, oh beautiful girl

and see what you have.
Don’t doubt your power,
you redheaded girl.
Stand up!

CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US 85

 The Poetry of Protest
Teaching Martín Espada
T
ony tossed the Tootsie Roll paper over his
shoulder as he entered my room. “I’m not
your mama, Tony. Pick up that mess.”
“Ms. Christensen, the custodians are paid
to clean up. If I didn’t leave anything on the floor,
they’d lose their jobs.”
Ruthie Griffin, the custodian, would disagree.
But Ruthie, like Marlene Grieves, the cafeteria
worker who serves them lunch, is largely invisible
to students. Their brooms or spatulas might as well
be held by robots. That’s one reason why I teach the
poetry of Martín Espada in my classroom.
Espada’s poetry is a weapon for justice in a so-
ciety that oppresses people who aren’t white, who
don’t speak English, whose work as janitors and mi-
grant laborers is exploited. His poetry teaches stu-
dents about the power of language—both Spanish
and English—and he makes “invisible” workers vis-
ible. What Espada writes about Pablo Neruda’s po-
etry is also true of his own: “[T]he poet demanded
dignity for the commonplace subject, commanding
86 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
respect for things and peo-
ple normally denied such
respect.”
I want to introduce
students to writers like Es-
pada, whose art speaks out
against injustice, as well as
give them the tools to write
their own poems of empa-
thy and outrage.
A while back, Espada
refused an ad agency’s of-
fer to produce a poem for
RAM DEVINENI Nike TV commercials that
would air during the 1998
Winter Olympics. The Progressive magazine pub-
lished Espada’s letter to the agency listing the rea-
sons he refused Nike’s poet-for-hire offer:
I could reject your offer based on the fact that
your deadline is ludicrous … A poem is not a
Pop-Tart.
I could reject your offer based on the
fact that, to make this offer to me in the first
place, you must be totally and insultingly ig-
norant of my work as a poet, which strives to
stand against all that you and your client rep-
resent. Whoever referred me to you did you a
grave disservice.
I could reject your offer based on the fact
that your client Nike has—through commer-
cials such as these—outrageously manipulat-
ed the youth market, so that even low-income
adolescents are compelled to buy products
they do not need at prices they cannot afford.
Ultimately, however, I am rejecting your
 offer as a protest against the brutal labor prac-
tices of Nike. I will not associate myself with a
company that engages in the well-document-
ed exploitation of workers in sweatshops.
Espada’s public refusal to serve as yet another
artist-for-sale is reason enough to present his work
to students. In my curriculum, I want to highlight
writers who put their talents at the service of hu-
manity, not profits. Espada is right: Nike must be
ignorant of his work, but my students shouldn’t be.
I use Espada’s poetry, in English and Spanish,
to teach students how to use metaphors and how
to write a “persona poem,” but I also teach Espada’s
poetry and letter because he shows how to make
visible the work of those who toil in physical labor.
For example, in his poem “Jorge the Church Jan-
itor Finally Quits,” Espada writes from a janitor’s
perspective:
No one can speak
my name,
I host the fiesta
of the bathroom,
stirring the toilet
like a punchbowl.
The Spanish music of my name
is lost
when the guests complain
about toilet paper.
Espada’s poem reminds us that part of the po-
litical work of poetry is shaking people awake, mak-
ing them look at the world and at people with a new
awareness.
In Rethinking Our Classrooms, the editors
write about the need to ground our teaching in our
students’ lives; equip students to “talk back” to the
world; pose essential questions; and be multicul-
tural, anti-racist, and pro-justice, as well as partic-
ipatory, joyful, activist, academically rigorous, and
culturally sensitive: “A social justice curriculum
must strive to include the lives of all those in our so-
ciety, especially the marginalized and dominated.”
Many of my students’ parents work in the ser-
vice industry—as custodians, waitresses, bus driv-
ers. I want this poetry lesson to bring respect to
their lives as well. Too often, I have witnessed coun-
CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US
selors or teachers point to this kind of work as the
reason to stay in school, teaching students to look
down or feel shame for their parents’ work. “If you
don’t want to pump gas or flip burgers for the rest
of your life …”
Teaching students to respect the custodian
who mops their halls, the short-order cook who
makes their tacos, or the field worker who picks
their strawberries should be a part of our critical
classrooms. Martín Espada’s poetry includes the
lives of the marginalized, giving them dignity—but
also demanding justice.
Teaching Strategy
1. Prior to reading Espada’s letter to Nike, I ask stu-
dents if they would ever turn down money if it com-
promised their beliefs. What are some examples?
Then I read Espada’s letter and discuss why some-
one would give up a chance to earn $2,500. Would it
really be such a big deal if he let them use his poem?
What does he stand to lose by not agreeing to write
a poem for them? What does he gain? Why did he
make his letter public? I tell students, “We are going
to return to this letter after we read a couple of Es-
pada’s poems. I want you to think about why Espada
refused Nike’s offer.”
2. We read “Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits”
in both languages. (This validates students who
speak Spanish and also locates writing in the broad-
er linguistic world. I encourage students who speak
more than one language to write in either or both
languages.)
3. Once we have read the poem, I ask some open-
ing discussion questions: Who is the narrator of the
poem? How do people treat Jorge? What evidence
in the poem tells us that? What does he compare the
mop to? What does Espada want us to know about
Jorge? How do we learn that? What do we learn
about Espada?
4. Then I distribute “Federico’s Ghost,” Espada’s
poem that depicts a toxic spray on the farm crops
and the effects on workers, especially children.
“Read over the poem and make marginal notes.
What do we learn about Federico? What happened
to him? What does this poem have in common with
87
the Jorge poem? What do you learn about the poet?”
After students write individual notes, I put them in
small groups. Each group has a copy of “Federico’s
Ghost” taped to the center of a large sheet of paper.
I tell students, “Begin with a silent dialogue. Write
your notes on the paper, but also respond to other
students’ notes.”
5. After the large papers are filled with students’ an-
notations and conversations, I say, “Now talk with
each other about the poem and about Espada.”
6. Once we have examined Espada’s poems, we re-
read his letter to Nike. I ask students to identify
evidence in the poems that indicates why Espada
would turn down Nike’s money. Espada wrote, “You
must be totally and insultingly ignorant of my work
as a poet.” I ask the students, “What ideas in Es-
pada’s work talk back to Nike’s view of the world?
Write for 10 minutes, using evidence from his po-
ems in your answer.” This is a quick write meant to
saturate students in the poems and review how to
use evidence to support a claim, but also to help
them understand that poetry can be political. Espa-
da’s poetry sends up an alarm about the treatment
of workers.
Writing Poems About Workers
1. To begin this poetry assignment, we read two
students’ poems about invisible workers—“Mr.
Ruffle” by Rachel Fox and “Two Young Women”
by Deidre Barry (p. 91)—to see how they brought
workers to life. “For this assignment, we are looking
at how to make visible work that is often invisible.
Espada does this with Jorge. How does Rachel Fox
do that in her poem? What details about working in
a potato chip factory does she show us?” We do the
same close reading of “Two Young Women,” exam-
ining how details of the worker’s life are imagined—
bleeding fingers, sewing on the swoosh, etc.
2. After we’ve read and discussed the student mod-
el poems, I ask students to make a list of “invisible
workers” they know whom they could make visible:
for example, hotel maids, strawberry harvesters, the
seamstress who sewed their shirt or blouse. A few
students share their lists to help stumped classmates
find a topic.
88 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
3. Because many students in Portland have experi-
enced picking berries, sometimes for money in the
summer, sometimes with their families on a mission
to make strawberry ice cream or jam, I choose berry
picking as a model for our work. “When we write
these poems, we need to imagine what goes into the
work. What are some details about berry picking?”
Bunky leads the list: “Buckets tied to your waist.
You have to find a row that has berries on it.” Adele
adds, “Long rows, you have to bend over.” Another
student remembers, “They smell sweet. They stain
your fingers.” “My back started hurting after about
five minutes. Then you get down on your knees.”
I continue, “So, if we were going to write a poem
about berry picking, we would want to put in all of
those details. We would want to describe the land,
the smell of the berries, the stains.”
4. I then tell students, “Go back to your list of invis-
ible jobs and choose one. List the details that make
a reader see and feel the work.” Once students have
created their lists, I ask them to share with a partner.
“Your job,” I tell them, “is to help your partner get as
many details as possible. What details do they have
that bring the work to life? What else could go on
their list?”
5. “Find a way into your poem. Let’s remind our-
selves of the different ways that the poets we’re using
as models wrote theirs.” As a class, we quickly review
the poems: Espada wrote his about Jorge on the night
he quits. It is written in third person. He also wrote
about Federico in third person. Both poems are filled
with specific details. Rachel wrote hers as a letter to
Mr. Ruffle, reminding him of what his workers have
suffered. Deidre wrote hers as a dialogue poem, com-
paring a teenage worker’s life with someone who
bought the clothes she sewed. “Write it as a letter.
Write a poem describing the work. Go back to the
models if you get stuck.”
The next day, we read-around the poems,
making invisible work come to life, celebrating the
people—many of whom are family members—who
pick our fruit, cook and serve our food, and clean
our schools, like Ruthie Griffin. Z
Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits Por fin renuncia Jorge el conserje
by Martín Espada de la iglesia
por Martín Espada
No one asks (translated by Camilo Pérez-Bustillo and the author)
where I am from,
I must be Nadie me pregunta
from the country of janitors, de dónde soy,
I have always mopped this floor. tendré que ser
Honduras, you are a squatter’s camp de la patria de los conserjes,
outside the city siempre he trapeado este piso.
of their understanding. Honduras, eres un campamento
de desamparados
No one can speak afuera de la ciudad
my name, de su comprensión.
I host the fiesta
of the bathroom, Nadie puede decir
stirring the toilet mi nombre,
like a punchbowl. yo soy el amenizador
The Spanish music of my name de la fiesta en el baño,
is lost meneando el agua en el inodoro
when the guests complain como si fuera una ponchera.
about toilet paper. La música española de mi nombre
se pierde
What they say cuando los invitados se quejan
must be true: del papel higiénico.
I am smart,
but I have a bad attitude. Será verdad
lo que dicen:
No one knows soy listo,
that I quit tonight, pero tengo una mala actitud.
maybe the mop
will push on without me, Nadie sabe
sniffing along the floor que esta noche renuncié al puesto,
like a crazy squid quizá el trapero
with stringy gray tentacles. seguirá adelante sin mí,
They will call it Jorge. husmeando el piso
como un calamar enloquecido
con fibrosos tentáculos grises.
Lo llamarán Jorge.

“Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits” appears in Rebellion Is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands. Curbstone Press, 1990. Reprinted courtesy of the author.

CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US 89

Federico’s Ghost
by Martín Espada

The story is After Federico died,

that whole families of fruitpickers rumors at the labor camp
still crept between the furrows told of tomatoes picked and smashed at night,
of the field at dusk, growers muttering of vandal children
when for reasons of whiskey or whatever or communists in camp,
the cropduster plane sprayed anyway, first threatening to call Immigration,
floating a pesticide drizzle then promising every Sunday off
over the pickers if only the smashing of tomatoes would stop.
who thrashed like dark birds
in a glistening white net, Still tomatoes were picked and squashed
except for Federico, in the dark,
a skinny boy who stood apart and the old women in camp
in his own green row, said it was Federico,
and, knowing the pilot laboring after sundown
would not understand in Spanish to cool the burns on his arms,
that he was the son of a whore, flinging tomatoes
instead jerked his arm at the cropduster
and thrust an obscene finger. that hummed like a mosquito
lost in his ear and kept his soul awake.
The pilot understood.
He circled the plane and sprayed again,
watching a fine gauze of poison
drift over the brown bodies
that cowered and scurried on the ground,
and aiming for Federico,
leaving the skin beneath his shirt
wet and blistered,
but still pumping his finger at the sky.

“Federico’s Ghost” appears in Rebellion Is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands. Curbstone Press, 1990. Reprinted courtesy of the author.

90 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

u SAMPLE POEMS
Mr. Ruffle
by Rachel Fox
To Mr. Ruffle, making the money off the potato I’m 18, and years older than that.
peelers’ blisters:
tomorrow night, in your sleep,
dreams will come of workers sharpening their knives
tearing their aprons off, dropping them in the
puddles of their sweat
and then a knock on your door.
Your office door, or your bedroom door
you won’t be able to tell.
You’ll try to wake up,
to focus on something,
but you’ll be too fast asleep;
you are
too fast asleep.
And then you’ll reach for your secretary
or your wife
to go get you some tea
like she always does when you have these dreams,
but she won’t be at her desk or in bed.
She’ll be standing at the door
with the men and women who cut
that extra something—you know what it is—
into your pockets;
who go home with numb hands every day
from washing thousands of dirty potatoes in ice I sew the Swoosh on, time after time, hour after
water;
who sit up all night picking splinters out of
calloused hands
from chopping trees for paper bags that you put
your name on;
she’ll be standing there with them
and the hugest, sharpest potato peeler you’ve seen
in her hand.
She’ll walk over to your desk, or your bed
and look you right in your foggy-dreamed eyes
say, Good morning, sir
or, Good night, dear
and, starting at the top of your head,
she’ll peel your skin off
until you’re a puddle of grease to be cooked
into chips.
CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US
Two Young Women
by Deidre Barry
I’m 18, and I can’t believe I’m that old.
I get up before sunrise, because I have to be at
work.
I get up at 6, because I need time to do my hair and
makeup before school.
I walk two miles to work, the blisters on my feet
open from wear.
I drive to school, and walk carefully, because I need
to keep my shoes clean.
I spend my day inside a factory, with hundreds
of other girls, unable to take breaks, and unable
to leave.
I spend my day in classes, wanting only to get out.
I would give anything to go to school, to learn,
to be able to get somewhere in life.
I would give anything to be done with school.
Who cares anyway?
I would quit, but I can’t. I have parents, brothers,
and sisters to support, and jobs are hard to find.
I’d drop out, but then my parents would be pissed.
At 4:00, we get a five-minute break for water, and
then it’s back for more work.
At 3:30, we get out, and I head for basketball practice.
hour, until my fingers bleed, and my knuckles ache.
I lace up my Nikes, my new ones.
I earn barely enough to live, and not even near
enough to help my family. I get paid per pair, and
I can only make so many.
These cost me $130, and everyone has a pair.
My lungs burn with every breath, and I cough up
dust every night when I get home.
My lungs sear as I run up and down the court, but I
know it only makes me stronger.
I sew pair after pair, trying to earn enough to buy
food and clothes.
These shoes hurt my feet. I think I’ll buy a new pair.
I go home, and cry. I want out, but it’s such a
vicious cycle. I work to get out, but I always need to
work a little more before I have enough.
I go home, and lie on my water bed. I can’t wait
till college. I can get out.
“Two Young Women” appears in Rethinking Globalization:
Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World. Rethinking Schools, 2002.
91
 “Why I Like Graffiti”
I
found Katharine Harer’s poem “Why I Like
Graffiti” one night during a visit to City Lights
Bookstore in San Francisco. I fell in the love
with the sassiness of the piece because it frames
many of my students’ delight in defying orders. But
on a deeper level, Harer’s poem protests a society
that legitimates some and escorts others out the
door—both their art and their bodies.
When I contacted Harer about using “Why I
Like Graffiti,” she told me the story of the poem’s birth:
I wrote the poem when I was a California Arts
Council poet-in-residence at Galileo High
School, an inner-city high school in San Fran-
cisco. I remember taking our kids to the mu-
seum downtown and how they were looked
at by some of the museum folks, as though
they were troublemakers rather than beauti-
ful young poets. At the same time, I was also
part of a small group of writers and cultural
92 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
A Political Manifesto
RETHINKING SCHOOLS
workers who presented evenings of poetry
and performance around political and cultural
themes. This was during the first Gulf War and
we wanted to address issues like war, home-
lessness, and poverty through words and art
rather than speeches. Jack Hirschman was one
of the poets in our group, and as I got to know
him he inspired me to dedicate the poem to
him and to consider a poem as a political man-
ifesto. Jack has been writing and engaging in
politics in San Francisco since the early ’70s.
Harer’s poem talks back to those who saw her
“beautiful young poets” as “troublemakers.” As she
writes, “if you’re young and the wrong color and
lively/you’re asked to leave ushered into the street/
where you belong.”
Her explanation reminded me of the dozens
of times I went out with my students, shepherding
them from the safety of Jefferson High School to
art museums, poetry workshops, or plays in down-
town Portland. Although our school is a short bus
ride away from the center of the city, students ex-
pressed discomfort at crossing the river and leaving
their community. Once I took my junior class to see
Fences in a theater in the upscale Pearl District. The
women who took our tickets eyed the students sus-
piciously, as if checking their collars for dirt, stand-
ing back from us. I knew Harer’s story.
Harer’s piece also speaks to the larger context
of whose art is considered worthy of being in a mu-
seum, and this begins a questioning of whose music,
novels, poetry, or dance are labeled “classical” and
worthy of study. Whose works are on the official
syllabus and whose are marginalized and placed
as electives? Harer plays with these ideas when she
writes about graffiti:
Because it’s there for everyone to see
no museum guards to track you, no
fish-eyed lady
collecting your entrance fee to another
airless palace
of “legitimate” art no cultural dues to pay
I want students to question this legacy of legit-
imacy: Who gets to name what is art and what isn’t?
Who gets to put books on a list
that everyone reads?
I also like the switch-up A poor reading of
in the third stanza where Harer a poem leaves it as
takes ownership of what kind of
lifeless as a dead trout include hip-hop music, texting in
graffiti she would create: “wom-
en’s faces, all kinds/so we can on a summer
see ourselves.” Her vision is both
inclusive and in contrast to the
advertising that uses women to sell products: “not
on the oil slicks of billboards singing for whiskey or
cigarettes or/love […] because we’re not supposed to
do it/make this cemented world ours.”
Teaching Strategy
1. I usually begin by reading poetry out loud to stu-
dents because a poor reading of a poem leaves it as
lifeless as a dead trout on a summer dock, but this
poem lends itself to student reading. We read the
poem around the circle of the class, so every student
reads one line. The repeating line of “we’re not sup-
CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US
posed to do it” punctuates the poem, creating the
rhythm and the sensibility that I want students to
carry into their poetry.
2. Once we have read the poem, I distribute two
different-colored highlighters to the students and
ask them to highlight repeating words or phrases in
one color. Once students color the words in, we dis-
cuss how Harer repeats the phrase, “Because we’re
not supposed to do it” and the word “because.” We
have a brief discussion about how the poet uses the
word and phrase as links to move the poem forward.
3. Then I ask students to highlight Harer’s reasons
in a separate color. “Why does she like graffiti?”
After students highlight, we notice together that
the reasons are lists: “because buildings are holy/
billboards precious, walls/worth more than gold.”
When she follows the list with the phrase “because
we’re not supposed to do it” or a rephrase like “Be-
cause it’s out in the breathable air,” she propels the
poem onto a new list.
4. After we’ve “raised the bones of the poem,” I tell
students, “Your turn. What are some things that you
like to do, to read, to think about that you are not
supposed to do?” I encourage students to think like
the poet, politically. “She’s not just saying she likes to
chew gum in school; she’s talking about being left out,
pushed out, about not being seen as valuable if you
are too lively, a different color, or
your art is not ‘legitimate.’ So now
is your turn to reclaim what soci-
ety has frowned on.” Student lists
class, kissing in public. Once their
dock. ideas start to pop, I encourage
them each to write a list, then we
come back together to share.
5. Once students have a topic, I say, “Choose one
and tell the reasons you are not supposed to like it.
Be expansive. You can cut later. For example, why ar-
en’t you supposed to kiss in public?” After students
have created their lists, I ask them to turn to a partner.
“Share your lists. Partners, your job is to add more
items to their list.”
6. Before I push students into the writing of their
poem, I return to the model and remind them that
the poet is making a statement, a manifesto, a pub-
lic declaration about why something that society
deems wrong is actually right. Z
93
Why I Like Graffiti
A personal manifesto—for Jack Hirschman
by Katharine Harer

Because we’re not supposed to do it Because when I look at graffiti I know what I
because buildings are holy would make
billboards precious, walls women’s faces, all kinds
worth more than gold so we can see ourselves
because we’re not supposed to do it not on the oil slicks of billboards singing for
touch their buildings … climb their fences … hang whiskey or cigarettes or
like a bird love
from their roofs but floating across a vacant lot on Harrison
leave our mark pressed into the abandoned walls of a brewery
Because it’s there for everyone to see south of Market
no museum guards to track you, no fish-eyed lady high-styling an office building
collecting your entrance fee to another airless meditating on the financial district, its spilled curbs
palace and unopened windows, on financiers, laborers
of “legitimate” art no cultural dues to pay and the dispossessed
to prove you can look and if you’re young and the
wrong color and lively Wild horses … Malcolm X … whimsical dogs …
you’re asked to leave ushered into the street urgent signs
where you belong kids screaming their names
because we’re not supposed to do it
Because it’s out there in the breathable air make this cemented world ours
framed by the sky and the hustle
curved Hebraic letters of tags
peaceful bombings
murals full-scale pieces mesmerizing fences
charm bracelets across eyesore alleys
nonviolent violence
without laying out a dime to the gods of advertising
right under the noses of the civic sensors
late at night on a bicycle a backpack full of paint
art where it belongs where we can see it

RETHINKING SCHOOLS

“Why I Like Graffiti” appears in Jazz & Other Hot Subjects. Bombshelter Press, 2015. Reprinted courtesy of the author.

94 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

u SAMPLE POEMS

Why I Like Making Trouble

by Linda Christensen

Because we’re not supposed to do it Because I know that when we make trouble
because they want us to believe the Standing Rock Sioux
that the way it is water protectors
is the way it’s supposed to be, chase the hungry jaws of machines off the
because we’re told, Missouri River,
“Don’t get in trouble,” so billionaires cannot make oil slicks
“Don’t make waves,” on their clean water.
“Put your head down,”
“Change will come.” Because I know that when we make good trouble
all children get schools without tests, without fees
Because we are not supposed to demand equality without a curriculum demanding fealty to the
change the bathroom signs ruling class.
ask for a raise I want us to make good trouble
expect the right to vote so the sick, the aged, the weary
love who we love can throw away their cardboard signs
because making trouble makes change. at the intersection of Fremont and MLK
so they no longer huddle under blue tarps
Because when I look at the band beneath the Burnside Bridge.
of brothers and sisters who bled together
who walked the Pettis Bridge I want us to make necessary trouble,
on Bloody Sunday so Albina will open up and Black people
who rode Freedom buses, will come home
whose hands wrapped around cell bars to the bungalows the hospital bulldozed.
and whose voices rose in song, In place of trendy coffee shops
even as batons struck their and boutiques selling thin fashion,
unbowed heads, jazz clubs and barber shops and Citizen’s Café
I am inspired will reopen their doors again.
to make good trouble,
necessary trouble. Because when we make trouble,
good trouble,
necessary trouble,
we make change.

Note: I borrowed the term “good trouble”

from civil rights activist John Lewis.

CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US 95

Why I Like Stealing
for all that had and have to
by Vincent Singer

Because my father drank and forgot to shop.

Because sometimes barren shelves can make
Me say “yum” to trouble. Bring it on. Just watch.
See if I don’t make a meal out of a fifteen minute browse.
See if I don’t howl “jackpot!” when I arrive back home.
See if I don’t have the family opening bags and sneaking bites
And turning stovetops and laying plates and stocking fridges and
Filling glasses and grabbing utensils and smelling the score and finding
Themselves laughing as their full bellies take form.

Because after awhile I enjoyed it. I found thrill

In resistance and risk and crime and trouble. A way
To spite the abandoners. The ones that made me sniffle
At night and feel weak and worthless. Unloved.
No more!
When I walk into a store and save $20 I am sure that when
My dad relapses I will have a backup plan beyond the grandparents
That turn pale and tired each time they get one of those calls.
No more!
They’re old enough and so am I; and plus, there will be moments when
Those calls will come after 911 and they’ll have to speed over to the house.

Because I got away with it.

Because the television was on.

Because free is non-existent.

96 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 Untracking English
Creating Quality Education for All Students

A
aron, a danc-
er in Jefferson
High School’s
elite Jefferson Dancers,
tapped his pencil against
his desk as he spoke:
“Schools are geared to-
ward repeating society’s
pattern. Some people
succeed; some people
fail. Tracking makes it
seem like the kids are
at fault. My father is a
doctor. My mother is a
voracious reader who
read to me and bought
me books. What about
the kids whose parents
didn’t have the time or
couldn’t afford that? I
entered school ahead RAFAEL LÓPEZ
of the race. I ended up
in all advanced classes. An ‘aha’ I arrived at is that History class before calling on Jim, who hadn’t
everybody should have all opportunities open to spoken during our discussion on tracking.
them. Why figure out ahead of time for people what Jim drew a deep breath before speaking. His
they’re going to do with their lives?” voice cracked with tears. “What I learned in school is
Aaron paused and looked around the room that I’m not good enough. I was never in an advanced
at his classmates in this junior Literature and U.S. class. Schools are set up like beauty pageants—some

CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US 97

of us were set up to fail. The way they treat us, they tasks, the larger problem I witness is the embed-
might as well say, ‘You suck. Get lost. Get out of here.’ ded beliefs students carry with them when they
Look, I’ve always been in bonehead English. Why leave these classrooms. Students in advanced class-
wasn’t I good enough to be in top classes? Haven’t es come to believe they “earned” a privilege that is
I written papers as good as yours? Can’t I talk about often given to them based on race, class, or gender,
things as good as you?” while students in remedial classes come to feel they
Jim’s statement continued to haunt me years are incapable of completing more difficult work.
later when I taught a “low-track” class where stu- But I wonder what other messages students re-
dents gleamed like unpolished agates on Moon- ceive when they see majority white or wealthy stu-
stone Beach. And Aaron’s question, “Why figure dents in advanced classes. Do they believe that those
out ahead of time for people what they’re going to students are smarter than students of color or poor
do with their lives?” should be placed at the top of and working-class students? When we allow track-
every course guide that designates the test scores ing—especially tracking that privileges one race,
students need before they apply for an honors class. one class, or one gender over another—we unwit-
The classes I taught during my later years at tingly allow students to walk away with these and
Jefferson—Literature and U.S. History, Contempo- who knows what other assumptions.
rary Literature and Society, and Writing for Pub- Too many good intentions have been un-
lication—were all untracked. dermined by implementing
I knew tracking was unjust, a de-tracking policy without
and I didn’t want to perpetu- I knew tracking was helping teachers reconstruct
ate the myths about academic unjust, and I didn’t want their ideas about students and
ability that tracking imparts. curriculum. Dumping low-
I also wanted to demonstrate to perpetuate the myths tracked students into advanced
that it was possible to teach a about academic ability classes without changing strat-
wide range of students in one that tracking imparts. egies and content harms stu-
class, to present a model for dents and derails the possibil-
my school and district. After ity for change. It becomes all
10 years of teaching remedial English, I also knew too easy to point at the dropout and failure rates of
I didn’t want to teach one more low-tracked class. underprepared students and say, “See, untracking
Even if my seniority allowed me the privilege of doesn’t work.” To successfully untrack English class-
teaching advanced classes, morally, I couldn’t teach es, teachers must unmask the myths about student
them any longer either. ability, redesign the curriculum, and change teach-
Tracking helps create and legitimate a social ing strategies.
hierarchy within a school based on perceived dif- I created untracked classes because of the in-
ferences in student ability. Students in higher tracks justice I saw in students’ education. I continued to
have access to college preparatory classes: algebra, teach untracked classes as long as I was at Jefferson
geometry, calculus, chemistry, physics. But even in because they are better classes—for the students and
English and social studies, students participate in for the teacher.
different educational experiences. Students in ad-
vanced classes read whole books; write papers ana- Looking for Each Student’s Gift
lyzing literature, history, and society; and complete After teaching untracked classes for several years,
library research that prepares them for college, while I’ve come to believe that the notion of great differ-
students in lower-track classes typically read “light ences in student capacity is false. One of the first
bites” of literature and history—short stories or ad- obligations of a teacher in an untracked class is to
olescent novels. Their writing, if they write, tends to look at student ability in a new light. Teachers must
remain in the narrative, personal storytelling mode see the gifts that each student brings to class, not the
rather than moving to the analytical. deficits. The teacher must absolutely believe in the
Beyond this lack of preparation for academic potential of the student, but even more essentially,

98 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

the teacher must believe in the right of the student to high school. Some are not accustomed to the prac-
have access to a rigorous education. And the teach- tice of homework. They are often intimidated when
er must convey those beliefs clearly to the student it comes to advanced classwork because they lack
who may be working off years of failure and poor the skills necessary to perform the tasks—especially
work habits. Many of the students who come from if they are assigned rather than taught. Unlike their
remedial or regular classes are bright. But the abil- high-achieving peers, they often don’t view their
ities they bring to class often go unrecognized be- teachers as resources and aren’t as successful in using
cause they aren’t the skills traditional education has the school system for their benefit. Frequently, they
prized: reading and writing. are alienated or bored by the material in advanced
I especially found this to be true of many Af- classes and don’t see the immediate relevance to their
rican American males who had been misplaced lives. Their parents may work one or more jobs and
in special education. These students had amaz- may not have the time, expertise, or materials to help
ing dexterity with verbal language and astute so- or push their children at home. Over the years, I no-
cial/political insights, but their literacy skills were ticed how much my training as an English teacher
underdeveloped. was called on with my two daughters’ education, and
Because of the variation in students’ scholas- I wonder how children without college-educated
tic histories, they come with distinct sets of skills, parents (or with parents who have to work the night
but not necessarily different sets of intellectual ca- shift) can succeed.
pacities. The students who typically perform well in But often the most creative students in my
class have better reading, writing, and math skills. mixed-ability classes are the students who have not
They have better schoolwork habits. They know succeeded in school. Many previously low-tracked
how to study. Sometimes they are voracious read- students have a great ear for dialogue and metaphor
ers. They have written more essays and frequently because their listening and speaking skills are more
know how to put together a well-organized paper. finely honed. These students tend to be playful,
They are confident in their ability as students. They talkative, and adept at role plays, debates, and class
see teachers as allies and know how to use their discussions. They are the risk-takers. Steven, for ex-
teachers, and others, as resources. Often, they have ample, literally jumped into the middle of a debate.
college-educated parents who can help them with Once, in a unit on men and women in literature
homework and who are and society, he strode to
available in the evenings
The most creative students the center of our circle and
to make sure their work is acted out how he believed
completed. They have ac- in my mixed-ability classes women have a “shopping
cess to more information are the students who have not mall approach” to men.
and materials—from com- succeeded in school. Steven pretended he was
puters and home libraries to a woman inspecting each
transportation to city and man as if he were a piece of
college libraries. Their parents are not intimidated merchandise, then tossing him aside when someone
by these institutions and know how to use com- better came along. Although he had difficulty writ-
puter searches, librarians, and the school system to ing an essay on the topic, his spontaneous “presen-
gain information. And because they travel through tation” during discussion was well argued and gave
their school careers being rewarded for their per- students a metaphoric framework for many of their
formance, they are generally better behaved. debates on the topic.
Whereas many lower-tracked students may Each group of students (as well as each indi-
still have problems with the basics in punctuation, vidual student) presents their own problems. While
spelling, sentence structure, and grammar; they may most of the “advanced” students complete their
not know where to begin or end a sentence, much classwork and homework on time, too often they
less a paragraph or an essay. Some have never read write “safe” papers. Chris, a potential valedictorian,
a complete book by their junior or senior year in summed it up when he asked, “What do I have to

CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US 99

do to get an A?” Not “what tools must I be capable
of using,” not “what knowledge will I need to un-
derstand literature, writing, society, or history,” but
“what must I get done?” My goal is to shake these
students out of their safety, to create a desire to write
instead of a desire to complete the work, to awak-
en some passion for learning, to stop them from
slurping up education without examining it. I want
them to walk around with notepads, ready for their
next poem, story, or essay, but I also want them to
question themselves and the world: In fact, I want
them to question the privilege that places them in
advanced or honors classes. I want the same for my
low-skilled students, but additionally, I am chal-
lenged to harness their verbal dexterity onto paper
and motivate them to work outside of class. And I
also want to provoke them to examine the inequities
that land many of them in low-skilled classes in the
first place.
Changing Misperceptions
One of the biggest lies about ending ability group-
ing is that “low” students benefit while “advanced”
students languish. Parents and educators worry that
the behavior of unruly, uninterested students will
keep the teacher focused on classroom control rath-
er than on teaching. As my student Ellie said when
I discussed untracking with her tracked class, “We
couldn’t learn if those students were in our class.”
Chetan Patel wrote one of his college application es-
says for the University of Chicago—“A Lesson in Tol-
erance”—about his view of my class on the first day:
Rowdy students hung off their seats as I
walked into class the first day of my junior
year. The desks were arranged in a circle
around the classroom, almost every seat was
occupied. I looked for a chair next to a friend,
but found the only empty seat near a window.
I sat and looked around the class. It included
dancers, athletes, and the leftovers from Jef-
ferson’s dismantled Scholars Program. I was
in the Scholars Program until its end, taking
advantage of the small classes, countless field
trips, and advanced curriculum. Because of
last year’s budget cuts, the program was dis-
assembled and students were left to face Jef-
ferson’s overcrowded classes. Outside the 30
100 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
students in the Scholars Program, I thought
the rest of Jefferson’s thousand students were
completely ignorant. The Literature and U.S.
History class I was in was supposed to be the
best Jefferson had to offer. From the looks of
it, Jefferson’s best didn’t seem like much.
While I don’t want to underplay the challenge
to maintain an orderly classroom so that all students
can learn, too often the word “rowdy” is a code word
for “lots of poor students or students of color”—as
can be seen in Chetan’s initial portrayal of the stu-
dents who were not in the Scholar’s Program. When
the expectations are clear and the assignments chal-
lenge students to think critically about the world
and their place in it, students are not as likely to act
out. Because low-track students, in general, have
less patience for busy work and value grades less
than honors students in general, they are more like-
ly to complain loudly and criticize the demeaning
work and their teachers. They are more likely to turn
their attention to disrupting the class. And they have
lots of practice; they’re good at it.
I can’t dismiss the fact that some classes are
more boisterous—especially low-tracked classes
where students do not believe that the work has any
real meaning for their lives. Yes, untracked classes
will probably be louder than honors classes. Yes,
more students will arrive more academically un-
prepared than in an honors class. Yes, if the bal-
ance of the class is shifted too heavily in favor of
low-track students, “discipline” may remain an is-
sue. But well-balanced untracked classes will also
be more inventive, more creative, and more honest.
As Chetan wrote, “The following days, I began to
talk with my neighbors and my opinion of the class
changed entirely. I loved coming to second block
and hearing everyone’s clever stories … My [former
classmates] looked down on other students who I
now thought of as equals.”
Certainly, untracking honors English is not an
easy sell for students—or their parents—who have
been offered the privileges of honors programs that
Chetan outlined earlier: small classes, frequent field
trips, and advanced curriculum. They like their
privileges and believe they’ve earned them, unlike
the “rowdy students” Chetan met on the first day of
my class. This book is an argument for a rigorous,
untracked curriculum. Every activity I’ve highlight-
ed is designed to challenge students who have di-
verse academic histories.
Parents and educators also worry that top stu-
dents end up playing teacher to their underprepared
peers in an untracked class—and unfortunately this
is sometimes true, but it shouldn’t be. Turning ad-
vanced students into tutors occurs when the curricu-
lum and methodology of a high-tracked class remain
the same. It’s the worst-case scenario that propo-
nents of tracking use to scare us into maintaining the
status quo. They assume that
top students master the mate-
rial quickly and must either tap Students began the year with a model of how to use dia-
their toes or play teacher while with rich lives, not rich logue to build characters in their
remedial students struggle to writing skills.
catch up. This situation plac-
es students who arrive feeling
one-down educationally (like Jim in the opening of
this piece) at a further disadvantage, but it also takes
time away from more skilled students who should
be working at the edge of their ability instead of re-
peating what they already know. Adam, a senior in
my untracked Contemporary Literature and Society
class, wrote of his experience in this role:
I was always the one the teacher looked at
when someone else needed help. “Oh, Adam
can help you.” It’s not the usual form of dis-
crimination, but I realize now how much
it bothered me when I was in grade school.
“Well, so-and-so isn’t a good student, he needs
extra help. We’ll make him partners with
Adam. Adam won’t mind spending his extra
time explaining things to so-and-so.”
If we turn the practice of students as teachers
around and look more carefully at our students’
gifts, then we acknowledge that all students can be
teachers. As Jessica noted in her class evaluation:
This is the first English class in three years
where I have been around different students.
All of us have been tracked into separate lit-
tle migrating groups, forever stuck with each
other. I think that having so many different
thinking minds made it rich. All the expe-
riences we shared were exciting and new. It
CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US
made us debate things because most often we
didn’t agree with each other. But we listened
and we all think a little bit differently now.
Don’t you wish the whole world could be like
our class?
When there is real diversity in the class, stu-
dents teach each other by sharing their strengths:
Steven’s improvisation on gender issues helped
create a metaphor for students to discuss men and
women in society and literature. Jessica’s ability to
capture the talk of the neighbor-
hood provided her classmates
own writing. Kanaan’s analysis of
the teaching of language, and how
it affected African American stu-
dents as they were learning to read and write, had a
profound effect on his fellow students’ understand-
ing of how political the nature of reading and writ-
ing can be. Curtina’s images in her poetry broke the
barrier between the academy and the music scene.
Joe’s insight into how the politics of race reverberate
in his neighborhood educated his peers who lived
on the other side of town in a way that no traditional
book learning could have.
Students teach each other by telling the stories
of their lives or debating issues from diverse per-
spectives. Scott, who drove to Jefferson every day
from an almost all-white suburb, thought that rac-
ism had disappeared after the ’60s. When Suntory
wrote about the hour it took for 911 to respond after
gunshots were fired into his house, Scott’s education
about race relations moved up a notch. So did De-
Shawn’s when Alejandro spoke of crossing the bor-
der with his grandmother when he was 6 and acting
as a translator for his parents.
Chetan learned quickly that his initial assess-
ment of his peers was flawed and that he had a lot to
learn from his classmates:
The teacher, Ms. Christensen, spent five
minutes silencing the side chatter … It took
almost an hour for her to go over the class ex-
pectations that seemed entirely too high for
this group. Amid more side talk, Ms. Chris-
tensen expounded on the first assignment,
101
 “We’re going to write profiles on each other.”
After a five-minute explanation of what a pro-
file was, the class groaned. She partnered the
students up and I got stuck with Ayanna Lash-
ley, a short girl whose growing stomach con-
trasted with her tiny body … As the bell rang,
Ms. Christensen announced, “Bring your fin-
ished profile tomorrow.”
That night I wondered how bad the year
was going to be. Expecting Ayanna to write a
poor profile, I quickly scribbled a few notes on
a piece of paper about her.
The next day Ms. Christensen told us
to read what we wrote. She asked for a volun-
teer and the all-too-eager Tony started us out.
Ten readers later, I couldn’t believe what I was
hearing. I had never heard writing like this—
writing this good […] One by one, the class
went around the circle, every person painting
a perfect picture of their partner. My turn fi-
nally came and I nervously read my shameful
piece. I slumped into my chair as my partner
read hers. I frowned, not because her piece
was bad (it was terrific), but because I had let
myself and the class down […]
The students around me wrote in dif-
ferent, exciting styles instead of the bookish
Scholars Program type. My writing became
dynamic and versatile, something my past ef-
forts had failed to accomplish.
At year’s end, I realized how prejudiced
I had been. I totally misjudged my fellow stu-
dents and learned more making and sitting
next to new friends. The class turned out to be
my favorite at Jefferson, not because everyone
suddenly changed their ways, but because I
changed mine.
In fact, the writing was rougher, less polished
than Chetan remembers. Students began the year
with rich lives, not rich writing skills. Chetan wrote
his memories of the class after spending his ju-
nior and his senior year—by choice—in untracked
classes. But he is right that he learned from the sto-
ries of classmates and from their writing styles. This
notion of enlisting all students as teachers implies a
major shift in the structure, content, and method-
ology of the class.
102 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
Changing the Curriculum
Successfully untracking means re-examining and
changing the curriculum. Instead of constructing
my curriculum around a parade of novels, I teach
thematic units that emphasize the social/political
underpinnings of my students’ lives: the politics of
language, the politics of literacy, men and women
in society and literature, the politics of cartoons
and mass media. In each unit I attempt to engage
students in a dialogue, to teach them to find con-
nections between their lives, literature, and society
while at the same time remaining academically
rigorous. Essential questions provide the focus for
most units. In the politics of literacy section of soph-
omore English, I ask, “What is literacy? Can people
who don’t know how to read and write be literate?”
There is no one text that answers those questions.
A variety of readings—essays, poetry, short
stories—as well as role plays, discussions, improvi-
sations, and writing from our own lives, all serve as
“texts.” We read excerpts from Frederick Douglass’
and Malcolm X’s autobiographies. We read sections
from Joe Kane’s Savages in which an old man leads
Kane through the Amazon jungle, identifying and
discussing the properties of each plant. Students
conduct interviews with their parents or grand-
parents about ways they “read the world without
words,” and return with stories about fishing, hair-
styling, and driving diesel trucks. The curriculum
becomes a symphony or a church choir. Each text
and each student’s life adds a “voice.” The texts are
interwoven, but the recurring refrain is made up of
the students’ stories and analyses—their voices, ei-
ther in discussion or in read-arounds of their own
pieces—hold the song together. (See p. 15 for a com-
plete discussion of read-arounds.)
But let me state clearly, in case it sounds like
all we do is sit around in a café-like atmosphere dis-
cussing politics and our lives: In all of these classes,
the mainstay of the curriculum is rigorous reading
and writing activities that prepare all students for the
university or postsecondary institutions. The way
these activities are taught, the undergirding of prepa-
ration for each reading and writing activity, and the
follow-up differs from more traditional classes.
Years ago, when I taught my first untracked
classes, I eliminated the canon from the curricu-
lum altogether because I wanted students to hear
the voices of women and people of color who are ability to work through frustrations and impulses to
not traditionally represented. Students complained dismiss these texts as irrelevant or too hard. They
that The Scarlet Letter and The Odyssey weren’t rele- need to learn that all readers get confused, but they
vant to their lives. But I have come to see the value must also have enough opportunities to succeed
of maintaining some pieces from the canon so that with complex materials to embed the belief that if
students can understand literary allusions, read and they struggle long enough they will understand.
critique the common curriculum, enter conversa- Sometimes this means developing note-taking sys-
tions that include these classics, and perceive how tems as well as study strategies, including learning
some themes reverberate through the years. I also when and where to find help.
want them to look for the The biggest shift in
relevance that they might curriculum in most honors
have missed. Pygmalion is Students might ask why classes entails a more in-
the perfect example. On we teach Shakespeare in clusive reading list. As my
the surface, students may daughter Anna wrote when
not see how a play set in an American literature she was a senior at a school
England could teach them class but not Pulitzer Prize– where advanced classes are
anything about their own winning August Wilson. predominantly white, “What
lives, but a closer look re- student of color would want
veals how the class issue of to come into a tracked hon-
language that Shaw explored when it was first pro- ors class where all the work is by dead white men?
duced in London in 1914 is as relevant to their lives The fact that writers of color are not a part of the
as it was to Eliza’s. curriculum pulls the welcome mat out from under
Of course, some classics can also be used to their feet.”
hone students’ critical reading skills as they inves- My explicit focus on the politics of language
tigate race, class, and gender issues in these books. in my senior class, and on the study of education
Students need to ask the question “Whose classics? in my junior class, plays an additional role in un-
Why these books and not others?” as anti-racist tracking my classes. Because tracking has, to one
educator Enid Lee does in her Rethinking Schools degree or another, shaped students’ academic
interview, “Taking Multicultural, Anti-Racist Edu- self-concepts, especially for low-tracked students,
cation Seriously”: taking a critical look at this process helps them re-
think their potential. As Bill Bigelow wrote in an
[W]hen we say classical music, whose classical article on untracking the social studies classroom,
music are we talking about? European? Japa- “[T]he unequal system of education, of which
nese? And what items are on the test? Whose tracking is an important part, needs a critical class-
culture do they reflect? Who is getting equal room examination so that students can expose and
access to knowledge in the school? Whose expel the voices of self-blame, and can overcome
perspective is heard, whose is ignored? whatever doubts they have about their capacity for
academic achievement.”
For example, students might ask why we teach
Shakespeare in an American literature class, but Changing Reading Strategies
not a play by the Pulitzer Prize–winning African On the surface, a typical reason for not untracking
American August Wilson. If discussion of slavery classes is that lower-tracked students don’t have
is important, why read Mark Twain and not Toni the skills or the desire to work at more advanced
Morrison or Frederick Douglass? These questions levels, and will get left behind or slow down their
raise important issues as students become “literate.” more capable peers. But given the right strategies,
Also, students who have not been prepared for these challenges to classroom success need not be-
honors classes must learn to negotiate texts that are come barriers to untracking. Throughout this book
not immediately accessible. They must develop the I address ways to bring students who lack skills to

CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US 103

writing. But the real challenge in untracked classes
is the difference in students’ reading ability. Perhaps
the greatest roadblock for those of us who want to
untrack classes is our students’ inability to read dif-
ficult texts.
How do we continue to assign challenging lit-
erature when not all of our students are initially ca-
pable of reading it? Some of the readings I use with
students are difficult—for all students. To “dumb
down” the curriculum would deny capable students
access to a rigorous curriculum, and to always give
different assignments to students based on their
reading levels would defeat the purpose of joining
students together.
Over the years, I’ve developed strategies to help
readers at various levels engage in the curriculum.
For example, I begin the year with my “Unlearning
the Myths that Bind Us” unit (see p. 49) because I
want students to learn how to read for silences in
the literature—whose voices are heard? Whose sto-
ries are told? Whose lives are marginalized? Who’s
the hero and who gets saved? I want students to
develop a habit of reading for recurring patterns of
domination and exclusion. And I want them to ap-
proach these questions with “texts” that feel accessi-
ble to all: cartoons and children’s literature.
I admit we read fewer texts/novels in my class
because I choose to read, discuss, and think about
each piece more thoroughly. Any text is an investi-
gation into both literature and society, chosen not
because it’s on some university’s reading-for-col-
lege-preparation list, but rather because it allows us
to examine our society and ourselves more fully. The
Color Purple, for example, permits us to probe the
relationships between men and women as well as to
explore their roles in the world. In A Pedagogy for
Liberation, Ira Shor’s discussion of the “illuminat-
ing” course helped me shape my classes:
[We] want the “illuminating” course to be se-
rious and on the other hand it has to devel-
op the habits of intellectual seriousness in a
culture field that discourages students from
being critical … The point is not to assign
fewer books so that students will have time to
memorize more of what they read. Learning is
not a memory Olympics! The idea is to make
critical reflection on society the fundamental
104 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
activity. The idea is to avoid flying over the
words in a heroic effort to reach the end of the
reading list, flying over society also in such a
way as to avoid knowing how learning relates
to reality. Simply shortening the syllabus is
not the same thing as investing the pedagogy
with a purpose.
Sometimes that “pedagogy with a purpose” is
served best by using literature circles that give stu-
dents a choice of novels at different reading levels
within a thematic unit. Students in my junior class,
for example, chose from a list of novels written by
African Americans about the conditions of slav-
ery: Beloved by Toni Morrison; Kindred by Octavia
Butler; I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse
Condé; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
by Frederick Douglass; and Middle Passage by
Charles R. Johnson. Because all students read liter-
ature dealing with slavery, they were able to discuss
the connected issues, but inform each other with
examples from various texts.
Sometimes I insist we all read the same mate-
rial, especially when I try to teach certain reading,
writing, critical literacy, or dialogue strategies. Tea
parties, emerging theme and evidence walls, im-
provisations, dialogue journals, poetry, and interior
monologues, as well as other tactics, teach students
in any class how to read more critically. But in an
untracked class, these methods equalize access to
reading as well as push students to discuss content.
Not every student in my class completes the read-
ings by the due date, but they can still be involved in
the discussion. Often the class talk entices nonread-
ers to read and provides a meaningful context for
them to understand the text.
Courage in the Face of Anger
Tracking perpetuates systems of inequality that con-
demn students not only to unequal education, but
to unequal opportunities once they leave school. In
examining data regarding the placement of students
of color in advanced or honors English classes (and
even more drastically in math) in Portland Public
Schools, it is clear that inequalities exist.
But untracking schools is not easy. It can be
mandated by an administration—but that alone
won’t ensure success. Teachers must be an integral
part of the process; they must have time to meet to-
gether, teach each other strategies, and prepare ma-
terials for a more diverse audience. Parents—repre-
sentative of the entire student population—must be
involved in creating a successful program to bring
quality education to a broader range of students. But
without the vision and the experience of a successful
untracked class, parents—especially the parents of
high-tracked students—might be uneasy partners,
as Chetan’s initial reaction to the loss of his privi-
leges suggests.
Years after my students first discussed the
social impact of tracking, schools continue to be
“beauty pageants” where some students learn they’re
“not good enough,” where they become tracked for
life. In addition to making a case against the injus-
tice of tracking, we need to create a vision for an
education that serves all children, and we also need
models that demonstrate untracked classrooms can
work. We can’t just wish tracking away. There are
too many barriers and too much resistance on too
many levels. Now is the time for the language arts
community to prove that justice and quality educa-
tion are possible. Z

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES

Au, Wayne, Bill Bigelow, and Stan Karp (eds.). 2007. Rethinking Our
Classrooms: Teaching for Equity and Justice, vol. 1. Rethinking Schools.
Butler, Octavia. 1979. Kindred. Doubleday.
Condé, Maryse. 1992. I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem. University
Press of Virginia.
Douglass, Frederick. 1960. Narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglass: An American Slave. Belknap Press of Harvard University.
Hurston, Zora Neale. 1991. Their Eyes Were Watching God.
University of Illinois Press.
Johnson, Charles. 1998. Middle Passage. Scribner.
Kane, Joe. 1995. Savages. Knopf.
Lesley, Craig. 1992. River Song. Dell.
Malcolm X. 1990. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Ballantine.
McCunn, Ruthanne. 1981. Thousand Pieces of Gold: A Biographical
Novel. Design Enterprises of San Francisco.
Morrison, Toni. 1998. Beloved. Penguin.
Shaw, George Bernard. 1914. Pygmalion: A Play in Five Acts.
Penguin.
Shor, Ira, and Paulo Freire. 1987. A Pedagogy for Liberation:
Dialogues on Transforming Education. Bergin & Garvey.
Walker, Alice. 1982. The Color Purple. Washington Square.

CHAPTER 2: UNLEARNING THE MYTHS THAT BIND US 105

Chapter 3

Writing the Word

and the World
 Writing the Word and the World
Moving Beyond Pretty Words

MEREDITH STERN

I
heard that Alice Walker said if we write long
enough and hard enough we’ll heal ourselves.
Maybe that’s true. But I’ve come to see that it’s
not enough.
I’ve watched kids write through rapes and pa-
rental abuse; the humiliation of the SATs and track-
ing; the daily bombardment of advertisements that
tell them they are not pretty enough, strong enough,
or smart enough; immigration laws that threaten
their families; budget cuts that mean they won’t get
any loans or scholarships for college. These kids
passed out of my room every day and went back into
the world that wounded them. I patched them up
and sent them out without tools to understand—or
stop—the brawl they lived with.
For more than four decades I’ve worked toward
empowering students to use their own voices—to
plumb their lives for stories, poems, essays, to engage
in a dialogue with their peers about their writing,
about literature. And in many respects, I’ve succeeded.
Students learn to sing their lives through writ-
ing. They use writing to take the power out of their
pain. Listen as Arne begins to understand his par-
ents’ divorce:

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 109

 Mom carried his name around
like a phantom pain until she had him
amputated
to cut off what doesn’t exist
takes paperwork
Now I see things after the break
were burrs
clinging to her flesh
Maybe she smelled his carpenter sweat
in the sheets and winced
Maybe the little memories
were sand in her shoes
I see now
Every chance to dismantle a memory
was taken—
a painting off the wall
love poems slipped under things
maybe one side of a record
she doesn’t listen to anymore
There is a time
to cut off fingers when
holding hands is wind
on chapped lips
I tried to stay with Father
and never saw why she didn’t too
Now I see my mother as a lover
and the name she dropped
a phantom pain
Years ago, Whitney, a “remedial” 9th grader,
bopped in and out of class, in and out of school.
For the first semester, she chose cigarette breaks
over English class, but soon discovered a commu-
nity where she could talk and write about her life
and people would listen. After reading a short story
about a mother who verbally abused her daughter,
Whitney wrote:
My mother’s not an alcoholic. Well, she likes
to drink when she gets home from work at
night because she’s tired and the wine helps
her relax.
… I don’t like it when she drinks too
much and comes into my room late at night
and shakes me out of bed with her anger.
110 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
DeShawn Holden, a senior in my Contempo-
rary Literature and Society class, wrote and shared
stories from his neighborhood. We grew to love his
childhood memories filled with wisdom from his
grandmother:
My grandmother, Mrs. Rise and Shine herself,
who goes to bed at 8 p.m. and starts her day
at 3 a.m. said, “Boy, why haven’t you washed
your face? You look like you been sleeping in
a barn. And you didn’t even bother to comb
yo’ ole nappy head. Looks like chickens been
having their way with it.”
She meant well, even though she sound-
ed harsh. I love my grandmother. She was
light in spirit, but heavy everywhere else. She
was a strong woman, a warrior, and a survi-
vor. My grandmother loved me in spite of all
my mischievous, devilish, sneaky ways. She
always managed to speak life when I was bad
and everyone else wanted to speak death.
What I have learned from Arne, Whitney, De-
Shawn, and hundreds of my students is that there
is a difference between teaching them to write well
and teaching them to write in order to change the
world. But teaching for literacy and justice are not
only possible in our classrooms, our students are
better educated when we weave the two together.
Moving Toward Justice
These kids can write. They are honest. They are truth
tellers. They’ve discovered the power of writing
down their stories. Admittedly, Galen didn’t always
join in and neither did Marcus, but most students
learned to love writing and sharing their lives even
when their verbs, subjects, and spelling needed
housekeeping.
Before I began my journey as a social justice
teacher, I approached responding to students’ writ-
ing differently. When students read their pieces to
the class, their classmates and I gave them warm
and sympathetic responses. We discussed where
the writing “worked,” we selected lines we particu-
larly liked; we noted how Justine used active verbs
and noted that Margo’s piece had a strong voice,
we asked questions in places where the writer
needed to do more work, more thinking. This was
successful: Students felt they were part of a com-
munity that cared about them. They learned some-
thing about style by hearing other student models
and discussing the techniques in those pieces, and
they began to understand how the published writ-
ers we read in class wrote their novels, short sto-
ries, and poems.
These days, we continue to respond on both
the technical and the human level to each other’s
writing. But I want my classroom to focus on social
justice as well as writing skills. So we study those es-
says, stories, and poems as a text to get at the social
roots of our feelings of alienation and inadequacy, as
well as our possibility for joy and resistance.
What emerges from students’ writing over the
years is that often their problems are experienced
individually. Any failure or shortcoming appears
the result of a personal deficiency. Sometimes it
is—but often it’s not. Once, for example, in my Lit-
erature and U.S. History class, students came back
devastated after taking the PSAT. As far as they were
concerned there was no need to go to college be-
cause this test confirmed their stupidity. During an
in-class discussion, Rochelle said, “The words on
that test had letters arranged in ways I’d never seen
before. There were math problems that Mr. Chap-
pelle hadn’t taught us, formulas my pencil had never
scratched out. I just wanted someone to give me a
cool drink of water and let me go on my way.”
Students blamed themselves for their poor
performance or blamed their teachers: “Well, if
you’d taught us subject-verb agreement instead of
writing, I’d have a better score on the verbal section.”
Because so much feeling was generated around the
test, my co-teacher Bill Bigelow and I said, “Let’s
look at what these tests are all about. Write about
some test you’ve taken. It might have been the
PSAT or a math or English test or newest, latest ‘as-
sessment’ tool. Choose either a good or bad testing
experience. Think back to the experience and try to
re-create it. What was the test on? How were you
prepared for it? What did you feel like before you
took the test? During the test? After the test? Tell
it as a story or use the anecdote as your entrance
into an essay on testing. Be sure to pay attention to
the kinds of feelings you experienced around the
testing situation.” We wrote in silence for the rest
of the period.
CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD
Collecting Stories
The next day, the students, Bill, and I sat in a circle
and read our papers. (See “The Read-Around” p. 15.)
As we read our stories, we took notes on the com-
mon themes that emerged from our pieces. We asked
students to listen for how the tests made people feel
about themselves, their peers, and those in author-
ity—the test-givers. It quickly became obvious that
Joseph’s problem was Claire’s problem was Mindy’s
problem. Students who stung privately with humil-
iation discovered that they weren’t alone, although
where or with whom they placed the blame differed
sharply. After all papers were shared, we asked stu-
dents to read over our notes and to write summaries
on the similarities and differences in our pieces.
In previous years, students would have shared
their stories and learned that they weren’t the only
ones who felt stupid after taking the tests. But since
we left our sharing at that point, they might have
gone home thinking, “Boy, I’m sure in a class with a
bunch of dummies” or “Well, I didn’t do so hot on
my PSAT, but then neither did Bea and she’s sup-
posed to be so smart.”
In the read-around, kids notice they aren’t
alone, but they also learn to ask why they had simi-
lar experiences. After the testing paper, we began to
question why they all came away from their test ex-
perience feeling threatened and stupid. Trisa opened
the discussion by reading her summary:
[Tests] caused us to feel nervous, made us feel
stupid, conditioned us to testing and to being
told what to do without questioning, made us
compete against each other, fostered an “I’m
better than you,” appeared fair, but made us
internalize the fault.
Students wrestled with their feelings and their
stories. Matthew picked examples from his class-
mates’ papers to show how tests and schools foster
competition, how grades are used as rewards or
punishments instead of measuring how much was
learned. Elan referred back to Christen’s and Amy’s
papers to show how some of us had internalized the
blame—“If only we’d worked harder, then we’d have
done a better job or received a higher score.” Stu-
dents continued to call on each other and to raise
questions for the rest of the period.
111
Analyzing the Experts
As productive as this discussion was, it left stu-
dents without a broader context in which to locate
their feelings and new understandings. They need-
ed to explore where these so-called aptitude and
achievement tests originated and whose interests
they served. We introduced these youngsters—still
smarting from their private battle with the brain-
child of Educational Testing Service (ETS)—to Carl
Campbell Brigham, whom the College Board hired
in 1925 to develop an intelligence test for college ad-
missions. They learn about Brigham and other test-
ing gurus in “The Cult of Mental Measurement,” a
chapter from David Owen’s book None of the Above:
The Truth Behind the SATs.
Students were shocked by what they discov-
ered about Brigham: According to Owen, he pub-
lished in the same journal as Adolph Hitler and
was convinced that there should be stronger im-
migration laws to protect the “contamination of
the American intellect” from “Catholics, Greeks,
Hungarians, Italians, Jews, Poles, Russians, Turks,
and—especially—Negroes.”
In dialogue journals (see p. 205), students cri-
tiqued and questioned Brigham and ETS. In some
cases, they related it to their own experiences. A
number of their questions echoed Omar’s: “Who
appointed him watchdog?” Who indeed? It would
be misleading for students to lay all blame for the
inequities of testing at Brigham’s doorstep. Bill’s
role play, “Testing, Tracking, and Toeing the Line:
A Role Play on the Origins of the Modern High
School” from Rethinking Our Classrooms, vol. 1,
helped students understand both the origins of the
tests as well as how they dampened the aspirations
of students who wanted to move out of the work-
ing class. Through film and source readings, we ex-
plored the changes in mass education in the early
20th century and looked critically at those groups
wanting Brigham’s tests as a sorting mechanism to
preserve the status quo.
Bill and I followed up this historical study by
analyzing the correlation between income levels and
SAT scores: On average, the higher the parents’ in-
come, the higher the score a student “earned” on the
SAT. Then we looked at some of the sample vocabu-
lary used in typical analogy questions:
112 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
HEIRLOOM : INHERITANCE ::
A. payment : currency
B. belongings : receipt
C. land : construction
D. legacy : bill
E. booty : plunder
After we pulled a few analogies apart and
made some of our own from each other’s back-
ground and neighborhood experiences, it became
clear to students that the SAT questions measured
access to upper-class experience, not the ability to
make appropriate analogies. The test vocabulary
did not reflect the everyday experience of these
predominantly Black and Brown kids, and they
said so. Through class discussion, it became evi-
dent that the test was biased toward the privileged
and segregated students on the basis of social class.
After scrutinizing the test, the students con-
cluded that Brigham’s test didn’t measure their in-
telligence, nor would it predict their success in col-
lege. When the test became demystified and was no
longer a bogeyman, ETS no longer held the same
kind of power over them.
Beyond Classroom Walls
I taught this education unit to my students for many
years, and students continued to be outraged by their
discoveries. One year, Frank rallied his class to go on
strike and refuse to take the SATs. After a long debate,
the class decided that their strike might hurt them
more than it would hurt ETS. However, several stu-
dents vowed that they would not apply to any school
that used the SATs as an entrance requirement.
Their move toward activism made me realize
that I needed to find a way to demystify the tests
and use students’ knowledge to teach others about
their outrage. I asked students to construct their
own test using the culture, content, and vocabulary
of Jefferson High School. The older version of the
SATs included analogies, sentence completions, and
grammar and punctuation corrections. In my stu-
dents’ test, the analogies were situated in Jefferson’s
neighborhood and school culture.
NEW GROWTH : PERM ::
A. press : straight
B. weave : long
 C. corn row : braid
D. nails : fill
DANCEBELT : BOXERS ::
A. shoes : socks
B. student : teacher
C. leotard : leg warmers
D. prison : freedom
A group of basketball players, using “techni-
cal” vocabulary, composed sentence completions for
their section of the test:
1. Friday night Kenny, K’Zell, and Wendell
scored a _______ of points against Benson
at the basketball game.
A. flat
B. grip
C. bushel full
D. boot full
2. At the game on Friday night, Dirk shook
Derrick and broke his _______.
A. nose
B. hand
C. neck
D. ankles
Once students completed the JAT, or Jefferson
Achievement Test, we took our tests and knowledge
up to Ruth Shagoury’s education classes at Portland’s
Lewis & Clark College. My students gave the pre-
service teachers the JAT and asked them to imagine
the JAT as a high-stakes test that could determine
their future—what college they get into, scholar-
ships they’ll have access to. Taj opened the Lewis &
Clark lesson: “We have been studying the SATs. As
we examined the test, we discovered that this test
is culturally specific, geared toward a white, wealthy
society. We thought about what would happen if we
were the ones who created the test. We decided to
make a test from our culture, Jefferson, and see how
well other people would do on this test.” After the
tests, Jefferson students discussed the issue of test-
ing and language with the preservice graduate stu-
dents. In this way, my students had a real audience,
whose future teaching practice might be enlight-
ened by their work. At the same time, my students
CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD
discovered that what they learn in school can make
a difference in the world.
Looking Ahead
Although the SATs have changed their format since
Bill and I analyzed the content and questions of the
tests with our students, the history hasn’t changed
and the content of contemporary tests is still steeped
in white culture and class privilege. We need to con-
tinue to unwrap and dissect the SATs—or the next
generation of tests—to make it clear to students that
too often these tests measure access to upper-class
experience, not academic ability.
Trisa and her classmates became skeptical of
tests and of any measure or device used to include
some and exclude others. Beyond that, they sharp-
ened their analysis of who would want devices that
promoted and protected inequality.
When students see their lives or history as in-
evitable, they are not encouraged to work for change.
By studying problems in their lives and by rooting
those problems historically, students are able to ana-
lyze this society, uncover inequality, and explore the
reasons why it exists.
In every unit I teach, I want my students to
reach beyond the beauty, power, and seduction of
their descriptive writing—to probe for the whys and
to ask, “Is this the way it has to be?” It’s not enough
to tranquilize their pain through writing; I hope
they develop the tools to understand the causes of
those wounds. Z
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
Allende, Isabel. 1985. The House of the Spirits. Knopf.
Bigelow, Bill. 2007. “Testing, Tracking, and Toeing the Line: A
Role Play on the Origins of the Modern High School.” Rethinking
Our Classrooms, vol 1: Teaching for Equity and Justice. Rethinking
Schools.
Bowles, Samuel, and Herbert Gintis. 1976. Schooling in Capitalist
America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic
Life. Basic Books.
Freire, Paulo, and Donaldo Macedo. 1987. Literacy: Reading the
Word and the World. Bergin & Garvey.
Nasaw, David. 1979. Schooled to Order: A Social History of Public
Schooling in the United States. Oxford University Press.
Owen, David. 1985. None of the Above: Behind the Myth of
Scholastic Aptitude. Houghton Mifflin.
Shor, Ira. 1987. Freire for the Classroom. Heinemann.
Shor, Ira, and Paulo Freire. 1987. A Pedagogy for Liberation. Bergin
& Garvey.
113
 None of the Above Dialogue Journal
The selections printed below are from student dialogue journals. On the left, they quote from David Owen’s
book None of the Above: The Truth Behind the SATs. On the right, they argue, agree, paraphrase, or question it in
the comments that follow.

Christen began to see connections between past and present:

Observations/Quotes Reactions and Reflections
• In his book, he [Brigham] argued passionately • Th
 is struck me because even though slavery has
for stricter immigration laws, and within been over, they enslave us differently so that we
American borders for an end to the “infiltration will still be seen as dumb.
of white blood into the Negro.” (p. 178)
• Brigham reserved most of his considerable • Th
 ey could have kept us where we were in the
scorn for Blacks, whose arrival in America he first place. As far as I’m concerned we were better
described as the “most sinister development in off.
the history of this continent.” (p. 183)

Omar took offense that Carl Campbell Brigham assumed he

had the right or knowledge to control someone else’s life:

Observations/Quotes Reactions and Reflections

• The problem of eliminating “defective strains in • H
 ow does he know who’s defective? Who
the present population” remained. One solution, appointed him population watchdog? Sounds
Brigham believed, was intelligence testing. By like Hitler!
carefully sampling the mental power of the
nation’s young people, it would be possible
to identify and reward those citizens whose
racial inheritance had granted them a superior
intellectual endowment. (p. 179)

Omar also questioned the items appearing on Brigham’s early

Army Mental Tests, which were used to assign recruits jobs during World War I:

Observations/Quotes Reactions and Reflections

• Look at the Alpha Test 8! (p. 181) The Pierce
Arrow car is made in: Buffalo/Detroit/Toledo/
Flint. (p. 181)
In another excerpt, Margo bit back:
Observations/Quotes
• Brigham did not advocate the reestablishment
of human bondage. He did believe that Blacks
should be barred from mixing freely in White
society. (p. 183)
• In recent years the College Board and ETS have
described Brigham’s virulent racism as a sort of
irrelevant eccentricity. (p. 186)
• Th
 is sounds like Trivial Pursuit! It’s also very
racist, no real thinking required, just trivia.
Reactions and Reflections
• W
 hat does this mean? What’s the difference? Is
he trying to be a nice bigot?
• H
 is racism is by no means irrelevant. He has a
strong grasp on who goes to college and therefore
a grasp on the future of the country. I would say
that is fairly relevant.

114 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 Forgiveness Poems
An Ax for the Frozen Sea Within Us

RHEA EWING

I
was 13 when my father died. When I was in
high school, my mother started dating other
men. I resented this for many reasons. Partly,
I suppose I wanted her to stay true to the memory
of my father, whom I loved madly. But I also missed
her; she was absent from my life during that time.
My sisters and brother were grown, so our “fami-
ly” consisted of mom and me. She no longer cooked
dinner. She drank more. She stayed out late. I was
lonely and angry and hurt. Many years later, I re-
alized that she was still a “young” woman in her
mid-40s. She wasn’t ready to be a widow for life, and
there were few eligible prospects in our small town.
Teenagers often harbor resentment as well as
love for their parents. Theirs is an age of rebellion
and separation. During the last 40 years, I’ve lis-
tened as my students stormed in anger at their par-
ents, but I’ve also witnessed their love and loyalty.

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 115

As a daughter who has forgiven her mother, and as Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage
the mother of two daughters who I hope will forgive or making us nervous
me all of my mistakes, I find the topic of forgiveness because there seemed never to be any rage
essential—and a recurring theme in literature and here at all
history. Do we forgive our fathers for marrying
As students grow into adulthood, they need to or not marrying our mothers
see their parents as people as well as family mem- For divorcing or not divorcing our mothers?
bers. Sometimes understanding the cultural and so-
cial pressures that shaped their parents helps them And shall we forgive them for their excesses
begin to resolve some of the issues that divide them of warmth or coldness?
from the significant adults in their lives. For some
students the pain is still too close and too fresh to Lourie’s questions float through the class as we
forgive. Both responses are legitimate. read the end of the play, just as Victor’s father’s ashes
The forgiveness poem is a yearly staple in my float on the Spokane River.
classes. I use it when I teach Sherman Alexie’s Smoke Beyond the curricular connections, I use this
poetic prompt early in the
year because it cracks my
classes open. Instead of be-
ing cardboard characters—
the basketball player, the
dancer, the high achiev-
er—students become real
people whose veins pump
equal parts hope and pain.
As one of Bill Bigelow’s and
my former students said,
“When you hear people’s
stories, you can’t hate them
anymore.” Writing and
sharing our lives builds a
community in the class-
room that allows students
to risk more, to lose their
Signals in junior English, but it pairs well with many fear of looking or sounding wrong.
novels or historical periods. In Smoke Signals, Vic- We live in a society that is increasingly exploit-
tor, the main character, struggles because his alco- ative and unequal. As jobs fade into perpetual un-
holic father left the reservation, abandoning him employment, the loss of self-worth spins into alco-
and his mother. After his father’s death, Victor dis- hol, drug, and physical abuse. Families separate and
covers the reason his father left, as well as his father’s fall apart under the pressure. Too often these issues
guilt and pain. are not addressed in school, and students take out
At the end of the play, Alexie uses part of a their anger and grief on each other, creating disrup-
Dick Lourie poem, “Forgiving Our Fathers,” as Vic- tive and unproductive classrooms. The forgiveness
tor’s friend Thomas mourns the death of Victor’s fa- poem gives students space to voice the ways these
ther, Arnold, as well as his own: pressures have played out in their lives.
I begin by reading my poem about my mother
Do we forgive our fathers for leaving us too often to students. Sharing my stories helps build the bond
or forever between us. I make myself vulnerable when I’m ask-
when we were little? ing them to be vulnerable.

116 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 Dear Mom,
I forgive you for all the nights
you chose men over me,
the nights you stayed out late.
I forgive you for all the evenings
I ate TV dinners,
watching reruns of Maverick
and roamed our lonely house,
only my voice cracking the silence.
I forgive you for all the days
when your anger
tumbled out
coating me with curses.
I forgive you, Mother,
for I know your heart.
I know your loneliness.
I know the tender ache
that wakes us, alone in the dark
when the foghorn reminds
me that Dad died
and all that is left
is emptiness.
Once I share my poem, we read Lucille Clifton’s
poem “forgiving my father” (p. 115). She berates her
father for not giving her mother “what she was due.”
Her poem weaves in both understanding and anger:
but you were the son of a needy father,
the father of a needy son; you
gave her all you had
which was nothing.
We discuss the twin emotions that rise up from
Clifton’s poem and compare it to how Victor feels
about his father.
Then we read two student poems: “Forgiving
My Mother” by Tanya Park and “Forgiving My Fa-
ther” by Justin Morris (p. 120). After reading Tanya’s
poem, I ask students, “What do you notice about
Tanya’s poem? What’s it about? Can you relate to
it?” Students discuss the specific details—pushing
her father away, the packing and unpacking. They
don’t think that having breakfast for dinner is some-
thing to be angry about. Then I encourage students
to notice how the poem is put together. “How did
she move her poem forward?” Students note the
repeating lines, “For all the times … I forgive you.”
CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD
This repetition models an effective pattern that stu-
dents sometimes bring into their poems.
We follow the same procedure for Justin’s
poem. Many students identify with his poem to his
absent father. They quickly pick out details—not
knowing what his father looks like, not having the
same last name, no cards or presents for his birth-
day or Christmas. Again, I ask them to notice the
repetition in Justin’s poem, “I’d like to forgive you,
but …”
I tell students to take out a sheet of paper and
write a list of people they would like to forgive—
or not—including themselves. Then to select one
of those people and think about specific reasons
or events that need forgiving, like Tanya and Justin
did. Students write ferociously. Very few get stuck
on this assignment. Some use the repeating lines
from the students’ models, but others create their
own. Most students write to
their mother or father. One
girl wrote to the man who Sharing my
murdered her cousin, one stories helps
boy wrote to Hitler, but this build the bond
is typically a poem between
intimates—relatives and
between us. I
close friends. make myself
Let me say that not all vulnerable when
of my students have tragic
I’m asking them
lives, but some do, and this
assignment allows them to to be vulnerable.
speak bitterness about it.
For others, the assignment
lets them lay down some of the resentment they’ve
been carrying. One student was placed in foster
care after his grandparents were arrested for selling
drugs (see p. 121).
Another student is high achieving, but he’s
pushed hard by his parents to achieve even more.
His poem scorched the pages with his anger at being
both yelled at and paraded by his mother.
I’d like to think you’ve learned
From the history textbook of your anger
Or maybe that a teacher would appear to
help you learn
And I’d like to think that your atomic bomb
Of rage had broken and wouldn’t explode
again.
117
 But wishful thinking won’t change your class to address those who have harmed us so that
world. we can move on, hold hands with others who have
I dream of a morning also been wronged, come to new insights about
When your werewolf screams of fury are each other and our lives, understand that we are not
nowhere to be heard alone in our pain. The assignment is not a command
When your ceaseless gunfire won’t rip me up to forgive, but an invitation to understand—as Vic-
And I dream of a day when you don’t thrust tor comes to understand his father’s alcoholism and
spears through the bars of my disappearance—an invitation to name our hurt and
cage of misery then show me off to make sense of it. Z
admiring mothers like a trophy
But dreaming won’t make a better morning.
I wish you wouldn’t say, “I love you,”
Like you mean it.
Then tromp on me like I’m dirt
I wish I could forgive you,
But I can’t, and for that I am sorry, Mother.

Absent fathers, like Justin’s, are a common theme

in the poems. This poem reflects a familiar refrain:

For all the times you came

In at 2 in the morning yelling
At my mom, I forgive you.
For the time you left for
11 years without telling me
I forgive you.

Many students demonstrate the conflict evi-

dent in Lucille Clifton’s poem. They are angry, but
also curious and willing to stretch out a hand:

If I could forgive you, Father, I would.

But who are you?
I don’t have a clue.
You’ve got my inquiries stuck like a flame to
a fuse.
Only you can extinguish them.
I never got a hug from Daddy.
You know what? It’s fine.

We share the poems in class during a read-

around, where each student shares their piece and
others comment. Students are kind and thoughtful.
Because of the painful content, we do not require
everyone to share, but most do.
Franz Kafka wrote, “A book should serve as
the ax for the frozen sea within us.” For me, the
forgiveness poem is that axe. This poem allows the

118 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

forgiving my father
by Lucille Clifton

it is friday. we have come

to the paying of the bills.
all week you have stood in my dreams
like a ghost, asking for more time
but today is payday, payday old man;
my mother’s hand opens in her early grave
and i hold it out like a good daughter.

there is no more time for you. there will

never be time enough daddy daddy old lecher
old liar. i wish you were rich so i could take it all
and give the lady what she was due
but you were the son of a needy father,
the father of a needy son;
you gave her all you had
which was nothing. you have already given her
all you had.

you are the pocket that was going to open

and come up empty any friday.
you were each other’s bad bargain, not mine.
daddy old pauper
old prisoner,
old dead man
what am i doing here collecting?
you lie side by side in debtors’ boxes
and no accounting will open them up.

Copyright © 1980 by Lucille Clifton. Now appears in The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965–2010 by
Lucille Clifton, published by BOA Editions. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd.

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 119

u SAMPLE POEMS

Forgiving My Mother
by Tanya Park

For all the times you yelled

and all the times you screamed,
I forgive you.

For all the nights we had breakfast for dinner and

dinner for breakfast,
I forgive you.
For all the times I felt you
pushed
my daddy away, Forgiving My Father
I forgive you. by Justin Morris
For all the times we ran away
and came back, I’d like to forgive you, Father,
For all the times we packed but I don’t know your heart.
and unpacked, Your face,
for all the friends I’ve lost is it a mirror image of mine?
and all the schools I’ve seen, I’d like to forgive you, Father,
for all the times but I find your absence a fire
I was the new kid on the scene, that your face might be able to extinguish.
I forgive you. I’d like to forgive you, Father,
but my last name isn’t the same as yours
like it’s supposed to be.
You rejected me, Dad,
but can I sympathize with your ignorance?
For all the birthdays
you didn’t send me a card,
for the Christmases
when I’d wake up,
and you weren’t sitting by the tree waiting for me,
I can’t forgive you.
What about the summer nights
where prospects of you began to fade?
Fade like you did 17 years ago.
Out of my life.
I’d like to forgive you, Father,
but I don’t know you.
And for that,
I hate you.

120 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

Forgiveness
by Anonymous High School Student

Hey, Mom, I forgive you

For all the times you didn’t come home
For all the times you left us
At strangers’ houses.

For all the times you left us

At our grandparents’ house
For days.

Yes, Mom, I forgive you Dad, I Forgive You

For all the times you let
Dope come first.
For all the times that I found you
Passed out on the couch,
Thinking that you were dead
I forgive you
For bringing all those strange
People over.
For all the times you let me down,
Mom, I forgive you.
by Anonymous High School Student
For all the times you came
In at 2 in the morning yelling
At my mom,
I forgive you.
For the time you left for
11 years without telling me
I forgive you.
For the times you don’t come
See me and never call to say
I’m sorry
I forgive you.

For showing up in my life

Many years too late,
Dad, I forgive you.

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 121

 Essay with an Attitude
I
have a problem with many student essays that
I read: They are boring. Too predictable. Too
technical. Too groomed. They lack surprise.
They sound like bad school—overly structured and
without a song or a trace of passion in their lines.
They lack the lyricism of Rebecca Solnit, the fire of
Dave Zirin, the storytelling and thump of Leonard
Pitts Jr., the artful weaving of anecdote and analysis
of Brent Staples and Ta-Nehisi Coates, the humor
of Jim Hightower, or the feisty interrogation and
sharp-tongued insights of Roxane Gay.
But student essays don’t have to be boring.
They can be as playful, personal, and provocative
as poetry and stories; they can raise their fists and
122 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
CHRIS KINDRED
shout, “Injustice!” or shake us with laughter. As I tell
my students, “As long as you’ve got an opinion, you
can write an essay.” And I hear them talk—I know
they’ve got opinions. In an attempt to break stu-
dents out of their dull approach to essay writing, I
ask them to write an essay with an attitude.
An essay with an attitude asks students to use
their own lives and experiences as evidence. Too of-
ten curriculum distances them from their personal
history. Their rehearsal in essay writing lurches from
one literary analysis to another in language arts, or
from one summary of historical events to another to
history. They learn that writing is discussing other
people’s ideas or actions. An essay with an attitude,
however, grounds academic knowledge and the art
of essay writing firmly in their lives.
Before we start, I tape one of my published arti-
cles to the board. The one I use has 10 drafts. I also at-
tach the notes written on coffee shop napkins and the
backs of envelopes, the crossed-out sections where
I redrafted the opening, and notes to myself about
research I need to find for my next revision. I include
the drafts where Bill Bigelow (my husband, fellow
writer, and teacher) scribbled notes in the margins.
Following the drafts, I tape the letter I sent to Ben
Nelms, an English Journal editor, his response, and
the final publication. I want students to see that writ-
ing is messy and often hard. And like anything worth
pursuing, it takes time, commitment, and practice.
At the end of the year, my student Claire wrote
in her portfolio evaluation that seeing how many
times I reworked my piece before getting it “right”
gave her courage to let go; she knew she could come
back and revise, so she didn’t have to worry over ev-
ery word she wrote. Then again, my student Naaman
said, “Maybe I better transfer to another class if it
took you that many times to get it right!”
Lists and Models
Writing an essay with an attitude is about taking a
position and backing it up. It’s a sustained, rehearsed
argument with a parent, friend, teacher, newscast-
er, magazine writer, advertiser, or broader society. I
begin by asking students: What makes you angry?
What gets under your skin? What makes you want
to scream when you see a movie, a commercial, or
the news? What is it that people don’t understand
that you know but aren’t asked about? Are there
times when you want to shake someone in the mid-
dle of a conversation? Are there things about school
that you just can’t stand? What do you see in society
that needs to change?
Students make lists of what raises their hackles.
Then we “share the wealth” and write their ideas on
the board: curfews, suspensions, gentrification, pol-
iticians, dead dances, boring books in English class-
es, lack of uniforms for the soccer team, weak sup-
port for women’s sports compared to men’s, the way
African Americans and Latinx are portrayed on the
news, how big women never get to be the sexy lead.
The lists go on and on. Everybody’s got something
on their mind. If they don’t, the rest of the class can
CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD
certainly fill up their heads.
I discovered—through many failures—that
how I frame this opening lesson and the examples I
give determine the kind of responses I get. If I start
too small and too apolitical, I get stuck with pet
peeves—more of a whiny list than an outraged list.
Because I want students to focus on larger social is-
sues, I open the discussion with examples that steer
their responses in that direction. I talk about how I
hate advertisements that use women to sell products,
as if the model came with the purchase. But I also
talk about the way gentrification has pushed Black
and Brown people out of Jefferson’s neighborhood;
how huge, oversized condos crowd North Williams
and Vancouver avenues and make the sky disappear;
how when my nephew married his partner, I couldn’t
find any wedding cards for same-sex couples in my
local grocery store.
Finding Evidence
Once upon a time, I began teaching students to
write introductions at this point—I don’t anymore.
Too often, students became enamored with their in-
troduction and when they tried to write the rest of
the paper, they realized that they didn’t have enough
evidence to support their dramatic opening. Instead
of forging ahead on the thesis statement, I demon-
strate the importance of gathering evidence. After
reading some sample essays from former students,
as well as columnists like Leonard Pitts Jr. and Dave
Zirin, we identify the kinds of supporting evidence
they used. I want students to see that essay structure
can vary. Some essays have far more than five para-
graphs, some have a thesis statement written out, in
others the thesis is implied. Writers use all kinds of
evidence—from personal experience to examples
from school, newspapers, movies, and books. Some
use research. In other words, there is no one way to
write an essay, no template or pattern to follow. The
essay rises out of the evidence, clarifying the writer’s
point of view. There are no acronyms, no “hamburg-
er sandwich” formula, no specified format. With a
thorough immersion in the genre, students learn
that essays—like flowers—are unique, but—like
flowers—they do have commonalities (for example,
the writer is making a point and supporting that
point with evidence). Once students are all on the
same page with that, we move forward.
123
 We take one item from the student-generated “As each writer talks about their topic and evidence,
list and brainstorm supporting evidence for that see if you can make suggestions or additions that
topic. Students list subjects that they are experts will help with the essay.” With luck, the group helps
on—racism, sexism, school life—but they also bring them expand lists, and, of course, I hover and push
in topics that we have studied that impact their lives. them to probe beneath the surface. For homework,
When students discuss gentrification, for example, they must find more evidence by talking with oth-
I ask: What does that mean? Where do you see er people, looking up newspaper or magazine arti-
changes that you could talk about? Jalean suggested cles, and calling other sources for more background
the changes on Alberta Street. Desiree´ discussed information. Some topics take more research than
how Black-owned businesses and residents have others, but most need a strong dose of outside infor-
been pushed out. mation to strengthen their claims.
If I stop pushing students to develop evi-
dence at this point, their “support” becomes lit- Introductions
tle more than a listing and a description, and they Introductions make or break an essay. A weak in-
don’t move to scrutinize the issues more intensely; troduction is a reader’s first impression of a writer.
I don’t get them to ask why. Yes, there is gentrifica- Plus, starting the essay-writing procedure with a
tion in the neighborhood and the two events shared poor introduction can muddy up the trail later on
by students prove that. and leave students confused
But how did the disap- about what kind of evidence
pearance of Black-owned I want students to see that to use for support because
businesses happen? What writing is messy and often their position is unclear. So
has happened recent- hard. And like anything we study how good writers
ly—or historically—that
might contribute to the
worth pursuing, it takes time, begin their essays. I set this
up ahead of time by copying
loss of Black residents in commitment, and practice. introductions from a vari-
the community? What do ety of sources. I show essays
they recall from our unit? beginning with questions,
(See “Rethinking Research,” p. 156.) These are hard dialogue, quotes, anecdotes, startling research, and
questions, and if I don’t push them to think more I beg them never to begin with a dictionary defi-
deeply about the why questions, their papers end nition, the quintessential essay cliché (see “Writing
up a recitation rather than an in-depth examina- Introductions” handout p. 131).
tion. The easy answers also lead to conclusions that, One of the openings I use comes from an essay
more often than not, blame the victim rather than my former student, Joe Robertson, wrote during his
look at the economic or social conditions that have senior year. In his essay “Who Framed Rasheed Rab-
changed the neighborhood in recent years. bit?,” Joe asks a series of questions to engage readers:
After I’ve modeled the process of gathering
support for a subject, I ask students to choose one Do you remember that cartoon with a mighty
topic from the board or from their paper and list Black prince who looked like Denzel Wash-
their supporting evidence. I push them to ask ques- ington? Remember? He rescued the lovely
tions like who is benefitting, who is harmed? Does Black princess who looked like Halle Berry?
any of this sound familiar? Is there a historical pat- Remember how the evil white wizard, an Ar-
tern? What stories do they have from their own lives nold Schwarzenegger look-alike, got chased
that they can use as evidence? by an angry mob of bees? Me neither. Perhaps
Once individual work is completed, students that’s because African Americans aren’t cast
get in groups of four or five and share their topics as heroes in cartoons.
and help each other brainstorm evidence. Because
students have listed their topics, I attempt to get Thao Vy, a graduating senior, opens her essay
them together with people pursuing similar subjects. with conversation, a stage to launch her essay about

124 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

the clash between Vietnamese immigrant parents
and their children raised in the United States:
“How do you expect to find a husband
when you don’t know how to cook?” my mom
asks me.
“I’ll marry somebody who knows how
to cook.”
“Well, if we were back in Vietnam, you
would already know how to cook. Over here,
you’re so lazy.”
“If you weren’t so busy, maybe you could
teach me how to cook. It’s not my fault you
don’t have time to show me.”
Conversations comparing what I would
be like if our family still lived in Vietnam are
common in my house.
Many of my students favor the conversation or
anecdotal opening; I do, too. But it’s a tricky lead be-
cause sometimes students get so wrapped up in the
story that their essay gets lost. One student, for exam-
ple, wrote a three-page lead into his four-page essay.
Mary Blalock, another Jefferson graduate, be-
gan her essay with a quote. Like the question open-
ing, the quote introduction is a classic opening; it
propels the writer forward in her essay:
I once heard a quote that made me laugh. It said,
“Love is the history of a woman’s life and an ep-
isode in a man’s.” It was the kind of laugh that
happens when something isn’t funny, when it’s
only true, and it hurts. It hurts because of the
women I know, both young and old, who are
bright, intelligent, and who have so much go-
ing for them, but they still value their relation-
ships with men more than their relationships
with themselves and other women.
Once I saturate students in essay openings, I
ask them to write their own essay introduction. Vol-
unteers share their openings on the document cam-
era. We go through each one and share what’s work-
ing and what we love about the introduction. Then
we talk about what the author needs to prove. This
multiple exposure to introductions pushes students
to use more imaginative openings than “In this es-
say I will tell you about…”
CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD
Coloring for Evidence: Raising the Bones
Before students begin writing the body of their essay,
I pass out boxes of colored markers and ask students
to color in evidence and transitions in a common es-
say we’ve read, like Khalilah Joseph’s “Tar Baby” (see
p. 129). The coloring exercise visually demonstrates
points I want to make in any kind of writing.
I begin by reading the piece out loud to stu-
dents. We talk about what the introduction indi-
cates Khalilah will discuss in her essay. Then I ask
students to comb through her writing on their own
and annotate each paragraph. “What kind of evi-
dence does Khaliah use in each paragraph? Write
a note in the margin of the essay.” When students
finish their annotation, we create a list of potential
places to find support: our lives, history, literature,
media, other people. Then we create a criteria sheet
based on their observations (see “Essay Criteria
Sheet” p. 133).
Deadlines, Reality, and Response
I set a deadline date for the essays knowing that not
everyone will have theirs completed. I can already
hear you clucking your tongues. “How will they ever
survive the ‘real world’ unless they learn to turn
their work in on time? No one is going to hire and
keep slackers.”
I know, I know. But not everyone comes in
knowing how to write essays. Perhaps in other
schools or other teachers’ classrooms everyone
comes prepared, typed essay in hand. That hasn’t
been my experience.
I’ve heard teachers, myself included, talk about
lazy students who just don’t do their work. And cer-
tainly this is true at times, but in recent years I’ve
tried to look more deeply at the roots of students’
resistance to essay work. “Laziness” is a lazy expla-
nation. There is always something more at work.
Some students have had bad experiences writing
essays, some have had no experiences. This was true
even before I taught untracked English classes. I try
to “level the playing field.” A few—Khalilah, Rosa,
Sarah, and Travis—have typed papers ready to read
on the due date. Others write drafts that don’t take
off; some bring handwritten notes with an introduc-
tion and then confusion. Some don’t have a clue.
Sometimes, especially early in the year, students get
125
stuck because they are still in the “one draft and then Then students like Megan, Kenneth, and
a grade” mode of writing. They fear beginning be- Sokpah read rough drafts that feel unfinished.
cause—to quote my daughter, Gretchen, when she They get feedback about where to go next in their
was a high school sophomore—“I know how I want drafts. I ask the class, “What points are they trying
it to be, and when the words get on the paper they to make? Where does the draft work? Where did
aren’t as good as the ones in my head.” you get confused?” Again, this helps other students
I watch students in class. who can’t see the direction of
Some draft a line or two, pause, their essays as well as students
write another line, tear the pa- It is not uncommon for who didn’t “get it.” It is not un-
per out, then crumple it and
students to push through common for students to push
throw it away. They then begin through a “blah” draft just to
the process again and again. a “blah” draft just to “get “get it done,” then when they
Like my daughter, they can’t it done,” then when they hear their classmates’ pieces,
match the essay in their head hear their classmates’ they find a new way to enter
to the one on paper. These are the essay to make it livelier. I
students I need to work with
pieces, they find a new love it when the class ends and
one-on-one. They need to learn way to enter the essay to a student comes up and asks if
William Stafford’s famous max- make it livelier. they can write a new draft be-
im: “Lower your standards and cause they just caught an idea
write.” Others put pen to paper from their classmate.
and start. These are the writers who benefit most The read-arounds of the students who finished
from my pre-writing work. They are comfortable early break the ground for our peer group work. Now,
writing, but use these strategies to move their writ- students divide into small groups or pairs and read as
ing to a higher level. much as they have completed and get help from their
Some put their heads on their desks, defeated friends to push them to their next draft. In this first
before they even start. These are usually students stage of response/revision, students ideally discover
who have experienced too much failure in school. what’s missing in their pieces. That night, or after
The head on the desk tells other students that they school in the computer lab, some students work on
are too bored, too tired, too sick to write the es- revisions. They add, delete, move, and edit until they
say; better to not try than to try and fail. (I work feel satisfied with their piece. Others work on getting
with these students during class time, at lunchtime, unstuck and others, I hope, work toward a draft.
during break, after school, or call them at home.) If all of this seems repetitive, it is. I come at
Some students work late, take care of siblings or essay writing from many different directions—read-
their own children, cook meals for the family, re- ing models, writing, hearing classmates read out
hearse for the school play, practice or play in a loud, discussing, coloring, working in groups and
school game. Some don’t do homework. This is life individually—so that all my students understand.
in my school, and I try to take advantage of knowing Because students don’t all learn the same way or
the reality ahead of time. enter my class with the same background knowl-
I start class read-arounds (arranged in a circle, edge or confidence, I need to teach essay writing
so everyone can see and hear) by getting a few peo- rather than assign it. This requires patience and the
ple to volunteer reading their papers. These students absolute belief that all students can write given the
benefit by getting the entire class’s feedback—ver- time and right conditions. If they were lost when
bally and in written form (see “The Read-Around” we discussed published essays, maybe they’ll pick
p. 15). And because I didn’t give one prompt, the up something when they color in evidence and in-
essays are interesting, one-of-a-kind pieces fueled troductions. If they’re not sure how to start, reading
by student attitude about contemporary issues. The other people’s openings might give them a way to
class benefits by hearing how fellow classmates ap- enter their essay. If their support is weak, they might
proached the assignment. learn from coloring evidence on published essays or

126 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

from their group work where other students brain- dent. I often work individually with students. I don’t
stormed evidence. mark every error. It would be too overwhelming for
the student, but it would also waste my time. How
Revisions much can a student learn in one draft? What is a rea-
Revision is not just editing grammar and spelling. sonable and valuable goal—to spell “marble” correct-
It’s pushing for more evidence, cutting materi- ly or to think through an argument? Students need
al that erodes or muddies key points, and refining both the technical skills of spelling, grammar, and
the argument. Revision provides another chance to punctuation as well as larger skills of argument and
engage students in a dialogue: “You write that you support. But they can’t learn it all at once, so I pick
are angry about the new anti-immigration laws, but one or two technical skills—periods, capitalization,
you don’t explain the laws to the reader. What are semicolons, subject/verb agreement—that I teach in-
the laws? Imagine you are writing to a friend who dividually, and I select one or two larger concepts to
doesn’t understand the importance of the laws. How work on as well. I consider each draft, each new essay,
will you explain the laws and their effects on immi- part of a longer and larger learning process.
grants? This is good where you give some examples
from people who you know, but can you tie it back Publication: Beyond School Walls
to the laws? What do people who support the laws Beyond just getting students to write, I want them to
say? Can you talk back to their arguments?” find an audience and attempt to publish their work—
When students have amassed a chunk of writ- in small neighborhood or church publications, in
ing, their previously abstract ideas—both in terms our school newspaper or school literary magazine,
of thesis and support—are now captured on paper. in the Oregonian, Ebony, Teen Voices, Calyx, Rookie.
Now I find evidence of how each student processes I also encourage students to think of nontradition-
information. If the student has completed two drafts, al ways to publish. One student, Vinai, wrote about
I can see the kinds of changes they how few Asian American books
knew to make. What did they add were in our library and how lit-
or change? What is still missing? I need to teach essay tle teachers and librarians knew
Are there holes in their logic? writing rather about these works. She published
I diagnose the problems and a flyer for local libraries that in-
than assign it. This
consider what each student needs cluded part of her essay as well as
to learn in order to proceed to requires patience and a listing of books by Asian Amer-
the next draft. For some students the absolute belief ican writers. School librarians
it might be tightening language that all students can loved her work. Another student,
or using verbs more effectively. Mary, wrote about girls and body
For others, like Rosa who wrote
write given the time image in a newspaper format. She
about the anti-immigration laws, and right conditions. asked area middle school teach-
it might mean explaining the situ- ers to distribute her “Girls’ Bill of
ation more clearly, countering the Rights” to young women in their
opposition’s arguments, reading more on the topic. classes. I find students take their writing more seri-
For others it might mean starting again because they ously and care more about fine-tuning and polish-
don’t yet have a word on paper. With Akil, who still ing it if they have real audiences.
didn’t have a draft, I asked, “What makes you mad? Like good writing, good teaching is both
You’re never angry? OK, you don’t like it when store messy and time-consuming. But sitting back at the
clerks follow you. That’s a start. Why does that make end of the class—when those final typed drafts are
you mad? How do you feel when that happens? Why stacked on top of rough drafts, filled with arrows
do you think they follow you? Do they follow any- and scribbles and restaurant napkins—is as much
one else?” a pleasure as sending out my own polished piece.
This is also the most time-consuming part. I not Only in my classroom, there are no rejection slips,
only read each paper, I plan a strategy for each stu- just tickets to the next draft. Z

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 127

u SAMPLE ESSAYS
Battle to Change the Color Lines
by Mahala Ritcherson
Walking down the halls of Jefferson High School,
you can see a variety of students and cultures. We
are African, Asian, Indigenous, European, Hispan-
ic or Latino, Pacific Islander. We are probably the
most diverse school in Oregon. We have a chance
to learn firsthand how to make a world work using
the knowledge and talent from all kinds of people.
Sitting in the cafeteria, you can hear Spanish to your
right, Vietnamese to your left, and Russian right be-
hind you. We could learn about many different plac-
es on earth without even picking up a book if we
only opened our eyes.
Instead, an invisible barbed-wire fence keeps
us penned inside our own small minds. We are
afraid to reach out and take a chance. We are afraid
to learn. We call each other all kinds of racial slurs
and make fun of any little difference rather than ap-
preciating them or noticing all the things we have
in common. All we have to do is say hello and the
hardest part is over. Put down that wire fence. Say
hello, and we are half way there.
The word racism is used to hide our fear. We
are all racist in some way because we are nervous
about anything different from what we are used to.
If a person does not look like us or speaks a lan-
guage we do not recognize, we get scared. Scared
they might know something we don’t. We put them
down any way we can to keep us from feeling stupid.
Each school tries to set up a program to com-
bat racism, a group to get us communicating and
opening up the topic. They put two of the top stu-
dents from each racial group together to converse
and that will help end racism. They hang posters and
design T-shirts honoring diversity, and maybe that
will help. I don’t think so. Don’t get me wrong. We
need to do something at our school to fix things, but
we need more than T-shirts and slogans. We can-
not mend the problem until we know what is wrong
and why it is wrong. There must be a required class
dealing with these issues. We need a time when we
can get together with students of other cultures and
really talk. All of us must be involved and honest for
it to work. Teachers are the ones leading us into the
future. They need to be armed with effective ways of
approaching racism and dealing with it.
128 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
Jefferson wants all its students to feel like a
part of the school and that we are respected. So
what happened when the Latino kids at Jeff spoke
up about the degrading representation of them at an
assembly? When they wanted people to know that
the Latino character wearing a hairnet, pants up to
his chest, speaking slang was offensive and racist,
only a few listened. “It was a joke,” many students
said. “Don’t you have a sense of humor?” And after
a couple of days, the incident was swept under the
carpet without a mention from the administration.
Racism can be right out in the open and peo-
ple choose to ignore it. Between classes, I passed a
locker with the words “Go back to Japan” written on
it. As I looked back, a boy speaking Vietnamese was
turning the lock. We are not always brilliant with
the use of our prejudices, but they still hurt.
Another sight calmed by acceptance is the im-
age of a troublemaker. Who do we look at when the
teacher says to be quiet? Who do we look at when
something is missing? Who do we point at when
there has been violence in our school? Who do we
look for in the dean’s office? Probably the Black kid
sitting next to you.
I can also call out the students who are mainly
looked at as the source of racism. History tells us their
ancestors were racist, so why not single them out to-
day? Is it not painful to enter a room and have no one
talk to you or else comment on the “white bitch” they
saw yesterday? It can’t hurt them; they’re white.
Some teachers try to ease the issue out and a few
actually hit it head-on. The rest of the school system
does not have a clue as to what is going on or does
not want to face it. They would rather hide behind
books wearing their “Honoring Diversity” T-shirts
than talk with the students to learn the truth. We are
hurting, we are angry, but no one wants to hear that!
Let me tell you, the stench is getting strong again
just like in the ’60s. The administration must smell
it, but they are afraid of the explosion that would
come with it. There was a battle over color lines and
the law. People fought to end racism legally and get
some respect along the way.
Now we must battle to change the color lines
in our heads. We need to fight our hatred and our
fear. Destroying racist laws will do nothing until we
destroy the barricade of racism in our minds.
Schools are where we learn to make it in the
society, and in order for us to make it, we cannot
be afraid of each other. We need to open our eyes
and make respecting our fellow students and their
cultures more important than any PE or career ed-
ucation class. The school system needs to wake up
and start working before we all slip away or explode.
...............................................
Tar Baby
by Khalilah Joseph
During the Atlantic slave trade, Africans on plan-
tations across the South were treated like animals.
They were thought to be less than human, but even
within this undignified category, they were further
classified by color. It started that far back: When all
Blacks were nothing, still color was an issue. The
lighter you were, the closer to the house you toiled,
and the less work you did. In those days, there was
no beauty in color, and if you had some, you were
destined to be working way out in the field. Even
today, I see the remnants of the “field nigga” and
“house nigga” syndrome.
It happens in a continuous motion through
music videos, movies, magazines, and daily life. I
can watch a video by a given artist and before the
end of it, the object of desire will prance across the
screen, and of course she’ll be a honey-dipped, bare-
ly brown bombshell.
In the movie Waiting to Exhale, a film target-
ed at African American women, the lightest woman
in the movie was the male magnet. And the dark-
skinned sister? It took her the whole movie just to
get a date. Women of color are greatly downsized in
the movie. Angela Bassett could be a battered wife,
but could she be a Pretty Woman or be the object of
an Indecent Proposal?
In most magazines you pick up, you can find
at least one African American woman, but usually
she is a little light-eyed biracial girl who does little
to represent women of color. Be gone with those
tiny-waisted, no-hip-having heifers. Bring on the
models who range in color from caramel to dark
chocolate. Then give them features familiar to Negro
women. I’m talking about big booties, childbearing
hips, thunder thighs.
As a dark-skinned girl, I was ridiculed. I can re-
CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD
member a time when one of my elementary school
classes had a career fair. Like many other girls my
age, I wanted to be an actress or a model. My class-
mates made it painfully clear that dark-skinned
girls are not considered pretty. They couldn’t imag-
ine why I would think that I could become a model.
They suggested that I be a nurse or a teacher.
I was called names like “tar baby” or “blackie.”
As a young girl I couldn’t understand why some peo-
ple of my own race would tease me about something
I could not change, while a person of another race
could see all the beauty I possessed—inside and out.
As women of color we have made progress: We
are teachers, lawyers, doctors. We are elected to of-
fice. Who knows, maybe one day, we dark-skinned
women will be video hoochies, too.
...............................................
Self-Inflicted Sexism
by Heather O’Brien
When I was in the 4th grade, my goal in life was to go
to Harvard and become the first woman president.
In the 8th grade, all I wanted was a boyfriend. How is
it that my life could take such an abrupt turn?
At the age of 9, it’s still OK for girls to get dirty
and want to learn to play the drums. By the time
they reach 12 or 13, they’re expected to be more in-
terested in clothes than sports. Finding a date for
the dance is more important than getting an A on
the science project. Girls begin to worry about their
looks and wonder how to become a model of grace
and poise. Instead of reading Discover magazine,
they invest their allowance in Teen.
Magazines like YM and Seventeen teach girls
to look and act a certain way. Even the so-called
“enlightened” magazines that claim women can be
strong and empowered put barely clad 6-foot-tall
bunnies on their covers. The not-so-secret message
to girls is that it’s OK to go for everything you want
as long as you look like a cover girl.
But why do women strive to be young, thin,
and beautiful? Certainly not for the benefit of oth-
er women. That’s why the articles deal with subjects
like “The Hairstyles Men Really Love” or “What
He Thinks About Your Clothes.” Instead of telling
women how to develop self-approval, these maga-
129
zines teach girls how to attain male approval. More
emphasis is put on finding a mate than finding a col-
lege. It’s hard to ignore the message that women are
not valuable without men.
I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard
women in the bathroom saying, “I hope he likes
this outfit” or “Do you think he thinks I look fat?”
What’s worse is that women tend to accept men’s at-
titude as mirrors to their own faults. Sure, most girls
may jokingly put boys down, but at the same time,
they excuse their selfishness or insensitivity with
“Oh, he’s just in a bad mood” or “I must have done
something wrong” instead of demanding the same
respect they do from other females. When it comes
to men, the rules change; women are to put men’s
feelings before their own.
As women, we have been raised in the attitude
men deserve more. An amazing amount of energy
is put into anticipating men’s needs (be it our father,
our brother, or our boyfriend) and trying to figure
out what type of woman he wants instead of becom-
ing the type of women we want to be.
At one point in most girls’ lives, she casts her
eyes downwards and sighs, “I wish I had a boy-
friend.” Companies profit off that insecurity. Per-
fume makers promise us that “You’ll be fighting the
men off ” if we use their product. Cosmetic compa-
nies print ads showing women using their makeup
and sending guys into a frenzy. There are even plac-
es to send for books with complete instructions on
“How to Get the Boy of Your Dreams.” The key is
how to change and conform to what the boy is look-
ing for. No matter where you turn, everything in our
culture emphasizes that having a boyfriend should
be a girl’s priority. In fact, it is a widely accepted be-
lief that having a boyfriend is more important than
having girl friends.
One of these “how to get boys” books is actually
called How to Get the Boy You Want Away from Oth-
er Girls. This illustrates the assumption that women
should compete for men’s attention. Competition
among women is perhaps one of the most destruc-
tive acts of sexism.
But recognizing this type of self-inflicted sex-
ism is only the first step. Women have to not only
be aware of men trying to hold women, but also the
instinct to hold themselves down and conform to
the perfect image of femininity.

130 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

u HANDOUT

Writing Introductions

Students from Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon, wrote the following introductions. As you read over
the sample openings, underline the thesis statement if it is stated, write it in the space below the introduction if
it is implied. Also think about what evidence the student must provide in order to prove the thesis.

Question

In his essay “Who Framed Rasheed Rabbit?,” Joe Robertson asks a series of questions to engage his readers:

Do you remember that cartoon with a mighty Black prince who looked like Denzel Washington? Remember? He
rescued the lovely Black princess who looked like Halle Berry? Remember how the evil white wizard, an Arnold
Schwarzenegger look-alike, got chased by an angry mob of bees? Me neither. Perhaps that’s because African
Americans aren’t cast as heroes in cartoons.

Quote

Like the question opening, the quote introduction is a classic opening. Mary Blalock begins her essay with a quote
that propels her essay forward:

I once heard a quote that made me laugh. It said, “Love is the history of a woman’s life and an episode in a man’s.”
It was the kind of laugh that happens when something isn’t funny, when it’s only true, and it hurts. It hurts because
of the women I know, both young and old, who are bright, intelligent, and who have so much going for them,
but they still value their relationships with men more than their relationships with themselves and other women.

Jillana Kinney used an opening quote from an advertisement to capture her readers’ attention in her essay on the
role of overweight characters in cartoons:

“Give us a week, and we’ll take off the weight,” “Keep the muscle, lose the fat!” scream TV and magazine commer-
cials. Who wouldn’t want to be thin, with scrutinizing eyes and subliminal judgments from every passing strang-
er? Even animated cartoons are filled with prejudicial lessons for both young and old. Look at Porky Pig, Wimpy
from Popeye, Baloo the Bear from The Jungle Book—all fat, stupid, and for the most part, the losers in society.

Writing Introductions (continued on next page)

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 131

Dialogue/Anecdote

The anecdotal opening is a small story that frames the topic of the essay personally. It can introduce characters,
pose the thesis or dilemma that’s central to your argument, and get you off to a fast start. The anecdote is a tricky
lead because sometimes people get so wrapped up in the story that their essay gets lost.

Heather O’Brien uses a brief anecdote to make her point in her essay, “Self-Inflicted Sexism”:

When I was in the 4th grade, my goal in life was to go to Harvard and become the first woman president. In the
8th grade, all I wanted was a boyfriend. How is it that my life could take such an abrupt turn?
At the age of 9, it’s still OK for girls to get dirty and want to learn to play the drums. By the time they reach
12 or 13, they’re expected to be more interested in clothes than sports. Finding a date for the dance is more
important than getting an A on the science project. Girls begin to worry about their looks and wonder how to
become a model of grace and poise. Instead of reading Discover magazine, they invest their allowance in Teen.

Erika Miller used both a question and an anecdote in her introduction about the media’s effect on young women’s
self-esteem:

Am I fat? Look at my thighs. They’re huge. And my hips? Who’s going to like me with this body? “Someday my
prince will come,” Cinderella hums in my ear. No prince will claim me as his bride. I’m too ugly.
Stepping on that scale in the 2nd grade was the beginning of the end for me. Weighing in at 67 pounds was
horrifying. Just like Tinker Bell when she looked into a hand mirror and realized her hips were too big in Peter
Pan, I stepped on the scale and realized I was fat, enormous, disgusting. At least that was the image Tinker Bell
helped me paint of myself.

Kaanan Yarbrough used his sisters’ love lives to start off an essay on the book Their Eyes Were Watching God:

After growing up in a house with three sisters, I noticed that girls can’t distinguish the good guys from the bad.
They dream of a prince, and he turns out to be a dog. Janie, from the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora
Neale Hurston, is a character in a dream world waiting to be swept off her feet to happiness. Like my sisters, she
has to meet a few dogs before she finds that prince.

Wake-Up Call

Chetan Patel sounds the alarm in his essay, “The Nuclear Headache,” where he exposes the federal government’s plan
to store nuclear waste on Native American land:

Fish with no eyes, fish with skin deformities, and fish with deteriorated fins and bones are being caught in the
Columbia River. Soon these mutated fish will pop up all over the western United States. No joke. The government
started a program to store nuclear waste on reservation lands volunteered by Native American tribal councils.

132 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

u HANDOUT

Essay Criteria Sheet

Assignment: Write a persuasive essay that clearly states your opinion on a contemporary issue. Support your
opinion using personal experience, anecdotes, statistics, evidence from everyday life, novels, magazines, TV,
movies, etc. In this essay, also focus on tightening your sentences and using active verbs.

Criteria: Attach this sheet to your essay.

____1. Thesis Statement: Stated or implied? Write it in the space below.

____2. Introduction: What kind of introduction did you use?

Question
Anecdote
Quotation
Wake-up call

____3. Evidence: Prove your point. Check which of the following types of evidence you used below.
On your essay, mark each type of evidence with a different color:
Personal experience—evidence from your daily life
Anecdotes—stories you’ve heard that illustrate your point
Statistics/facts
Examples from novels, magazines, TV, movies
Other _______________________________

___4. Conclusion: What kind of conclusion did you use?

Summary
Circle back to the beginning
Possible solution
Restate and emphasize thesis
Further questions to think about

___5. Tight Writing:

Active verbs
Lean language
Metaphoric language
Sentence variety

___6. Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling: checked and corrected

On the back of this page, describe what you need to do to revise this essay.

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 133

Burned out of Homes and History
Uncovering the Silenced Voices
of the Tulsa Race Massacre

1921 photo of the destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood.

RESEARCH DIVISION OF THE OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

I
teach language arts, so why would I teach my
students about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre?
In language arts circles, we discuss reading as a
window to the world, but in a country plagued with
foreclosures and homelessness, we need to question
the world we’re gazing at: How are contemporary
evictions a historical reach from the past? What has
happened to Black and Brown communities? Why
do people of color have less inherited wealth than
whites? The untold history—the buried stories—re-
veals patterns that affect our students’ current lives,
from eviction notices to the hunger of deep poverty.
I can wax poetic about the importance of story in
students’ lives, but reading literature of poverty and
despair without offering a historical explanation
leaves students with little understanding about how
things came to be the way they are. And that’s worth
reading and writing about.
Jefferson High School, where I co-teach a ju-
nior language arts class with Dianne Leahy—a won-

134 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

derful teacher who allows me to keep my teaching Black and white citizens might be equally to blame
chops alive by creating and teaching curriculum for lawlessness and violence, the historical record
with her—is located in a gentrifying neighborhood documents that what occurred was a sustained and
that once was the heart of the African American murderous assault on Black lives and property. This
community in Portland. Families were pushed out assault was met by a brave but unsuccessful armed
of their homes because of ur- defense of their community by
ban renewal beginning in the some Black World War I vet-
1960s and again, more recent- “Our wealth is tied up erans and others. During the
ly, because of gentrification. As night and day of the massacre,
in our homes. So what
the prices of homes rise in what deputized whites killed more
is now called the “Alberta Arts happens when you lose than 300 African Americans;
Neighborhood,” most of our your home?” they looted and burned to the
students’ families can no lon- ground 40 square blocks, in-
ger afford to live in our school’s cluding 1,265 African Amer-
neighborhood. They live in apartments on the out- ican homes, hospitals, schools, churches, and 150
skirts of the city, and a number ride buses or the businesses. White deputies and members of the Na-
commuter train to come to school at Jefferson. tional Guard arrested and detained 6,000 Black Tul-
For me, learning about the history of the Tulsa sans who were released only upon being vouched
Race Massacre coincided with the current economic for by a white employer or other white citizen; 9,000
crisis that has led to epic foreclosures and evictions. African Americans were left homeless and living in
I realized that, like many people, the majority of my tents well into the winter of 1921.
family’s “wealth” is tied up in our home. We drew on
that wealth to send our daughters to college. They Building Background Knowledge
will inherit the house, and the wealth it represents, and Interest
when my husband and I pass on. In class, before we began the unit, I briefly discussed
The story of Tulsa may be an extreme instance the arc of our upcoming study. “We are starting this
of violent dispossession, but it highlights a pattern unit because I want you to think about wealth in
of historical expulsions and exclusions that explains this country. Who has it? Who doesn’t? An import-
the lack of inherited wealth in Black and Brown com- ant study just discovered that whites have 20 times
munities. According to historian Hannibal B. John- the wealth of Blacks. Why is that? When there’s a
son, “The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 was set against question that puzzles you, you have to investigate.
a backdrop of a multitude of race riots in Ameri- For many people, including me, our wealth is tied
ca. 1919 was known as ‘red summer’ because blood up in our homes. So what happens when you lose
was flowing in the streets. There were over 25 major your home?”
riots in 1919 in America.” (See Elliot Jaspin’s book Students frequently bring up the gentrification
Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of of the neighborhood, which has rapidly transformed
Racial Cleansing in America for more on this topic.) from mom-and-pop grocery stores to chic restau-
The complicit silence of textbooks about the history rants and upscale boutiques. Rather than describe
of race riots and racial exclusions that pushed Black the problem of gentrification at this early stage of
people off their lands and out of their homes keeps the study, I move them into the history, keeping the
our students ignorant about the reasons for the lack question of homes and wealth in front of them as we
of economic resources in the Black community. In- move forward.
stead, students must imagine why their people lack To stimulate our students’ interest in resur-
wealth: unwise spending? Laziness? Ignorance? recting this silenced history of Tulsa, I created a
The term “race riot” does not adequately de- tea party/mixer about the night of the invasion of
scribe the events of May 31–June 1, 1921, in Tulsa, Greenwood, the African American section of Tulsa.
Oklahoma. Though some sources labeled the epi- (For more on the tea party activity see p. 196.) Using
sode a “race riot” or a “race war,” implying that both sources from historians John Hope Franklin, Scott

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 135

Ellsworth, and others, I wrote roles for students that series of questions to help them elicit information
gave them each a slice of what happened that night: from each other’s roles. We read over the questions,
the arrest of Dick Rowland, a young African Amer- which included: “Find someone who suffered a loss
ican shoe shiner who allegedly raped Sarah Page, during the massacre. What did they lose? What
a white elevator operator, in broad daylight (later, happened?” Students found one or more questions
students learn that authorities dropped all charges); that they could answer based on their role. Before I
the newspaper article that incited whites and Blacks turned them loose, I added, “You are entering the
to gather at the courthouse; the gathering of armed roles of people whose lives may have been shattered
Black World War I veterans to prevent a lynching; on that night. Take their lives seriously. Give them
the deputizing and arming of whites, many of whom the dignity they deserve.”
were in the Ku Klux Klan; the internment of Blacks; Students circulated through the room, talking
the death of more than 300 African American men, in pairs, finding out bits and pieces of what happened
women, and children; the burning and looting of that night. Because this was an introduction to the
their homes and businesses. unit, not the full story, they ended the activity with
Because not all white Tulsans shared the ra- information, but also with questions. I asked them
cial views of the white rioters, I included roles of to write down key facts they learned about the Tulsa
a few whites and a recent immigrant from Mexico Race Massacre and what they still wanted to know.
who provided safety in the midst of death and cha- Their questions filled the class: What really started
os. These roles allowed students to understand that the massacre? Did Black people rebuild their hous-
even in moments of violence, people stood up and es? Why didn’t we learn about this before? (When
reached across race and class I guest-taught this lesson in a
borders to help. I invented history class at Jefferson a few
one role, Thelma Booker, as These roles allowed years ago, a couple of students
a compilation of people I’d
students to understand spontaneously pulled out
read about; the others were their history textbooks and
individuals whose stories I that even in moments of searched for an entry on Tul-
found in Ellsworth’s book, violence, people stood up sa, but didn’t find one.)
Death in a Promised Land: and reached across race
The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, History and Poetry
and other materials. (See p.
and class borders to help. Rather than answer their
141 for a full list of tea party/ questions in a lecture, I dis-
mixer roles.) covered several accessible
I briefly discussed the event before launching readings and YouTube clips (The Night Tulsa Burned,
into the tea party. “You are going to become peo- Parts 1–4). Four short related videos, narrated by
ple who were involved in what is called the Tulsa historians Scott Ellsworth and Hannibal B. Johnson
Race Massacre on the night of May 31, 1921.” I told and Tulsa Historical Society director Robert Pow-
them that Tulsa was divided into two sections—the ers, tell the story using historical photographs from
white section and Greenwood, where most African the night of the massacre. These clips also feature
Americans lived. We had studied Jim Crow, so they interviews with three survivors: Juanita Burnett Ar-
understood segregation. “I want you to figure out nold, George Monroe, and Ernestine Alpha Gibbs.
what happened that night. First, read over your role. I asked students to take notes that answer the ques-
Underline or highlight key pieces of information. tions they raised in class, but also to record details
You will need to be able to tell others about what and stories that resonated for them. “You will write
happened to you and what you witnessed. Once you a poem, a piece of historical fiction, and an essay
have read your role, turn over your paper and write about this time period. I want you to absorb the era
down the key events, so you can retell them to your as well as the facts. Write down the names of peo-
classmates.” ple, buildings, streets, parks. Grab people’s stories,
After students read their roles, I handed out a their faces, and their lives. I want you to know what

136 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

happened, but I also want you to try to understand
how people felt about that night. As you learn about
this history, make connections to what’s happening
today. How does this history echo in your life?”
After watching each 10-minute video clip,
we stopped and debriefed: “What questions got
answered for you? What images stuck with you?
Whose stories will you carry with you?”
Then I asked: “When we began this unit, I said
that we were going to ask about wealth in our coun-
try: Who has it, who doesn’t, and why? How does
the history of Tulsa help us begin to answer these
questions? How does what happened in Tulsa con-
nect to the question of Black wealth?” As students
talked, I listed their observations on the board as a
reference they could return to during our writing.
Once we had images and names, I discussed
two ways to write poems about the event—as a per-
sona poem or an image poem: “For a persona poem,
write from the point of view of a person or object.
Use the word ‘I.’ For an image poem, describe what
you see. Form a picture for the reader with your
words.” Christina wrote a persona poem from the
perspective of a burned wall; she called it “The Last
One Standing (p. 153):
I am just a memory of what this
town was before the riot. […]
I saw the glowing flames in the midst
of this dark night and the leftover embers
of the morning.
Reading and Writing Historical Fiction
As we pursued the “Stealing Home” unit, Dianne
and I discovered If We Must Die: A Novel of Tulsa’s
1921 Greenwood Riot by Pat Carr. We wanted stu-
dents to tap into the ways that literature can deep-
en history by bringing to life the mind-numbing
numbers of loss through the stories of individuals.
The novel tells the story of 1921 Tulsa through the
character of Berneen O’Brien, a woman of “Black
Irish” descent, who accepts a job at a Black school in
Greenwood. She “passes” for Black during the day
and returns home to her uncle, who is a member
of the Ku Klux Klan. The reader discovers the racial
tensions and the eruption of the massacre from Ber-
neen’s perspective.
CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD
Students kept track of historical events in their
dialogue journal, but they also took notes on the au-
thor’s craft: the way Pat Carr showed how characters
felt through the use of interior monologue, actions,
and dialogue, as well as the strategies she used to
mix historical fact and fiction. After students read
a chunk of the book, they gathered in groups and
created posters about the difference between history
and fiction by using notes from their dialogue jour-
nals. The poster had three sections:
1. Quotes that referenced history.
2. Quotes that illustrated the qualities of fiction.
3. Their analysis of the differences.
For the third section, one group wrote:
In the novel, fiction is often very detailed and
elaborated, for example, “The shoulder of his
white shirt suddenly blossomed red as if he’d
run headlong into a sack of crimson paint.”
Fact is usually subtle, using the names of peo-
ple and place and events—Greenwood Ave-
nue, Dreamland Theatre, the Drexel Building.
Most events in the novel were factual—the
shooting, the looting, the internment—but
most of the characters and their personalities
were fabricated. There are things that the au-
thor says to describe a character that couldn’t
be known—their body language, their speech
patterns, their interior monologue.
As I teach social justice lessons, I am also
teaching students how to read and write with great-
er clarity. We don’t have to parse out the language
arts skills and teach them as stand-alone lessons;
they are part of the daily classroom work.
We asked students to write a piece of fiction
based on their knowledge of the events, modeled
on Carr’s work. Writing historical fiction pushes
students to learn more about the past and to more
fully understand the events and the time period.
Students had to go back to the documents and vid-
eos to get down the sequence of events; they had
to get inside people’s heads to understand why the
African American World War I veterans stood up
for Dick Rowland, why they were adamant that
there would be no more lynchings. But they also
137
had to learn about people’s daily lives—where they
lived, where they shopped, where they worked, and
details like the fact that no one watched television
in 1921.
To prime students
for the assignment, we “I felt proud to know that there
distributed a newspaper were thriving
article written in 2009 communities. I feel cheated that and the white girl who
that describes interviews
with three survivors of
I never got to live in
the Tulsa massacre —
Beulah Smith, Ruth Avery, and Kenny Booker. The
article reviews the events and contains quotes from
the survivors:
Beulah Smith was 14 years old the night of
the riot. A neighbor named Frenchie came
pounding on her family’s door in a Tulsa
neighborhood known as “Little Africa” that
also went up in flames.
“Get your families out of here because
they’re killing [Black people] uptown,” she
remembers Frenchie saying. “We hid in the
weeds in the hog pen,” Smith told CNN. [. . .]
Booker, then a teenager, hid with his
family in their attic until the home was
torched. “When we got downstairs, things
were burning. My sister asked me, ‘Kenny, is
the world on fire?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, but
we’re in a heck of a lot of trouble, baby.’”
Many students used these specific incidents in
their stories. Some even used the dialogue from the
article, then invented the rest of the story.
Dianne and I developed a graphic organizer
for students to get them started (see “Writing His-
torical Fiction,” p. 164). Then we spent part of a
period listing potential characters and scenes that
students could use in their stories: Kenny Booker,
Sarah Page, Beulah Smith, NAACP journalist Wal-
ter White, Ruth Phelps. I also encouraged them to
use pieces of their own lives in their stories. I told
them, “In the novel I’m writing about women orga-
nizing for change on the Mexican border, I have the
main character bake desserts when she’s stressed. I
also tap into my own desire for justice and my or-
ganizing work. I found that when I use pieces of my
life, the characters come to life.” Students who have
138 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
experienced homelessness or evictions used their
feelings of loss as they wrote. Desiree´, who is bira-
cial, wrote her story from the points of view of two
characters—an African
American boy caught
with his younger sister
African American in the massacre and fire,
loves him. Jalean recre-
one.” ated his family—an old-
er brother who lives with
his mother and two younger siblings he adores. He
also created a character modeled on the security
guard at Jefferson, who has been a wise elder in
Jalean’s life.
The student writing was stunning. Students in-
vented backstories to help readers understand their
characters’ histories and motivation. They used the
tools of fiction writers—character development, di-
alogue, interior monologue, setting descriptions.
Desiree´ DuBoise’s story illustrates how stu-
dents used the scenes from the photos of the city’s
destruction, the voices of the people we studied,
and the history of the time period to create their
stories:
The sky rained down rivers of flame. I had
always been the man of the house, but now
Mama was probably long gone, too. She had
gone into Greenwood to her floral shop that
morning and never came back home. I was
alone in the attic except for Billy Mae. I looked
down into her round brown eyes and saw fear
that reflected my own. Her thick black lashes
were coated with tears, and the only noise that
came from her was a soft keening. She was so
young, younger than I had been when the
Klan took Pop away. I watched as they strung
him up like an animal and beat him ’til every
inch of his tall frame was coated with crim-
son blood. That was years ago. Now my sister
had to watch her own city burn, the only place
she’d ever known. She could hear the screams
coming up from the streets just as well as I
could. The floorboards of the attic creaked as
I shifted my weight. My sister looked at me
then. “Kenny?” she said my name quietly. “Is
the world on fire?”
 Dianne and I took

RESEARCH DIVISION OF THE OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

our students to the band
room, the only room
big enough to comfort-
ably accommodate all
42 of us, and students
read their stories from
the podium. The read-
around took two days.
As students read, those
who were stuck or who
couldn’t get started fig-
ured out a storyline;
others were prompted to
revise after hearing their
peers’ details, flashbacks,
and interior mono-
logues. Although the
students didn’t directly
address the loss of eco-
nomic wealth through Families hunting through the rubble.
their stories, they wrote
about the impact of the devastation: the deaths, the be made to the survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre
loss of photos, pianos, houses, neighborhoods. Ja- and their descendants (see p. 149.)
lean said, “I felt proud to know that there were thriv- Before we started the activity, we reviewed the
ing African American communities. I feel cheated losses from that night—the deaths and the number
that I never got to live in one.” of homes, schools, and businesses burned and loot-
ed. We gave students three choices to initiate their
Reparations Role Play conversations:
To inject hope and justice into the unit, Dianne and
I created a role play about the efforts to obtain res- 1. Do nothing.
titution for the deaths and damages suffered by the 2.  Repay individuals and their descendants
Black population of Greenwood. We needed to re- for their losses.
turn more directly to our theme of wealth inequali- 3.  Create reparations for the Greenwood
ty, to reinforce the idea that the injustices of the past community.
affect the present, and that it’s never too late for jus-
tice—even many years after an event like the Tulsa Students had passionate arguments about what
Race Massacre. should happen. Students’ understanding of the long-
In 1997, the Oklahoma State Legislature autho- term impact of the loss of inherited wealth through
rized a commission to study the riot. After three and the destruction of homes and community echoed
a half years of research, the commission delivered throughout their discussions. A number of students
its report. Rather than just reading about the results repeated Aaron’s statement, “We can’t change what
of those proceedings—and a 2003 lawsuit initiated happened in the past, but we can compensate the
on behalf of the survivors and their descendants— offspring for the loss of their property and inheri-
we wanted students to think about what “fair” com- tance. At least give the descendants scholarships.”
pensation for the loss might mean. We put students Some students felt that wasn’t enough. Desiree´ said,
in the position of commission members. We asked “Who suffered the most? Which was worse—death
them to determine what reparations, if any, should or property loss? The entire community suffered. We

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 139

should choose a mixture of compensations: There
should be scholarships as well as compensation for
the survivors and their descendants. There should be
a memorial day and a reburial of the mass graves.”
Sarah was afraid that bringing up the past
would open old wounds and restart the racism that
initiated the massacre. Skylar said, “Who cares if it
makes people uncomfortable? They are going to have
to deal with it. These things happened, and we have
to address them.” Vince and many others agreed.
“This is not just the past. Racial inequality is still a
problem. Forgetting about what happened and bury-
ing it without dealing with it is why we still have
problems today.”
And this was exactly what we wanted kids
to see: The past is not dead. We didn’t want to get
lost in the history of Tulsa, though it needs to be
remembered; we wanted students to recognize the
Thanks to my National Writing Project colleagues Deshawn
Dickens and Shanedra Nowell and historian Scott Ellsworth for
their collaboration and wisdom on this topic.
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
Carr, Pat. 2002. If We Must Die: A Novel of Tulsa’s 1921 Greenwood
Riot. Texas Christian University Press.
Ellsworth, Scott. 1982. Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race
Riot of 1921. Louisiana State University Press.
In Search of History: The Night Tulsa Burned. The History Channel.
1999. Weller/Grossman Productions. Available on YouTube.
Jaspin, Eliot. 2007. Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History
of Racial Cleansing in America. Basic Books.
Oklahoma State Legislature. “Tulsa Race Riot: A Report by the
Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921,” Feb.
28, 2001. Available: okhistory.org/research/forms/freeport.pdf.
White, Walter F. and The Nation editors. 2001. “Tulsa, 1921,” The
Nation, Aug. 23.

RESEARCH DIVISION OF THE OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

A Tulsa resident photographing the damage.

historical patterns of stolen wealth in Black, Brown,

and poor communities. We wanted them to con-
nect the current economic struggle of people of
color to dynamics from the past. We wanted them
to see that in many ways Tulsa and other historical-
ly Black communities are still burning, still being
looted. We wanted to bring the story home. Z

140 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

u HANDOUT

Tulsa Race Massacre Mixer

Dick Rowland: I dropped out of high school to take a job shining shoes in a white-owned and white-patronized
shine parlor located downtown on Main Street. Shoe shines usually cost a dime in those days, but we were often
tipped a nickel for each shine, and sometimes more. On a busy day, I pocketed a fair amount of money. As a
teenage African American man with few other job prospects, this was a good job.
There were no toilet facilities for Blacks at the shine parlor where I worked. The owner had arranged for his
African American employees to use a “Colored” restroom located nearby in the Drexel. To get to the washroom,
located on the top floor, I rode in the building’s elevator. Elevators in those days required an operator, usually a
woman.
On the day the massacre started, Sarah Page operated the elevator. I went to get on the elevator, and I
tripped because the elevator hadn’t stopped properly at the floor. As I tried to catch my fall, I grabbed onto the
arm of Sarah Page, who then screamed. A clerk from a clothing store heard the scream and saw me running out
of the building. He called the police and said I attempted to rape Sarah Page. The next day I was arrested. I feared
for my life because in those days, Black men were lynched without trial. I did not attempt to rape Sarah Page.
Later, I was acquitted when Page refused to press charges. I was cleared and all charges were dropped, but not
before hundreds were killed and Greenwood was burned to the ground.

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B. C. Franklin: I was one of the African American attorneys in Greenwood, that’s what the Black section of Tulsa
was called back then. I was sitting in the courtroom during a recess in a trial when I overheard some other law-
yers discussing the alleged rape attempt. “I don’t believe a damn word of it,” one of the men said. “Why I know
[Dick Rowland] and have known him a good while. That’s not in him.” But the white newspapers in town stirred
up the townsfolk with a headline that read “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator.”
[According to historian Scott Ellsworth, “In 1919 alone, more than 75 Blacks were lynched by white mobs—
including more than a dozen Black soldiers, some of whom were murdered while still in uniform. During the
first year following the war, 11 African Americans were burned—alive—at the stake by white mobs.”]
Certainly, there was a sense that if the law was going to be upheld so that a Black man could get a fair trial,
then it would be through the actions of Black men, not through official means. When Black soldiers returned
from fighting in World War I, they had enough of being second-class citizens after fighting for other people’s
freedom. They were willing to take action. My law offices were burned to the ground during the massacre. I
reopened my law offices in a tent.

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 141

C. F. Gabe: I saw the massacre from beginning to end. In the beginning, I attempted to turn back cars of Black
men who feared that Dick Rowland was going to be lynched. There were huge crowds of whites lining the streets
and sidewalks near the courthouse, many carrying guns and liquor bottles. As a group of Black men were leav-
ing the area, one of its members, an African American World War I veteran who had with him an army-issue
revolver, was approached by one of the white members of the mob. When the white man tried to take the gun
away from the African American man, the gun went off. That started the massacre.
Later, I witnessed the killings of Blacks in the streets, the lootings of stores, the burning of Black homes and
businesses by white mobs. Friends came by my house and said, “The white folks is killing all of the [Black people]
in town and burning all of their houses.” I stayed inside, but when they started shooting my house and pieces of
my piano began to fall I believed them. At that point, I was rounded up and carried to the convention center then
the fairgrounds for internment. I ended up being arrested. Instead of allowing us to keep our guns and protect
our homes, the National Guard took our weapons and put us in internment camps for our “safety.” In the mean-
time, deputized whites looted our homes and stores and burned what was left. Then the National Guard took
us to Greenwood to clean up the destruction to help pay for our food in the camp. I tell you, this was not right.

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Sheriff Willard McCullough: I was sheriff at the time that Dick Rowland was brought to jail and charged with
attempted rape. Tempers were running high with both Blacks and whites. I was not going to have a lynch mob
do the same thing to Dick Rowland on my watch. I put Rowland in the hands of deputies in a secure part of the
building. I told them to take the elevator to the top floor and disable it. I also told the officers to shoot anyone,
including me, who came to get Rowland. The crowds gathered.
I asked Deputy Barney Cleaver, a Black officer, and C. F. Gabe to get the Blacks to go home. I tried to get the
whites to disperse as well. Before the night ended, there were about 2,000 white men gathered at the courthouse.
Then a bunch of them tried to get guns at the National Guard Armory. When they didn’t get guns there, they
broke into Bardon’s Sporting Goods and took guns and ammunition. Once the first shot was fired, all hell broke
loose. People ask what happened. Here’s what I know. Some white man tried to disarm a Black man and the gun
went off during that scuffle. Later that night I saw deputized white men burning and looting in Greenwood, the
Black section of Tulsa. Those men told me they were “hunting negroes.” They went all over South Tulsa, taking
Black servants from their white employees. Everyone had guns and the police seemed to be behind it.

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Police commissioner Jim Adkison: Things were out of control in Greenwood. It was like a war zone. People were
shooting each other. There was looting and burning. We had people storming the National Guard Armory. We
were outnumbered. Police Chief Gustafson called in his entire force—around 65 men—and Gustafson and I
began commissioning “special deputies”—perhaps as many as 400 of them to help restore order. Remember,
there were thousands of people running the streets that night—May 31, 1921. Of course, in retrospect, I should
have been more careful about the selection of men we deputized and armed. But it was a very tense situation.
We never told anyone to kill Black people or torch their homes. Our instructions were to disarm people and to
absolutely prevent looting and burning.

142 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

O. W. Gurley: I was one of the wealthiest Greenwood residents. I owned the Gurley Hotel. I tried my hardest to
defuse the situation with Dick Rowland and the whites coming to lynch him. I was known for fighting crime
in our section of town, which was known as the “Black Wall Street.” I talked with the Sheriff McCullough and I
believed him when he said that Dick Rowland was safe and he wasn’t going to let anyone lynch Dick. I told the
folks back in Greenwood that there wasn’t going to be a lynching, but they called me a liar and threatened to
shoot my heart out. The African American veterans came back from France with ideas about equality. And Tulsa
wanted to return to the way things were before the war. They figured they fought for equality in France, and they
weren’t coming home after risking their lives and be insulted in their own homes. I’ll tell you, I barely made it out
of the massacre alive. I was shot at, my hotel was burned, residents from my hotel were rounded up and interned.

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Mary Parrish: I was a teacher in Greenwood before the massacre. Shortly after the massacre, I published a book
called Events of the Tulsa Disaster. When I looked out the window of my apartment building on the morning of
June 1, 1921, I saw armed white men gathering nearby. I left the building, running north on Greenwood Avenue,
away from the gunfire, “amidst showers of bullets from the machine gun located in the granary and from men
who were quickly surrounding our district.” I saw the airplanes coming in. “There was a great shadow in the sky
and upon a second look we discerned that this cloud was caused by fast approaching aeroplanes. It then dawned
upon us that the enemy had organized in the night was invading our district the same as the Germans invaded
France and Belgium.” The National Guard might say they came in to protect the citizens of Greenwood, but
by disarming the Black men and not disarming the white men, they allowed the destruction—the looting and
burning—of our community to happen.

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Thelma Booker: The National Guard came knocking on our door and told us we had to leave our homes. They
said it wasn’t safe and they were going to protect us. We didn’t feel too comfortable about that. Then they marched
us through the white area of Tulsa, made us raise our hands in the air as we walked through as if we were going
to attack someone with our house slippers. First, we were taken to the convention center, then to the ball field,
and finally to the fairgrounds, like we were prize cattle. You know, they even went and rounded up Black folks
who worked as domestics in white people’s homes. Oh sure, they fed us and gave us medical attention. And while
our homes and businesses were looted and burned behind us, they made us stay until a white person came and
vouched for us. Anyone who was vouched for received a card. Anyone without a card on the streets could be
arrested. Of course, we had to pay for our food and all while we were being “protected.” We were sent out to clean
up the city. We were paid standard laborers’ wages. It was by no means an easy existence, but some whites soon
complained that we were being “spoiled” at the fairgrounds and by the attention given to us by the Red Cross
and other charitable organizations.

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 143

Green E. Smith: I shouldn’t have even been at the Tulsa Race Massacre. I lived in Muskogee and I was just in
town for a few days to put a cooling system in the Dreamland Theatre in Greenwood. I went to the Dreamland at
about 5 in the morning. I wanted to get the system installed and catch a train back to Muskogee. I heard shoot-
ing and when I looked outside, it looked like the world was coming to end with bullets. I stayed where I was.
Around 8 in the morning, it seemed like things had slowed down a bit. But at 9:30 a gang came down the street
knocking on the doors and setting buildings on fire. They were policemen. People keep asking, “How did you
know they were policemen?” I knew because they wore badges that said “Special Police.” I watched them go into
one building after another and when they came out the buildings were smoking. When I left the building, I was
arrested because they were arresting or rounding up all of the Blacks. I did finally get back to Muskogee, but not
before I witnessed the destruction of Greenwood. One young woman was half-lying, half-sitting, her eyes were
filled with misery. I asked her if she was sick. “No, I ain’t sick. I ain’t got nothin’.” That’s all she said, but she was
right. These people worked their whole lives to buy a home, a piano, a dining room table, and in one night, their
homes were snatched away.

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Colonel Rooney: I was in charge of the local units of the National Guard. I first knew there was trouble when a
group of white men tried to break into the armory to take guns. We held them back. When I did hear that the
National Guard needed to move in to Greenwood, I had planned to put a line of troops around the town, but
I didn’t have enough men to protect the line. Instead, I ordered my men to start gathering up Greenwood resi-
dents and taking them to internment centers. We figured if they were gathered together, they could more easily
be protected against the mobs sweeping through Greenwood. Some Greenwood residents did not want to give
up their guns, so there were skirmishes. We certainly didn’t anticipate that looters would come in and burn the
homes of the Black residents of Greenwood.

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Judge Oliphant: I was 71 at the time of the massacre. I owned rental property in the Black section of town called
Greenwood. I left my part of town in Tulsa and went over to Greenwood when I heard about the massacre. I
called the police department about 8 in the morning to ask for help in protecting my property. Then four uni-
formed officers and deputies came. Instead of protecting property, “they were the chief fellows starting fires.” I
saw Dr. A. J. Jackson, one of the best surgeons in the country, come out of his home with his hands in the air,
saying, “Here I am. I want to go with you.” Jackson was surrendering to the officers. Two shot him, and he bled
to death. Then I watched them throw gas and oil on Dr. Jackson’s house. The scene of destruction was unreal:

They were scattered around there, quite a large number of people looting the houses and taking out everything
… Some were singing, some were playing pianos that were taken out of the buildings, some were running Vic-
trolas, some were dancing a jig and just having a rollicking easy good time in a business which they thought they
were doing that [which] was upright.

There were men, women, and children just going into the homes of Blacks whom the National Guard had
rounded up and taken to the fairgrounds. Just don’t seem decent to me. I was told 1,256 homes were destroyed
in that massacre.

144 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

Walter White: The NAACP sent me into Tulsa to see what was happening. There were thousands of whites gath-
ered at the jailhouse. Some had left to get guns from the National Guard Armory. Others broke into a sporting
goods store. The Black veterans arrived armed as well, but they were turned back. Shorty after I arrived,

I learned that special deputy sheriffs were being sworn in to guard the town from a rumored counterattack by the
Negroes. It occurred to me that I could get myself sworn in as one of these deputies. It was even easier to do this
than I had expected. That evening in the City Hall, I had to answer only three questions—name, age, and address.
I might have been a thug, a murderer, an escaped convict, a member of the mob itself that had laid waste a large
area of the city—none of these mattered; my skin was apparently white, and that was enough.

Because I am very light complexioned, I was given one of these special deputy commissions. “Now you can go
out and shoot any n—— you see,” I was told, “and the law’ll be behind you.” I spent a tense night riding about
the city in the company of four members of the Ku Klux Klan. I wrote an article for The Nation magazine about
that June night in 1921.

....................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......

Mrs. Jackson: A mob attacked my home and killed my husband on the night of June 1, 1921. My husband was a
surgeon, a Black surgeon, who was respected by Blacks and whites alike for his skills. My husband and I fought
off the mob that attacked our home. An officer who knew my husband came up to the house and assured him
that if he would surrender he would be protected. This my husband did. The officer sent him under guard to
Convention Hall, where Black people were being placed for protection. En route to the hall, disarmed, Dr. Jack-
son was shot and killed in cold blood. The officer who had assured Dr. Jackson of protection stated to me, “Dr.
Jackson … did only what any red-blooded man would have done under similar circumstances in defending his
home. Dr. Jackson was murdered by white ruffians.”

....................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......

John Hope Franklin: I was a child at the time of the massacre. I later became a historian; my book, From Slavery
to Freedom, sold more than 3.5 million copies. My father, B. C. Franklin, was in Greenwood at the time. We were
at home in an all-Black town nearby, and we didn’t know what happened to father. By the time the massacre had
ended, the damage was staggering. As many as 300 African Americans had been killed by city and state officials
and deputized government agents. Every church, school, and business in Greenwood had been set on fire. Thir-
ty-five square blocks of property was laid waste in ashes, more than 1,200 houses were destroyed, and nearly
10,000 African Americans were rendered homeless.

One of the most profound effects [of the Riot] in the long run was what it did to the city. It robbed it of its hones-
ty, and it sentenced it to 75 years of denial …The term “riot” itself seems somehow inadequate to describe the vi-
olence that took place. For some, what occurred in Tulsa on May 31 and June 1, 1921 was a massacre, a pogrom,
or, to use a more modern term, an ethnic cleansing. For others, it was nothing short of a race war. But whatever
term is used, one thing is certain: When it was all over, Tulsa’s African American district had been turned into a
scorched wasteland of vacant lots, crumbling storefronts, burned churches, and blackened, leafless trees.

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 145

Ruth Phelps: Honestly, I couldn’t believe what was happening in Tulsa. We lived outside of the city along the road
to Sand Springs, about a day’s walk north from Tulsa. We helped out the Black folks running away from Tulsa.
We hid and fed about 20 Black massacre victims in the basement of our home for most of a week. We believed
that the Golden Rule applied whether people were white, Black, or Native American. So when terrified and hun-
gry Black people came to our door, we hid them in our basement. I put an extra pot of beans and sow belly on
the stove. Our house became a “safe house” for Black Tulsans who were not imprisoned by the white authorities.
Just like the Underground Railroad, Blacks walked through the woods and along creek beds at night. Then we
hid them during the day until it was safe for them to move on. We didn’t ask what happened that night in Tulsa.
We knew by watching them huddle and cry in the basement that it was terrible. When we drove to Greenwood
later and saw the burned-down remains of their homes, we were glad that we offered sanctuary, and they knew
that God lived in some white folks.

...................................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......

Mary Jo Erhardt: After a sleepless night, punctuated by the sounds of gunfire, I woke up early in my room at
the Y.W.C.A. on the morning of June 1, 1921. Heading downstairs, I heard Jack, the African American porter
who worked at the building. “Miss Mary! Miss Mary!” he said, “Let me in quick.” He told me armed whites were
chasing him. I quickly put him in the walk-in refrigerator. I hid him behind some beef carcasses and returned to
the hall door when I heard a loud knocking at the service entrance door. A large white man was trying to open
the door. He had a revolver pointed in my direction.

“What do you want?” I asked sharply. Strangely, those guns frightened me not at all. I was so angry I could
have torn those ruffians apart—three armed white men chasing one lone, harmless Negro. I cannot recall in all
my life feeling hatred toward any person, until then. Apparently my feelings did not show, for one answered,
“Where did he go?”
“Where did WHO go?” I responded.
“That [Black man],” one demanded, “did you let him in here?”
“Mister,” I said, “I’m not letting ANYBODY in here!” which was perfectly true. I had already let in all I
intended.

It was at least 10 minutes before I felt secure enough to release Jack. He was nearly frozen, dressed thinly as
he was for the hot summer night, but he was alive.

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Maria Morales Gutierrez: My husband and I had recently emigrated from Mexico when the massacre broke out.
We were living in a small house off Peoria Avenue, near Independence Street. Hearing gunfire and screams from
the street on the morning of June 1, 1921, I walked outside, where I saw two small African American children,
separated from their parents, walking along the street. Suddenly, an airplane appeared on the horizon, bearing
down on the two frightened youngsters. I ran out into the street, and scooped the children into my arms and
out of danger. A group of whites later demanded that I turn the two children over to them. I told them no. It’s a
wonder they didn’t shoot me the way they had been shooting and burning Blacks that night.

146 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

Otis G. Clark: I was 18 at the time of what was called the Tulsa Massacre. I grew up in Greenwood, the African
American section of Tulsa, which folks called the “Black Wall Street.” “Greenwood had two theaters, two pool
halls, hotels, and cafes, and stuff. We had an amazing little city … Greenwood had 15,000 residents, a 65-room
hotel, several banks, and two newspapers.”
During the night of May 31, 1921, I dodged bullets, raced through alleys to escape armed mobs, and saw
my family’s home burned to the ground. “Gunfire and the blaze from the fire was getting closer, and all we had
on our minds was getting out of the house before the ‘war’ got there.” I went to a mortuary, where a man was
planning to get an ambulance out of the garage to help victims of the violence. “The man was just about to open
the door when a bullet shattered his hand into pieces, blood flying everywhere.” I ran through streets and alleys
until I saw my cousin: “I jumped in the car and we hadn’t gone two blocks before we turned this corner and ran
right into a crowd of white men coming toward us with guns.”
When the smoke cleared over Greenwood, 35 square blocks had been burned to the ground. More than
1,200 houses were destroyed, along with dozens of office buildings, restaurants, churches, and schools. “It looked
like a war had hit the area. Not a single house or building stood untouched. Greenwood was a huge wall of fire,
the heat so strong I felt it down the block.” I fled Tulsa on a freight train headed north. I didn’t get off until I hit
Milwaukee.

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Don Ross, Oklahoma state representative: I first learned about the massacre when I was about 15 from Booker
T. Washington High School teacher and massacre survivor W. D. Williams. Mr. Williams said on the evening
of May 31, 1921, his school graduation and prom were canceled. Dick Rowland was in jail, accused of raping
a white woman Sarah Page “on a public elevator in broad daylight.” After Rowland was arrested, angry whites
gathered at the courthouse intent on lynching Dick. Armed Blacks came to the courthouse to protect him. There
was a scuffle between a Black and a white man and a shot rang out. A race massacre broke out. Mr. Williams said
Blacks defended their community for a while, “but then the airplanes came dropping bombs.” All of the Black
community was burned to the ground and 300 people died.
I didn’t believe my teacher. I said, “Greenwood was never burned. Ain’t no 300 people dead. We’re too old
for fairy tales.” The next day Mr. Williams asked me to stay after class. He showed me pictures and postcards of
Mount Zion Baptist Church on fire, the Dreamland Theatre in shambles, whites with guns standing over dead
bodies, Blacks being marched to internment camps, trucks loaded with caskets, and a yellowing newspaper arti-
cle accounting block after block of destruction: “30, 75, even 300 dead.” Everything was just as he had described
it. I was to learn later that Rowland was assigned a lawyer who was a prominent member of the Ku Klux Klan.
“What you think, fat mouth?” Mr. Williams asked me after I saw his photo album. When I became state repre-
sentative, I initiated legislation to create the Tulsa Race Riot Commission. (Much of this is quoted directly from
Don Ross’ prologue to “The Tulsa Race Riot Report.”)

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 147

u HANDOUT

Tulsa Race “Massacre”

May 31–June 1, 1921

Your name:

This is a mystery. You are going to listen to a number of people discuss the night of May 31–June 1, 1921. As
you interview your classmates, write down their names and key pieces of information that help you unfold the
mystery of that night. At the end of the mixer activity, try to connect their stories. What do you learn about that
night? What events unfolded? How did the “riot” start? Who was involved? Who were allies? What questions
do you have?

148 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

u HANDOUT

Tulsa Reparations Commission: Role Play

The city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, is haunted by a past that remains unresolved—the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921.
The Oklahoma State Legislature authorized your commission in 1997 to research this devastating event. After
three and a half years of research—during which the commission has investigated the massacre, locating and
interviewing many survivors and descendants, and searching through stacks of historical documents and re-
cords—the commission delivered their report to the governor, the state legislature, the mayor of Tulsa, and the
Tulsa City Council. The commission will now determine what, if any, reparations should be made to the survi-
vors of the race massacre, their descendants, or others.

Statement of Endorsement

GUIDED by our commitment to justice and the findings and recommendations of “The Tulsa Race Riot, a Re-
port by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921,” submitted to Governor Frank Keating,
the Oklahoma State Legislature, Tulsa Mayor Susan Savage, and the Tulsa City Council on February 28, 2001,
and

WHEREAS the Tulsa Race Massacre is consistent with a pattern of white, riotous assaults upon African Ameri-
can communities throughout early 20th-century America; and

WHEREAS according to the commission’s report, the following events occurred on May 31–June 1, 1921:

• O
 n May 31, the Tulsa Tribune ran a story covering the arrest of a young Black man jailed for assault-
ing a white elevator operator based on accusations that were later recanted.

• Th
 e Tribune edition also contained an inflammatory editorial that not only suggested but incited
that there would be a lynching. Following release of the paper, frenzy spread across the white Tulsa
community in anticipation of a lynching and across the Black Tulsa community in defense of one.

• I n the presence of approximately 2,000 white Tulsans, 75 African Americans, some of them World
War I veterans, met the sheriff at the courthouse, offering to assist in protecting the prisoner.

• A
 struggle ensued between a white Tulsan seeking to disarm one of these veterans and rioting began
as a result of the gun being fired.

• Th
 e City of Tulsa Police Department deputized 500 white Tulsans, many of whom were largely respon-
sible for the damage suffered by the African American Greenwood business and residential community.

• Th
 e state of Oklahoma mobilized a unit of the Oklahoma National Guard that subsequently re-
ceived a machine gun from the city police that was mounted on a flatbed truck and used against the
men, women, and children of Greenwood.

• Through the night, fires were set and fighting continued as Greenwood’s war veterans and citizens

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 149

 defended their community from the white attackers, inclusive of men dressed in State National
Guard uniforms, City of Tulsa Police uniforms, and under the specially deputized badged authority
of the Tulsa Police Department.

• A
 t daybreak, Greenwood faced an overwhelming assault and massacre by 5,000–10,000 white Tul-
sans covered by a second machine gun, airborne gunfire, and/or the dropping of incendiary devices,
whom prominent and youth members of the Ku Klux Klan probably helped to mobilize.

• Th
 e organized whites emptied homes, detained residents, murdered those resisting or found to be
armed, looted homes and businesses and set them ablaze; and

WHEREAS according to the commission’s report the 18-hour event resulted in:

• A
 round 300 deaths, according to the Red Cross official report, accounts of credible witnesses, eye-
witness accounts of “bodies of Blacks stacked like cordwood on Tulsa streets, Black bodies piled on
trucks, and on trains” and with circumstantial evidence from renowned physical anthropologist Dr.
Clyde Snow, a member of the Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot that points to the existence
of mass graves;

• 4 0 square blocks of 1,265 homes looted and then burned to the ground, including hospitals, schools,
and churches owned primarily by African Americans;

• 1 50 businesses leveled also by fire and, in some instances, incendiary devices thrown from the air in
the Greenwood district now popularly referred to as the “Black Wall Street” of America;

• 6 ,000 Black Tulsans involuntarily arrested, detained, and released only upon being vouched for by
a white employer and/or citizen;

• 9,000 homeless and living in tents well into the winter of 1921 and;

• A
 n entire generation’s inheritance robbed of a people who dared to “lift themselves up by their boot-
straps” and live the American dream, only to have it rendered an eternal nightmare.

Menu of Choices

1. Do nothing. Acknowledge the terrible, horrific events that unfolded from May 31 to June 1, 1921, in the
Greenwood section of North Tulsa. Acknowledge the deaths, the loss of buildings and homes and businesses,
acknowledge the pain and suffering, but move on. This event happened in the past. Most of the people who were
hurt during this tragedy are gone. Nothing can be done to help them. This is history. Picking at the wound and
reopening sores only prolongs the suffering. Let the past heal. You can’t change the past, we can only learn from
it. Rehashing the past just creates resentment from blacks to whites. New resentments build out of the smolder-
ing embers of the past. Let it be. Acknowledge that it happened, then move on.

2. Repay individuals and their descendants. People who say this happened 80 years ago are wrong. The racism
that started the Tulsa Race Massacre is still happening today. The crime was the impoverishment and dispos-
session of a generation of Tulsan African Americans and their descendants. Whites own 20 times more wealth
than Blacks today. This is the direct result of historic dispossession from white invasions into Black communities
where Black businesses, homes, land, and personal wealth were stolen.

150 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

Therefore, the survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre and their descendants are due compensation in the same
way that survivors of the much smaller community of Rosewood, Florida, received reparations for a similar
event that occurred on January 1, 1923, when a white mob attacked Black citizens and burned their homes and
businesses to the ground. Japanese Americans were also given reparations after World War II because the federal
government forced them to sell their possessions—businesses, homes, land, as well as furniture, dishes, etc.—at
a great financial loss and forced them into internment camps during the war years. Both of these cases argue
that there is historic precedent for the reparations to individuals and their descendants who suffered loss of their
businesses or homes during the Tulsa Race Massacre.

3. Create reparations for the Greenwood Community. Few survivors remain, but as stated above, the inherited
wealth created in “Black Wall Street” by hardworking African Americans was stolen. Their legacy was burned
down during the race massacre on May 31–June 1, 1921. Besides the individual wealth, the wealth of the com-
munity was stolen on those nights. Families were destroyed as fathers, mothers, and children were murdered;
neighborhoods were burglarized, taking more than family heirlooms—a community’s sense of safety was also
stolen. Many African Americans fled, never returning to the site of so much bloodshed and heartbreak. Is com-
pensation necessary? Absolutely. But we must think about the collective scars on this community, and use these
reparations to heal those.

Instead of individual reparations, create reparations that benefit the community today. Establish scholarships
for the young African American women and men who live in Tulsa. Create a memorial for the dead and living:
Rebury the dead who lie in unmarked graves and give them a proper burial, and create a living museum to teach
the history of those nights, so they will not be repeated. Develop low-interest loans to rebuild the Greenwood
business community. Establish healthcare plans for those residents who cannot afford this basic right. Fund
artists whose work helps illuminate both the history as well as the underlying problems that contributed to the
disaster in Greenwood.

Group Directions

Your group will attend a meeting with the governor, the state legislature, the mayor of Tulsa, and the Tulsa City
Council. The question before the legislature is: What, if any, reparations should be made to the survivors of the
race massacre, their descendants, or others?

1. Read over all materials. Determine on your own what reparations, if any, should be given to the survivors and
their families. You might also think about alternatives or additions that you want to add. Think about why you
believe this is the best option. Have evidence to support your position.

2. As a commission, you will need to come to an agreement about reparations that you will present to the gov-
ernor, the state legislature, etc.

3. How will you run your meeting? Here are possibilities:

• You could select a chairperson who would then call on individuals to speak and propose when votes
might be taken.
• Perhaps you might raise hands, with the last person to speak calling on the next speaker, and so on.

4. Once you have determined your reparation, be prepared to also answer “Why is this the best option?”

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 151

u HANDOUT

Tulsa Reparations Commission: Persona Writing

You will attend a meeting with the governor, the state legislature, the mayor of Tulsa, and the Tulsa City Council.
The question before the legislature is: What, if any, reparations should be made to the survivors of the race mas-
sacre, their descendants, or others?
Create a persona: Who are you? Are you a descendent of one of the participants of the race massacre? Have
you moved to town recently? Are you a business owner? A teacher? A retired city council member? A member
of the clergy? Create your identity.
You have been asked to testify before the state reparations committee. Using your persona’s voice, write
your testimony. Use evidence from the “massacre” as well as your persona’s understandings and perspectives.
You may choose one of the options above or craft one of your own. Determine on your own what repa-
rations, if any, should be given to the survivors and their families. You might also think about alternatives or
additions that you want to add. Think about why you believe this is the best option. Have evidence to support
your position.

Sample Tulsa Persona

Good morning. My name is Florence Parrish. I am Mary Parrish’s granddaughter. My grandmother, Mary,
was a schoolteacher in Tulsa the night the Tulsa Massacre happened. My grandmother wrote about that
night, and over the years, that story was handed down like an old quilt—from my grandmother, to my
mother, and now to me.
There’s a patch in the quilt that tells the story of white men trying to lynch Dick Rowland based on a
fabricated rape story. And there’s another patch that shows white men with torches setting Black homes and
businesses on fire. Over here, in this worn-out spot, is the patch showing the number of Blacks who died
between May 31 and June 1, 1921. And here, these stitches, those are the train tracks that took my family
out of that town.
But I came back to Tulsa to testify today because I believe that what happened that night cannot be
buried.
“Fifty years after the terrible spring of 1921, W. D. Williams had a message for young Black Tulsans:
‘They must remember that it was pride that started the riot, it was pride that fought the riot, it was pride
that rebuilt after the riot, and if the same pride can again be captured among the younger Blacks, when
new ideals with a good educational background, with a mind for business, ‘Little Africa’ can rise again as
the Black Mecca of the Southwest. But it is up to the young people.” (Ellwood, Death in a Promised Land)

152 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

u SAMPLE POEMS

Death Toll from Tulsa Race Riots Last One Standing

Estimated Between 300 and 3,000 by Christina
by Katharine Johnson
I am the last one standing.
What is the difference made by one zero, Nothing lives within me.
One digit placed to the right of a collection, Nothing remains.
One circle, one nothing, All around me are ashes of what used to be.
one absence of quantity? I am just a memory of what this
What legacies linger in the void town was before the riot,
between 300 and 3,000? before my family was taken from
the shelter of my walls.
What little girls, hair I felt the others burning down
plaited for sleep, on my left and right.
cool, white nightgowns I saw the glowing flames in the midst
for a hot Tulsa night of this dark night and the leftover embers
slipped through the hole in that zero? of the morning.
Bodies scattered about,
What grandma rests blood on my stoop.
somewhere around 2,186 I am the last one standing.
clicking her tongue along her teeth I am the remains of this race riot,
rocking and moaning, never written in a textbook,
“Not again, Lord, not again.” but holds one of history’s darkest truths.

Which young man, framed

by a tiny house and soot-soaked camellias,
his legs wide, arms cradling a rifle
is silenced by the denial of 892?

Whose brother waits at 1,753

for someone to call his name,
etch it into a slab of solid marble
and set his soul free?

Is there a Bernice lost to history at 2,127

or the restless ghost of a Walter
still searching at 582 for safe harbor, for freedom?

Whose last moment of terror

is secreted away in the yawning chasm
of one wide zero?

Whose final act of courage is rendered

invisible by such a grave miscalculation?

How can a soul, told it never existed, find peace?

How might one zero bring them all home?

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 153

u SAMPLE HISTORICAL FICTION
The Night the World Caught Fire
by Desiree´ DuBoise
Prologue
The sky rained down rivers of flame. I had always been
the man of the house, but now Mama was probably
long gone, too. She had gone into Greenwood to her
floral shop that morning and never came back home.
I was alone in the attic except for Billy Mae. I looked
down into her round brown eyes and saw fear that re-
flected my own. Her thick black lashes were coated
with tears, and the only noise that came from her was
a soft keening. She was so young, younger than I had
been when the Klan took Pop away. I watched as they
strung him up like an animal and beat him ’til every
inch of his tall frame was coated with crimson blood.
That was years ago. Now my sister had to watch her
own city burn, the only place she’d ever known. She
could hear the screams coming up from the streets
just as well as I could. The floorboards of the attic
creaked as I shifted my weight. My sister looked at me
then.
“Kenny?” she said my name quietly. “Is the
world on fire?”
I looked away. Outside, a thick black fog hung
in the air, rising noxiously from thick fingers of
smoke that danced and clawed their way toward the
sky.
“I don’t know, Billy. But we’re in a heck of a lot
of trouble.” I looked to the window again. The last
thing I would try to do in this world was protect my
only sister.
“Billy, when we hit the street, if I fall, you run.
No matter what, you keep running, OK?”
She nodded at me, tears streaming down her
round, ebony-hued cheeks.
I grabbed her up and took the stairs two at a
time. Around me, the world was aflame. Pictures of
my family burned. My mother, a stunning shot of
her in her white wedding dress, was torched black,
an eerie sight. I turned toward the front door, felt
the hot breeze gusting through its gaping frame.
I stepped into what used to be Tulsa. Where it
should have been loud, there was silence. Where my
neighbors’ homes once stood, there were only ash-
es. No more screams could be heard. A shiver ran
through me. I turned toward the fields, where the
river was, and beyond that, land unknown to me.
154 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
I ran, we ran, and didn’t stop. I wouldn’t stop un-
til Tulsa stopped burning. And then, I would keep
running.
Kenny
As I sprint through the inferno, I think about those
who didn’t make it out. I think about Mama and
Pop, and how Billy Mae will never see her mother
again. But then I think about the girl that no one
knows about. I think about Molly Sue.
“She’s faring just fine, most likely,” I think to
myself. She was probably safely hidden away within
the confines of her father’s estate in the hills outside
of Tulsa. I know the smoke is all she sees outside, and
I know she’s afraid. I wish I could hold her now, and
tell her everything will be brighter once the sun rises.
I feel guilty, thinking about Molly Sue’s blue
eyes while my people are being killed by hers. My
mother has worked for her father since Molly and I
were kids, before we knew that color defined us and
that our love could never exist in this world so full
of hate.
Molly Sue is a white woman whose father
owned Blaque Elegance flower shop before my
mother bought it from him. Our families have been
connected ever since.
When we actually realized that our love was
more than that of friendship, I’m not sure. But it
was a discovery of great happiness as well as sor-
row. Wonderful, because we had found that one that
completed us so early in life. Terrible, because our
connection could get us killed.
Molly Sue
I woke up to chaos. Instead of my maid waking me
with a soft hymn like usual, the shouts of men from
the floor below startled me into consciousness. Out-
side my window, it was still dark, but no stars could
be seen. An ominous cloud of smoke seemed to en-
case the entire sky. Lower in the valley, the buildings
of Greenwood were ablaze. I blinked, trying to rid
the image from my mind that I knew could not be
real. The flames were still there. My head swiveled
toward my door as I heard it swing open.
“Molly!” my father shouted. His usual gentle
expression was replaced by a scowl I’d never seen
him wear before. He held a gun loosely in his hands.
Something must have gone very wrong for him to
look so angry.
“Daddy, what’s happened?”
“A nigger was caught with a white woman in an
elevator today. He raped her.”
Nigger? That word had never left my father’s
lips. My mind refused to accept the information.
“There was a riot, and fighting. A gun went
off in a nigger’s hands,” he continued. “The Klan is
burning Greenwood. I’m going down to keep an eye
on Rob.”
He spoke as if he himself were in a dream. Rob,
my uncle and my father’s only brother, had been an
outspoken Klan member as long as I can remember.
I did not know of any man more foul or ignorant.
My brain was still foggy from sleep and my mind
still spinning from the sight of the blaze. That’s when
I thought of Kenny. My gasp was audible.
“What’s the matter?” my father asked.
I tried to gather myself. “Oh nothing, it’s just
such a scary sight down there.”
“Oh, well it’s all going to be done with soon,
sweetheart. I’m going out now, you stay here. I’ve got
a few of the guys downstairs that are gonna make
sure no one tries to mess with the house.”
I nodded as he kissed my forehead. My
feigned innocence worked, but I could only keep
up my facade for so much longer. The door shut,
and I dropped onto my comforter. My breathing
hitched with sobs and my chest seemed to be being
ripped apart from the inside out. Kenny was prob-
ably dead, either caught by the flames or the Klan.
I covered my mouth to muffle a hysteric scream.
No, he wasn’t dead. Kenny was fast and smart. He
would have made it out. But what about Billy Mae?
I thought about her brown eyes that glowed when
she laughed, and a whimper escaped from my lips.
No, Kenny would have got her out of Greenwood.
But Mama Geena was probably gone. No one could
have torn her away from her flower shop; it was her
pride and joy.
I sat up. I needed to calm myself if I was going
to get out of this house and down to Greenwood.
I had already made the decision to go; there were
no other choices than to find Kenny. I looked at my
hands, soft, ivory-hued, delicate. These hands had
never seen a day’s work. My slip was that of a French
damsel, the fabric shipped in from Paris and stitched
together by the best of American seamstresses. My
CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD
legs were lean but surprisingly muscular, and could
carry me for countless miles. I could make it there,
easy, but making it out past the Klan members
downstairs was going to prove difficult. But I knew
this house better than they did, and this was not my
first time sneaking away from this house.
I pulled out my darkest trousers as well as my
warmest cloak. I pulled back my long blond curls
and tucked them into my collar. I looked at my re-
flection in the oval mirror my mother gave me be-
fore she passed. It was warped around the edges, and
the frame was constructed of bronze roses. I saw my
blue eyes, the only thing my father gave me. I always
wished that I had inherited his big heart and easy
attitude. But I was born with my mother’s fire, and
her refusal to accept the world as it was. That’s one
thing that kept me loving Kenny, not giving a damn
about consequences, not worrying about the laws of
the land, and just disregarding everything that I had
been taught was right for me. Kenny was a Negro
man, and I was a Southern-bred white woman. Lov-
ing each other was never an option, but it happened
anyway.
I looked down at Greenwood one last time. I
knew the buildings were crumbling under the heat,
and the Klan were probably trampling the homes of
the Blacks that lived there, but all I saw was Kenny.
I drew the hood of the cloak around my face, and
prepared to leave behind all I had ever known.
Kenny
We reached the river right as dawn broke across the
sky. Billy now lay on a cushion of flattened grass,
and the air was warm enough for her to stay un-
covered. I stood slowly, each joint popping as my
body stretched. There was nothing left of Green-
wood but charred cinders. The sky was chalky gray
and peppered with flakes of ash that fell like snow
over the smoldering ground. Anyone caught in the
blaze wouldn’t have made it out. The river gurgled
and bubbled, and carried on as if the night before
was only an echo of a nightmare. I sank down to
the soft earth, sleep threatening to overtake me. We
were still dangerously close to town, but the spot
I had chosen was well concealed by heavy brush.
I glanced at Billy Mae’s sleeping form, and prayed
before I let myself recline and my eyelids slide shut.
The last thing I thought of was Molly Sue.
155
 Rethinking Research:
Reading and Writing About the
Roots of Gentrification

CHRIS KINDRED

T
he middle-aged African American woman
at the UPS store looked at the return ad-
dress on the package I was shipping. “Ma-
son Street. Isn’t that up off Williams Ave.?” From
there we took off, talking about the bike lanes, the
demolition of family homes, the proposed teardown
of the church near King Elementary, and the con-
struction of high-rise condominiums that tower
over Portland’s historic African American commu-
nity: a few small homes tucked in the shadows of
upscale restaurants, grocery stores, and condos that
have grown like an adult version of Legoland. We
remembered Senn’s Drive-Thru Dairy and the More
for Less grocery store. We shook our heads about
banks refusing loans to Black residents and real es-
tate agents’ covenants that controlled the areas of
town where African Americans lived. And then we
discovered I had taught her daughter at Jefferson
about 25 years before. We hugged and when I left
she said, “Teach it. Our kids need to know why this
happened,” her hands gesturing in the direction of
Albina, the place Portland’s African American com-
munity once called home.
Jefferson High School, where I taught for most
of my 40 years as a public school teacher and now
return to as a teaching coach, has always been con-

156 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

sidered the African American school in the whitest gentrification movement in the country, according
city in the country: Portland, Oregon. And it still is. to Mike Maciag’s recent article in Governing mag-
Black students continue to attend Jefferson, which azine. As I watched our school neighborhood turn
remains the heart of the displaced Black community. from Black to white, I realized that students needed
I greet the sons, daughters, nieces, and nephews of to understand the systematic disenfranchisement
my former students. They travel to “Jeff ” from the of African Americans in Portland. They witnessed
“numbers,” a name students gave the outskirts of the changes and they talked about them, but, like
Portland where the house numbers move from small me, they were unfamiliar with the mechanisms that
digits to large digits—from 21, 213, 2814 to 12534 or pushed people of color like checkerboard pieces on
21358—frequently using the address of some older the white map of Portland. Reading Lorraine Hans-
relative, clinging to their home. berry’s A Raisin in the Sun helps us understand the
In our classrooms, we need to teach students parallel pain and suffering individual African Amer-
to read and write, but we also need to study our cit- icans faced when attempting to buy homes in white
ies and our neighborhoods, especially when they neighborhoods, but our study of literature doesn’t
are experiencing upheaval. When we fail to exam- fully equip us to analyze the systemic legal and eco-
ine systematic racism that nomic decisions that un-
uproots their families, stu- When we fail to examine derpinned each move.
dents seek and find their Every act in the pro-
own explanations: African
systematic racism that cess of dismantling the Jef-
Americans are less skilled uproots their families, ferson community—from
businesspeople than whites, students seek and find segregation to urban re-
newal to the current gen-
so their businesses failed to
their own explanations.
thrive. They didn’t take care trification—appeared inev-
of their homes, so when the itable. Yet, when examined
city needed land, the “slum” was a logical place to raze closely, these acts rest on a platform of racism, privi-
and build. We must arm students with facts to inter- lege, and decisions made by people in power. As Avel
rupt conversations about how “bad” these neighbor- Gordly, community activist and former Oregon state
hoods or schools were before the whites came. We senator, stated, “Gentrification is a process, and not
need to build frameworks that outline patterns of just an event. It is intentional, and it’s planned with
dispossession, so students can recognize them and specific policies, programs, and development de-
work to stop them. cisions used to accomplish the objective of moving
In this gentrification unit, students read re- one people out and another people in. Specifically in
search about the history of their city, gathering notes Portland, it’s resulted in the forced removal of Afri-
about the mechanics of dismantling a community can Americans to the outskirts of the city while mid-
through the examination of photographs, prima- dle- and upper-income whites moved in.”
ry source documents, newspaper accounts, and a
walking tour. As a culminating writing assignment, Harvesting Research
they translated that research into historical fiction. Instead of a classic research project, where students
Students’ writing was more passionate and lively comb through dusty tomes in libraries or enter
and they worked harder to make sense of difficult the historical society in small groups and search
reading and on revising their writing because they through faded photos and yellowed newspapers, I
were studying something that felt both urgent and cultivated the research for them. Authentic research
personal. The examples I describe here focus on is time-consuming. It can take days or weeks to find
Portland, but these dynamics have played out—and the right article. I searched both the Oregon Histor-
are playing out—in cities across the country. ical Society and Portland State collections, making
appointments during their limited hours of opera-
Gentrification Is a Process, Not an Event tion and donning white gloves as I leafed through
Jefferson sits in the epicenter of the largest, fastest files donated by individuals and organizations,

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 157

looking for the notice pinned to the doors of Albina •  The building of Vanport (on a floodplain)
residents’ homes telling them they had 90 days to to house African American workers when a
vacate their property, examining photographs and hostile city refused to sell or rent them homes.
meeting notes from the NAACP, attempting to find •  
The use of eminent domain, a law that
information about how the African American com- gives local or national government the right
munity fought back. Trying to get 42 students from to condemn and take private property for the
North Portland to downtown on multiple occasions “greater good” of the community.
while juggling block schedules and spring testing • The lending laws that gave banks the le-
made the task of “authentic” research I initially en- gal right to refuse loans to Blacks.
visioned impossible.
Instead I curated the information and found All of this information was supported by a
significant and diverse pieces that unearthed the sto- wealth of primary documents, but if my students
ry of the displacement of African Americans in Port- and I were to finish the unit within a marking peri-
land. Student research entailed reading these docu- od, I needed to create a narrative arc out of the vol-
ments, discussing them, making sense of the story umes of materials.
behind photos of African Americans lugging trunks
up Denver Avenue or carrying signs outside of Leg- Igniting Student Interest
acy Emanuel Hospital stating, “Emmanuel Hospital We started the unit with a “mixer.” This strategy stim-
Has No Respect for Black ulates student interest and
People” and “Stop the builds background knowl-
Destruction.” They read Dr. Unthank moved into a white edge prior to leaping into
the pieces that Verdell a new unit. The mixer
Rutherford, the NAACP
neighborhood where hostile included 18 roles that in-
secretary, clipped and neighbors first offered him troduced students to the
led along with meeting money to move away; when he historical and contempo-
notes and fliers for events refused, they broke his windows rary figures who peopled
that ended up at Portland this history. Armed with
State Library. Students and threatened violence. key information about
mined the pieces that I the individuals they were
gathered for their poetry, assigned to portray, stu-
fiction, and essays in the same way that I mined the dents learned about practices such as redlining and
files from the Oregon Historical Society and Portland eminent domain—policies that promoted segregation
State University archives. and dispossession—but they also learned about how
While digging through these archives, I discov- those terms affected the people whose lives they rep-
ered Karen Gibson’s article “Bleeding Albina: A His- resented during the mixer. As students assumed the
tory of Community Disinvestment, 1940–2000,” as roles and walked about meeting other historical char-
well as newspaper archives from the 1920s through acters, they began collecting knowledge about three
2015. This research details the history and the pol- periods of this history: the Vanport flood and redlin-
icies that intentionally constructed and intensified ing, “urban renewal” and the bulldozing of Albina
economic inequities, such as the following: homes and businesses, and contemporary gentrifica-
tion. The role of Dr. Denorval Unthank, for example,
•  The arrival of African Americans from the helped students understand the vicious racism that
South during World War II to build ships in Black people endured in Portland’s segregated past,
the Kaiser shipyard. but also the myriad ways that Black people refused
•  The “redlining” of the housing market, where- to accept the place this white city outlined for them.
in real estate agents drew red lines delineating Like the Younger family in A Raisin in the Sun, Dr.
areas where people of color could and could Unthank moved into a white neighborhood where
not live. hostile neighbors first offered him money to move

158 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

away; when he refused, they broke his windows and
threatened violence. Students also learned about how
real estate agents could refuse to sell homes to Afri-
can Americans because their presence would lower
property values. Thelma Glover’s role put the law of
eminent domain into a character’s mouth. Her char-
acter reveals the engine of segregation more effective-
ly than a dry definition. Later in the unit, Mrs. Glover
is featured in an Oregonian photo, which shows her
holding an apology that Legacy Emmanuel Hospital
issued to area residents for bulldozing their homes 50
years earlier.
After the mixer ended, I asked students to
write what they learned about the history of our
neighborhood, including relevant terms as well as
people’s names and stories. We also asked, “Whose
story moved you? What questions are you left with?
What else do you want to know?”
In this mixer, students often know the char-
acters and occasionally are related. The first time
we tried out the mixer, a student noted that his
grandmother used to tell them to only call Beacon
Taxi, but he didn’t realize that it was Portland’s first
Black-owned taxi, established by Willie Mae Hart.
They wanted to know more about real estate cove-
nants and redlines. Dr. Unthank intrigued students
because many of them attend an after-school and
summer program located at Unthank Park.
Using the information from the mixer, students
next discussed terms they had learned through their
roles. Redlining and exclusionary acts are clear-
ly racist practices, prohibiting African Americans
from purchasing homes or living in areas with
whites. And we were all struck silent by the Portland
Real Estate Covenant, dated 1948:
Race: No property shall be sold, leased, or
subleased to Japanese, Chinese, Negroes, or
Orientals, whether born in the United States
of America or elsewhere, provided, however,
that this shall not prevent their occupancy as
domestic servants while employed by an own-
er or tenant.
We asked students to write about the laws and
events that shaped where African Americans could
live because it’s crucial that they understand how
much the lack of housing affected—and continues
CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD
to affect—African Americans in Portland. Text-
books and mainstream media usually present seg-
regation as a Southern phenomenon. So it’s a revela-
tion when students encounter this hateful language
as a product of their own Northwest.
Using Archives to Construct Knowledge
Student questions helped drive the next phase of
our research. Because I wanted students actively en-
gaged in examining and questioning photographs
and documents from each era, we arranged the ma-
terials to make the history more accessible.
In the Vanport section of the unit, for example,
students worked in small groups. Each group re-
ceived a series of photographs that illustrate scenes
prior to the 1948 Memorial Day flood, such as ships
being built, Black women working in the hull of
a ship, an interracial group of kids playing with a
homemade go-cart and holding hands at the first in-
tegrated school in Oregon, and the inside of a kitch-
en at one of the hastily constructed houses. Also in-
cluded are photos from the flood, which left 18,000
people homeless: images of cars underwater, men
roped together carrying children, families walking
up the hill from the flooded city, hoisting suitcases
and trunks on their shoulders. An additional arti-
fact is a telegram from a husband asking for infor-
mation about his wife, Mieko Sujimoto Ikada, a res-
ident of Vanport, because no one in her family had
heard from her since before the flood. Each folder
included instructions:
1. Examine the photos in the folder to
tell the story of Vanport. What do you notice
about life in the community? Include your ob-
servations about work, play, interests. What
do you notice about race? Who works where?
What about schools? Who is in the photos?
What does that tell you? What happened to
the community? Also, keep track of your
questions.
2. As a group, write a brief history of Van-
port. Attach a list of questions where your infor-
mation runs out.
3. Read the Oregon Historical Quarter-
ly article “Vanport Flood and Racial Change
in Portland.” You may decide to read this out
loud or on your own. Keep track through
marginal notes of what your group got “right”
159
 about the story. Also, keep track through mar-
ginal notes and highlighting where your ques-
tions were answered.
Urban Renewal
The push-out of African Americans during the ur-
ban renewal phase of gentrification in Portland and
elsewhere is subtle and requires a more nuanced un-
derstanding of what housing scholar and advocate
Charles Abrams calls “mechanisms of segregation”
in Forbidden Neighbors: A Study of Prejudice in Hous-
ing. Abrams describes “economic compulsions” such
as refusal to make mortgage loans, Realtors’ codes of
ethics, and restrictive covenants. Then he describes
the “legalized compulsions that use the powers of
government to control the movements of minorities
such as condemnation powers, urban renewal, and
slum clearance.”
Students examined photographs of so-called
blighted homes that were removed to make way for
“urban renewal” and read newspaper accounts of
the removal. Once they were saturated in the histo-
ry, we took them on a walking field trip of the area
surrounding Jefferson. Armed with “before” photo-
graphs and notepads, we headed into the neighbor-
hood with Tom McKenna, a friend and colleague,
who has studied the area for years. We encouraged
students to take notes along the way, explaining,
“We will write a poem at the end of the field trip, so
capture images, stories, names of buildings and peo-
ple. As Isabel Allende said, ‘Write what should not
be forgotten.’” We wound through the area, looking
at the photograph of Citizens Café, the cupola that
once topped Citizens and now sits on a gazebo in
Dawson Park. From the shuttered Harriet Tubman
Middle School, we gazed at the tangled fingers of
freeways, one dramatically ending midair, the school
district office, and down the Willamette River to the
Coliseum, and imagined the 400 homes and the peo-
ple who lived in them before they were pushed aside
for the alleged “greater good” of the city.
Writing Historical Fiction
As a culminating writing project for the unit, stu-
dents wrote historical fiction about gentrification. I
was wary when I started teaching this genre, but stu-
dents convinced me not only that they were ready
to write, but that it was also a great way to use the
160 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
research we had been swimming in. I interviewed
some of my former students about writing histori-
cal fiction using research. Jalean Webb, who wrote
historical fiction during his junior year, said, “It was
hands down the funnest assignment I’ve done in all
four years of my high school career. I didn’t want to
stop writing. I had five pages … I had so much to say.
It was such a fun thing because you got to take real
historical facts and twist them to your imagination.”
Depending on the grade level of our unit, we
read August Wilson’s play Jitney as the literary com-
ponent to the unit. For younger students, we read
This Side of Home, a wonderful novel by Renée Wat-
son, a Jefferson graduate, about the gentrification of
Portland. Watson’s book portrays the loss of neigh-
borhood through the experiences of several charac-
ters, including twin teenagers Maya and Nikki, who
both witness the changes, but who react differently.
I used the novel to teach how to write historical fic-
tion using the beauty and tragedy of neighborhood
stories. For example, in one scene, a character named
Essence tells her longtime best friends that she’s
moving because the landlord is selling her house:
“I can’t believe I have to move. I hate our
landlord,” she says. “I really hate him. He kept
telling us he was going to redo the basement.
Every year he had some plan, telling us he
could make it a rec room, a study, an exercise
space, but it’s still just a creepy dungeon,” Es-
sence says. “And then he has the nerve to start
fixing things—right in our faces—a new bath-
room with a jetted tub and marbled shower.”
Essence fills a suitcase with the clothes that are
hanging in her closet. “And he goes and tells
us it ain’t for us. Like we ain’t good enough to
live in a place like this. Can you believe that?
He’s going to fix it all up, and we can’t stay.”
She inhales a gulp of air. “He knew he was go-
ing to sell the house. He knew it. And he knew
we wouldn’t be able to afford it!”
Because many students have experienced their
own families’ or their friends’ families’ exodus out
of the neighborhood, Watson’s novel both validates
their experiences and teaches them how to take the
stories of our lives and turn them into fiction.
To move students into their writing, I asked
them to brainstorm settings for their stories. Be-
cause I launched the fiction writing after our walk-
ing tour, students have names of buildings, parks,
and streets: Citizen’s Café, the Cotton Club, Dawson
Park, the NAACP office. Then I said, “Make a list
of your characters. You don’t have to use historical
characters, but you can. Think back to how Renée
Watson used Mr. Washington in her story.” Once
students generated a list of characters, I asked them,
“What’s the conflict? Which pieces of history that
we studied will you use? Vanport? Redlining? Emi-
nent domain? Contemporary housing? Push out of
businesses?” We discussed several options in class,
referring back to Watson’s book and the history we
studied. We posted photos on the walls for students
to refer to as they wrote.
In his historical fiction, Xavier created a char-
acter who dined with his son at Citizen’s Café, jok-
ing with the cook, but also launching a conversation
about the 90-day eviction notice he found on his front
door (see p. 167). Chanelle created two high school
characters, Latrice and Yolanda, who painted posters
for a demonstration in Mrs. Leo Warren’s basement
(see p. 166). Mrs. Warren created the Emanuel Dis-
placed Person’s Association in 1970 to force the city
to pay both renters and homeowners a fair price for
the homes. In this scene, Mrs. Warren helps the stu-
dents understand why they are making the posters:
“Honey, do you know why we are going on
strike? Why I am slaving away shaking up five
pounds of catfish in cornmeal and cracking
my back, bent over, cutting up every vegetable
in this house for our neighbors?”
“The white folks in the government have run
us down. They started with outlining a map
of Portland saying where Blacks and whites
could live. And they penned us to this small
Albina area, forbidding us to ever venture
outside of the line. That’s what redlining is.
But confining us to this packed place wasn’t
enough for them, so they killed hundreds of
trees just to send all of us Blacks living in this
area a letter saying that we have 90 days to get
the hell out of our houses. And the worst part
of it is that we are all only given $15,000 to
purchase a new home. $15,000?! Honestly!”
CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD
Chanelle’s story celebrates Mrs. Warren’s refus-
al to be wrenched away from her home, her refusal
to go silently in the face of the racist policies the city
government imposed on her community.
“Our kids need to know why this happened.”
That was my charge as I began this unit. But the in-
struction from my UPS acquaintance is a message
to all teachers. Our students’ cities are being trans-
formed with blinding speed. The vast inequality
between haves and have-nots is growing wider and
more visible—a constructed reality that has mate-
rial consequences for all of us, but most especially
our youth as we witness in the uprisings in Fergu-
son and Baltimore. Students need a curriculum that
counters potential stereotypes about why neigh-
borhoods are changing. Through these studies and
conversations, we can create authentic, local lessons
that dismantle the racist explanations that claim the
“improvements” in the neighborhood are brought
by whites, who make our communities and schools
better through their presence and whose entrepre-
neurial skills created neighborhood revival in places
like Mississippi and Alberta streets in Portland or
the Ballard District of Seattle or the Mission District
of San Francisco. As teachers, we have an obligation
to create opportunities for our students to use our
classrooms to work toward justice by combating the
injustices of the past and present in the hope of a bet-
ter future. Z
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
Abrams, Charles. 1955. Forbidden Neighbors: A Study of Prejudice in
Housing. Harper.
Fehrenbacher, Lee. 2014. “Desiring to Dissolve Displacement.” The
Daily Journal of Commerce, Jan. 13.
Gibson, Karen. 2007. “Bleeding Albina: A History of Community
Disinvestment, 1940–2000.” Transforming Anthropology 15.1:3–15.
Maciag, Mike. 2015. “Gentrification in America Report.” Governing,
February. Available: governing.com/gov-data/census/gentrification-
in-cities-governing-report.html.
Parks, Casey. 2012. “Fifty Years Later, Legacy Emanuel Medical
Center Attempts to Make Amends for Razing Neighborhood.” The
Oregonian. Apr. 21. Available: oregonlive.com/portland/index.
ssf/2012/09/post_273.html.
Watson, Renée. 2015. This Side of Home. Bloomsbury.
Wilson, August. 1979. Jitney. Samuel French.
161
u HANDOUT

Gentrification Persona Poem

According to poet Patricia Smith, when you write a persona poem, “There’s got to be some wrinkle in the life of
the person you’re writing about. Something they’re angry about. There’s a texture to it. What’s sparking you to
write the persona and what’s sparking the persona to talk to you? A lot of times, it’s not just the job or whatever.
It’s something that’s happened in their life that’s making them talk, that has them angered or sad or about to jump
off of a building.”

Think about the people you have met in this unit—from the mixer to the news articles to the field trip and speak-
ers. Make a list of people who you find interesting, who have a “wrinkle” in their life. What events or circum-
stances has made them angry or sad? Tap into your own emotions as you write. Write as if you are the person.
Make up details, but keep to the “heart” of the truth from this moment in history.

You may also choose to write from an inanimate object—a house, a shoe, a brick—who has witnessed this his-
tory. What have you witnessed?

Turn the page over for examples of persona poems. “Fetching Ghosts” was written from the point of view of a
house which will be torn down in the gentrified Albina neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, to make way for con-
struction. “Hiroshima” was written in the persona of a young girl whose sister was killed during the bombing of
Hiroshima.

162 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

Fetching Ghosts Hiroshima
by Uriah Boyd by Kamaria Kyle

The place that I call home is humble “Sister, where are you?”
and was built by the coarse hands of yesterday. I see the shadow where you were,
This place has a spirit— but only surrounded by ashes.
vibrant though old, Your beautiful smile,
And its creaky floorboards have seen us all your enchanting face
in our most vulnerable state. are the ashes at my feed.
Gramma and Grampa dancing barefoot in the The quiet of death surrounds me,
living room, and I hope for a noise,
the “shuffle shuffle” of their feet something to break the silence.
becoming the musical selection of the evening. Your voice would prove
These door frames have held up dreams the shadow wrong,
Hoisted them upon their broad shoulders but only cries of children
and offered them up to the skies. whose sisters disappeared
That front door has warmly greeted kind souls, as quickly as you did.
and the back has banished offenders. I know you’re not just ashes.
I once mopped the floor with Mama’s tears, “Sister, where are you?”
And the scent of Gramma’s sweet potato pie will
forever haunt this kitchen.
The walnut tree out back has outlived four tire
swings.
Even as the ropes slowly wore and unraveled,
the Great Walnut continued to extend skyward.
My great grandmother fell asleep in her bed
And never woke up.
She hung lavender above every window in her
bedroom,
And we wouldn’t dare touch them.
In the confines of these walls,
Three of my cousins were born.
And now you tell me that you want to take this
place away
For the “greater good.”
Whose good?

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 163

 u HANDOUT
Writing Historical Fiction

164
Character Potential scene Nouns — street names, building
names, items from homes, etc.

Mrs. Leo Warren Students in basement making signs for the Williams Avenue, NAACP office
protest, trying to figure out what is going on.

READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

u HANDOUT

Gentrification Historical Fiction

Task: Using historically accurate information from our studies of the Vanport Flood, the urban renewal of Al-
bina in the 1960s and 1970s, or the contemporary gentrification in the historic African American community,
write a fictional story that demonstrates the struggle of Black residents in Portland. Using Renée Watson’s book,
This Side of Home, as a model, create scenes where the story takes place. Through the scene(s), unveil the history
of one of these eras.

_________ 1. Dialogue
• What are the characters saying?
• Do they each have a “voice print”?

_________ 2. Blocking
• What are the characters doing while they are talking? Leaning against a wall? Tossing a ball in the air?
• Where are they located?

_________ 3. Character Description

• Physical description
• Attitude description—how they walk, talk, act

_________ 4. Setting Description

• Where does the story take place?
• What does it look like?
• Smell like?
• What’s on the walls?

_________ 5. Sentence Variety

• Parallel sentence
• Coordinating conjunction

_________ 6. Interior Monologue

• What is going on inside the character’s head?
• What is the character thinking while the action is happening?

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 165

u SAMPLE HISTORICAL FICTION
Basement Stories
by Chanelle Crittenden
“Make sure there are a variety of signs or Miss War-
ren will have a field day,” Latrice called out to Yolanda
from behind an old bookshelf. She shuddered as she
stepped over an old mousetrap in the dusty basement
while searching for paint. Miss Warren would be com-
ing down to check on her and Yolanda in a couple of
minutes, and they hadn’t even started writing on the
signs that about 50 of the neighbors had made the
night before. Nearing the paint shelf, Latrice chose a
can of black paint to bring to Yolanda, along with two
wide paintbrushes for each of them. Her hands were
shaking with excitement; she’d never participated in
anything that was so important in her life.
“Don’t worry,” Yolanda called back. “I’ve got it
all under control. I won’t have her yelling at me to-
night!” She focused on the blank picket sign in front
of her, racking her brain to figure out what to write.
“I just wish I knew what to write on here,” she said
more quietly to herself. Tufts of coarse, curly black
hair began to sprout from Yolanda’s tight ponytail in
the dim, dank room. They were preparing for a big
strike—one that could change everything about the
way Blacks lived in Portland, Oregon.
Miss Warren began to quietly walk down the
stairs of the basement from the kitchen. She was
covered in flour and smelled strongly of fish grease
and corn meal. “Why don’t you have it say ‘Equal
Opportunity in Housing,’ and in really big letters,
‘FREEDOM NOW!’?” She wiped her hands on her
yellow-and-blue star-covered apron and tucked a
few gray strands back under her headscarf. Caught
off guard by her sudden appearance, Latrice and
Yolanda nodded their heads in submission and im-
mediately set to work. Knowing that she had star-
tled them, Miss Warren chuckled to herself as she
started back up the stairs.
“Miss Warren? Do you think that you could
help us with the signs? We’re really not very good at
these types of things.”
Hearing the sincerity in Latrice’s voice, she
turned around to respond. “Latrice, honey, I’m real
busy right now. I’m cooking for the board meeting
that’s in about two and a half hours. Everyone’s go-
ing to be over here, and by then, all of the signs need
to be ready. I can send a couple of my grandchil-
166 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
dren down here to help y’all, but that’s about it.” She
turned around in the direction of the door leading
upstairs and yelled upstairs. “Cathy! Dylan! Maya!
Come on down here to help Latrice and Yolanda
with these here signs!”
The three siblings flew down the stairs as soon
as they heard their grandmother’s stern voice. “Now
y’all help these two outline these signs and paint
them all. I want all of them to be different, but to
still make sense, you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Maya answered. She was the old-
est child and was always the first person to respond
to things. “How many do you want us to make?”
“There’s going to be close to 70 people here to-
night, and they’re all going to be looking for a sign to
carry. I want you to make about 100 signs, you hear
me? Make them neat and mean.”
“You want us to say mean things on them, Miss
Warren? I thought this was a peaceful strike,” La-
trice asked with a confused look on her face, which
mirrored everyone else’s expressions.
“Honey, do you know why we are going on
strike? Why I am slaving away shaking up five
pounds of catfish in cornmeal and cracking my
back, bent over, cutting up every vegetable in this
house for our neighbors?”
All of the children had heard this speech from
Miss Warren plenty of times, but they wouldn’t dare
interrupt her. They understood that her passion was
the edification of Blacks in Portland and listened
quietly.
“The white folks in the government have run
us down. They started with outlining a map of Port-
land saying where Blacks and whites could live. And
they penned us to this small Albina area, forbidding
us to ever venture outside of the line. That’s what
redlining is. But confining us to this packed place
wasn’t enough for them, so they killed hundreds of
trees just to send all of us Blacks living in this area
a letter saying that we have 90 days to get the hell
out of our houses. And the worst part of it is that
we are all only given $15,000 to purchase a new
home. $15,000?! Honestly! How cruel could one be?
$15,000 couldn’t buy a nice house!”
Tears streamed down Miss Warren’s face, seep-
ing into her burning chest where they dissolved.
Cathy, Dylan, and Maya looked at each other, sur-
prised to see their grandmother cry; her hard exteri-
or had never been broken as long as they had known
her. Latrice and Yolanda bowed their heads, feeling
the pressure of the strike on their backs.
Realizing that she was crying in front of some
of the youngest people she knew, Miss Warren im-
mediately wiped her face and cleared her throat.
“So, that’s what I mean when I say make it
mean. Feel the pain of every Black person forced to
move out of their home, leaving their memories and
watching them get torn down. We’re striking for the
government to give us more money to survive, but
our homes will be torn down regardless. Get angry,
children. Get angry and understand why we’re going
on strike. Get angry because you’re tired of being put
on the back burner. Get angry and make these signs.”
She turned around and started up the stairs.
When she was at the top, she turned around and saw
all of the children getting to work. “I hope they nev-
er forget this for as long as they live.” Entering the
kitchen, she closed the basement door and saw her
catfish floating in the pot of grease. Grabbing a set
of tongs, she picked up the plate meant to hold the
fried fish and plucked them out of the pot.
.............................................................
Albina Gets Torn Down
by Xavier Niece
Johnny and his son Sam walked to Citizen’s Café
for some breakfast. Citizen’s was the place for good
food and better gossip. Johnny was in need of both.
They opened the creaky door on North Williams
that announced their arrival. Heads swiveled as they
walked in.
“Hey, Johnny and Sam,” Leroy said as he
brought the stained coffee pot and a couple of white
mugs to their table. “You want stacks of pancakes
today?”
“Yeah, just don’t burn ’em like you usually do.
Should I send my wife in to teach you how to cook?”
Leroy and Johnny had a running joke about Leroy’s
bad cooking. But, like many folks in the Albina
community, they came to Citizen’s Café as much for
the gossip as for the coffee and food.
“As many mornings as you come to breakfast,
I’m thinkin’ Sherri’s not that great of a cook,” Leroy
laughed.
CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD
Leroy brought Johnny and Sam their food. As
he set the food down, Johnny pulled out a pink note
and read it to him. “Do you see this note from the
city? It says I have to move out in 90 days. Do I really
have to move out in 90 days?” said Johnny.
“Yeah, I did get that note yesterday. It said my
house was blighted. They were going to give me
$15,000 to buy a new one and give me 90 days to
move out,” said Leroy with a confused face.
“Hey, I got that same note this morning also. It
says that my home was blighted and I need to pay a
loan to keep it or it will be destroyed,” said Billy as he
took a sip of his coffee.
“But I don’t understand when they said our
homes are run down, and we can’t get money to pay
loans to fix them,” Leroy said as he ran a damp towel
across the counter.
“Well, Mrs. Warren was in yesterday afternoon.
She told me that the city wants to tear down our
houses to build an ER on the hospital and to add on
to the freeway. She was pretty upset. Said the prices
they are offering are too low, and where are we going
to move to with all of the redlining going on?”
Sam looked up from his pancake, “What’s
redlining, dad?”
The people of Albina were all in shock and were
confused about what they were going to do to keep
their town on its feet. They couldn’t even get loans at
the time because they were African American.
One year later, Johnny goes back Citizen Café
to get the status of the people who have been all
moved out of the town. Surprisingly, Leroy is still
working there and Johnny walks up to him and asks
him about how he is doing.
“Hey, long time no see, how have you been?”
asks Johnny.
“It could be better, I had to move out to the
North when I got moved out, and it’s a bother to get
to work and back every day now,” replies Leroy.
“I was also moved out to the North area also,
it was the only area I could afford a house in. I and
Sam have been having problems adapting to our
new neighborhood since he still goes to Jefferson
school,” says Johnny.
They hear a loud noise outside of the café and
go outside to check it out. They walk outside and
see a bulldozer knocking Johnny’s roof in where he
used to live.
167
 What Happened
to the Golden Door?
How My Students Taught Me About Immigration

DOROTHEA LANGE
A Japanese American unfurled this banner the day after the Pearl Harbor attack.

W
hen I was a student at Eureka High
School in Eureka, California, immigra-
tion equaled Ellis Island. We watched
old black-and-white film strips of Northern Euro-
peans filing through dimly lit buildings. My text-
books were laced with pictures of the Statue of Lib-
erty opening her arms to poor immigrants who had
been granted an opportunity to “pull themselves
up by their bootstraps” when they passed through
America’s door:
Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shores.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

168 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 I felt pride at being part of a country that
helped the unfortunate—including my own family,
who arrived here from Norway and Germany.
Years later when I visited Angel Island in San
Francisco Bay, I learned about another immigration
that hadn’t been mentioned in my high school or
college texts. I walked through the deserted barracks
where painted walls didn’t quite cover the poems
written by Chinese immigrants who had viewed the
“Golden Mountain” through a barbed wire fence. I
felt angry that yet another portion of U.S. history
had been hidden from me.
Between 1910 and 1940, the “tired ... poor ...
wretched refuse” from Asian shores were impris-
oned on Angel Island before being accepted as “res-
ident aliens” or rejected at the “golden door” and
returned to their home country. All Europeans were
legally eligible to apply for citizenship once they
passed through Ellis Island, a right denied to immi-
grant Asians until the mid-1940s.
As historian Ronald Takaki notes, “Their
quarters were crowded and unsanitary, resembling
a slum. ‘When we arrived,’ said one of them, ‘they
locked us up like criminals in compartments like the
cages in the zoo.’” Turning their anger and frustra-
tion into words, the Chinese immigrants carved po-
ems on the wooden walls, poems that stood in stark
contradiction to the Statue of Liberty’s promise:
America has power, but not justice.
In prison, we were victimized as if we were
guilty.
Given no opportunity to explain, it was really
brutal.
I bow my head in reflection but there is tinue to deprive Native Americans of land and eco-
nothing I can do.
As a social justice educator, I consistently
ask, “Whose voices are left out of our curriculum?
Whose stories are buried? What can we understand
about contemporary immigration laws by looking
at these historical exclusions?” Ronald Takaki notes
in the introduction to Journey to Gold Mountain,
“Many history books have equated ‘American’ with
‘white’ or ‘European’ in origin.” I left high school
with that equation. I don’t want to pass on the same
misinformation to my students. To broaden their
understanding of immigration as well as U.S. policy,
CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD
they need to investigate how race, class, gender—
and these days especially, religion and nationality—
have shaped immigration policy. If the textbooks
don’t provide an answer, I must create the space for
students to conduct the research.
I began teaching this unit in the spring quarter
following the 1994 passage of California’s Proposi-
tion 187, which was an effort to deny education and
healthcare to undocumented immigrants. This ini-
tiative sparked my decision to teach about immigra-
tion—not just the traditional version, but the more
dangerous and unspoken version that examines
why large numbers of immigrants are discriminated
against based on color, religion, nationality, or pol-
itics. I wanted my students to read behind the me-
dia rhetoric that vilified millions of human beings.
Now, given the recent history of ICE detention cen-
ters, deportations, and the proposed ban on Muslim
immigration, this unit is more important than ever.
I first taught this unit as part of a Literature
and U.S. History class, a combined, junior-level, un-
tracked class that met 90 minutes a day for the en-
tire year. The days had warmed up and the students
smelled summer. If I said the words “essay,” “interior
monologue,” or “role play,” I knew I’d hear a collec-
tive moan rise from the circle and settle like stinky
fog around my head.
For three academic quarters, my planning
book had been filled with lessons attempting to
teach students how to become critical readers of his-
tory and literature. They’d written essays, critiques,
short stories, personal narratives, poems, and inte-
rior monologues analyzing their own lives as well
as the historical and contemporary issues that con-
nomic opportunities.
They’d also reflected critically on the enslave-
ment of Africans, starting with a review of life in Af-
rica before slavery and leading into an exploration
of forced immigration and modes of resistance. We’d
examined the literature and history of the Harlem
Renaissance and the Civil Rights Movement along-
side contemporary issues. They’d read and critiqued
presidential speeches, historical and contemporary
novels, and poems written by people from a variety
of backgrounds. They were ready to do their own in-
vestigation and teaching—putting into practice their
analytical skills they’d worked so hard to develop.
169
 Fourth quarter I wanted them to conduct “real”
research—not the “scurry to the library and find the
closest encyclopedia and copy it word for word”
kind of research, but research that made them ask
questions about immigration policies, quotas, and
personal stories that couldn’t be lifted from a single
text. I wanted them to learn to use the library, search
for books, look up alternative sources, and search
the Oregon Historical Society’s clipping files, pho-
to files, and rare documents room. I wanted them
to interview people, as well as read novels and po-
etry that told the immigrant story in a more per-
sonal way. Through this kind of thorough research,
I hoped they would continue to hone their ability
to listen for what is unsaid in political speeches and
newspaper articles, and learn to ask questions when
their neighbors or people on the bus began an an-
ti-immigrant rap.
Setting the Stage for Research
and Teaching
I started fourth quarter by outlining my goals and
expectations. I do this each term, so students know
the kinds of pieces that must be in their portfolio,
e.g., a literary essay comparing two novels, an essay
exploring a historical issue, a poem that includes
details from history, etc. As part of the opening-of-
the-quarter ceremonies, I passed out an outline of
their upcoming project. I wanted a lengthy deadline
so students would have the opportunity to work the
entire quarter on the project.
Before students started their research, I mod-
eled how I wanted the lessons taught by presenting
on Chinese and Japanese immigration. While stu-
dents who come through the Jefferson neighbor-
hood network of feeder elementary and middle
schools get at least surface background knowledge
of Native Americans and African Americans, they
appear to know less about Asian or Latinx literature
and history. In fact, students are often surprised
that the Japanese, Chinese, and Mexicans faced any
prejudice.
During the lessons on Japanese Americans,
students examined Executive Order 9066, signed
by President Roosevelt, which gave the military the
right to force Japanese Americans from their homes
and businesses into camps surrounded by barbed
wire and guard towers. Because these Japanese
170 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
Americans, who included both “resident aliens” and
U.S. citizens, were allowed to take only what they
could carry to the “camps,” they were forced to sell
most of their possessions in a short period of time.
Students read “Echoes of Pearl Harbor,” a chapter
from Nisei Daughter, by Monica Sone, where she de-
scribes her family burning their Japanese poetry and
kimonos, breaking their Japanese records, destroy-
ing anything that could make them look like they
cherished their Japanese heritage. Students wrote
moving poetry and interior monologues imagining
they were forced to leave their homes, businesses,
and treasured possessions. Sam Doersch wrote an
interior monologue from a Japanese American per-
spective. This scene takes place after a family was
told they had six days to pack up their belongings
before being “interned”:
The flames consume the paper. The flames
consume my life, everything I am, everything
I loved. My first love is consumed by flames,
consumed in the basket of flames, burning
hotter than the sun, melting my life. The vul-
tures came to buy the piano where mother
played me sweet melodies. He offered five
dollars. I wish he was dead. I’ll burn it, too.
I’ll burn the whole house. I would rather burn
it than let one of those vultures have it. They
have no hearts. In the place that should hold
their heart, there is hate, greed, and selfish-
ness. I will burn everything first. I’ll burn it
with the past that I love.
I created overheads and slides from the art-
work in Beyond Words: Images from America’s Con-
centration Camps, a book of personal testimony and
artwork produced in the camps: black-and-white
drawings, watercolors, oil paintings, and pieces
of interviews that give students a window into the
lives of the imprisoned Japanese Americans. While
I showed slides of the artwork, students whom I’d
prompted ahead of time read aloud “Legends from
Camp” by Lawson Inada, “The Question of Loyalty,”
by Mitsuye Yamada, and segments of the internees’
interviews that matched the pictures on the screen.
With the images and words of the prisoners in their
minds, students wrote their own poems. My student
Thu Truong’s poem is called “Japanese Prisoners”:
 Guards watch us. At the end of each period of research/prepa-
They wrap us around ration time, students turned their information in to
in barbed-wire fences me so I could see if they had made headway, run
like an orange’s meat into a block, or needed a push or help. During these
that never grows outside its skin. research periods I moved between groups, listen-
If the orange’s skin breaks, ing in, asking questions, making lists of questions
the juice drains out. they’d raised but not answered, or questioning lit-
Just like the Japanese erary choices when a piece was by a writer from the
behind the wire fence. immigration group but didn’t deal with any of the
issues we were studying.
We watched and critiqued the flawed film During this time it was not unusual to see
Come See the Paradise and talked about the laws that some of my students gathered around a video screen
forbade Japanese nationals from becoming citizens in the hallway outside my door or in the library as
or owning land. Students read the loyalty oaths they watched and critiqued videos, looking for po-
that imprisoned Japanese American citizens were tential sections to show to the class. Travis, Roman,
forced to sign. After learning about the “No No and Sophia, who conducted individual research
Boys,” Japanese American projects, could be seen trans-
men in the incarceration lating notes for their stories.
camps who refused to sign
Students read the loyalty Sometimes they met to talk
the loyalty oath, students oaths that imprisoned over stories or ideas for their
argued about whether or Japanese American presentation.
not they would have signed
citizens were forced to sign. The group researching
the loyalty oath if they’d Mexican immigration had
been interned. eight members—too many,
Students also looked at the number of Chinese really. They watched videos together and then split
immigrants allowed to enter the country compared the rest of the work: Rosa, the only group member
to European immigrants. For example, in 1943 when fluent in Spanish, talked with recent immigrants
Congress repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act be- in ESL classes and with the Latinx coordinator to
cause of China’s wartime alliance with the United find speakers, videos, and stories to feed to her
States against the Japanese, 105 Chinese were allowed group; Danica and Komar collected and read books
to enter Angel Island, while 66,000 English immi- to find a story; Shannon researched César Chávez
grants passed through Ellis Island. and wrote a profile to hand out to the class; Heather
gathered information for a debate on Proposition
The Research Begins 187; Stephanie and Stacey coordinated the group,
While I presented lessons on Chinese and Japanese collecting information from each subgroup, fitting
immigration during class, students started work on research into a coherent lesson plan, and creating a
their own projects. They had two 30-minute sessions writing lesson that would pull information together
the first week to discuss what they knew, itemize for the class.
what they needed to find, and list the resources they Before this ends up sounding like a movie star-
had (people to interview, books at home, potential ring Michelle Pfeiffer, let me quickly insert into this
videos to use, outside resources like Vietnamese, idyllic classroom picture a few words about other
Russian, or Latinx teachers or district-wide coordi- things you might have seen: kids whining and com-
nators). During the following weeks, I continued my peting for my attention RIGHT NOW; students gos-
presentations on Chinese and Japanese immigration siping about a fight, or guess-who’s-going-out-with-
and gave students varied amounts of time to con- who, or an upcoming game or a movie they saw last
duct research: 45 minutes to prepare for the library, night; a sly student attempting to take advantage
a full day at the library, additional 90-minute peri- of the chaos to catch up on math or Spanish; the
ods as we got closer to the deadline, etc. slippery students who said they were going to the

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 171

library or to see an ESL coordinator, but who actu- sians, and Vietnamese. This first dialogue marked
ally sneaked into the teachers’ cafeteria for coffee or the end of my control over the history and litera-
outside for a smoke. ture presented in class. And I was nervous because
There were also two students who attended reg- I knew almost nothing about Greek and Macedo-
ularly and might have learned something through nian immigration and not much more about the
other people’s work but who produced no work Russians.
themselves, and a few others who rode the backs of Ultimately, the contrast between groups made
their group’s work, contributing a little in spurts but for great discussion. In my class of 31 students,
not making the sustained efforts of most students. three had emigrated from Vietnam, one from Rus-
The ESL coordina- sia, one from Cambo-
tors, librarians, and dia; several students
I developed an easy Many easily accessible research were second-genera-
communication sys- materials did not have a single tion Americans from
tem regarding passes. critical page glued into their spines; Greece, Ireland, Nic-
I called students and aragua, and Mexico;
parents at home to talk
they just restated the textbook half of the class’s an-
about some students’ version of history. cestors included en-
lack of work. Although slaved Africans, and
the calls pushed the one girl’s grandmother
back-riding students who made at least some effort, was the only surviving member of her family after
I failed to bring the “slackers” into the research fold. the Holocaust.
Besides the usual chaos a teacher might expect But I can imagine a more homogenous class-
when turning over the curriculum to students, I si- room where this might not be the case. In my own
multaneously hit another problem. I’d set up immi- high school English class, almost 50 years ago, 29
grant groups that I knew would have some interest- students were white and one was Black. These ratios
ing and contradictory stories because I was familiar would have made me demand more diversity in the
with their history and literature. While students did research if all students wanted to study their own
accept some of the groups I’d proposed—Mexican, heritage. It is important to negotiate the curriculum
Haitian, Cambodian, Irish, and Vietnamese—others with students, and I’m sure some students would be
argued vehemently that they be allowed to choose more interested in researching their own past than
the immigrant group they would study. Our previ- in researching the past of others. But sometimes, in
ous lessons on resistance and solidarity had certain- order to surface issues of race and class inequality, it
ly taken root within each of the class members, and is necessary to move beyond our personal histories.
I was the target of their solidarity.
A few wanted to research their own family’s Research Problems
immigration stories: Greek, Jewish, Macedonian, Prior to beginning the unit, I spent time at the pub-
and Russian. Several African American students lic and Oregon Historical Society (OHS) libraries,
wanted to study immigrants from Africa or from finding sources, articles, and books, and familiariz-
the African diaspora, which we’d studied for an en- ing myself with computer research programs before
tire quarter earlier in the year. Most were happy to bringing my students across town. OHS officials
study Haiti, one of my original groups; one student were friendly and helpful, but told me that I couldn’t
chose to study Eritrea, since Portland has a larger bring the entire class to their library; I’d have to
population of Eritreans than Haitians. I agreed: In bring one or two at a time after school or on Satur-
fact, he made an excellent choice, but sadly, he left days. And they closed at 5 p.m.
school before finishing his project. In addition to limited library time, I discov-
We ended our first rounds with the following ered that many easily accessible research materials
research groups: Cambodians, Eritreans, Greeks, did not have a single critical page glued into their
Haitians, Irish, Jews, Macedonians, Mexicans, Rus- spines; they just restated the textbook version of

172 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

history. Because I had initiated this project to scru- and magazine articles. The collection of interwoven
tinize U.S. immigration practices, I wanted students short stories Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat de-
to learn the “whole truth,” not just a watered-down veloped their personal connection; she gave faces
version that left out facts that might complicate the and voices to the people on the boats, to those who
issues. Part of research is getting lots of material lived in fear. The names and terms in the newspaper
and then deciding what is important
to present so that others hear a fuller
truth. But when I discovered that much
of what students were reading told only
one side of the immigration story—the
same side I learned in high school—I
made an effort to put other facts in stu-
dents’ hands as well. Fortunately, the
Zinn Education Project website now has
valuable resources for “teaching outside
the textbook” that help students gain a
more critical reading of history.
We searched online sources for
news about specific ethnic groups, as
well as alternative news and magazine
sources. Although many students du-
tifully read the computer-generated MICHAEL ROUGIER
Bracero worker sprayed with DDT in 1959.
articles, most of these pieces were too
academic or required extensive back-
ground knowledge to understand. If we
relied solely on these sources of information—ei- became real: Aristide, Tontons Macoutes, boat peo-
ther textbook or alternative—many students would ple, refugees. (The group’s enthusiasm for the novel
come away with material that they might be able to caught on. I’d purchased five copies, and there were
cite and copy into a readable paper, but still wouldn’t arguments over who got to read Krik? Krak! after
understand much about the underlying political sit- group members finished.)
uations their immigrant group faced. Students became wonderfully devious re-
After the library research, I linked students searchers, using their own connections to gain in-
with people or information that might provide facts formation. They learned to find back doors when
and stories not available the front doors closed,
in the library. The Hai- and windows when all
tian group, for example, What happens when personal the doors were locked.
read articles, but hadn’t narratives exclude the stories of But sometimes this
comprehended what back-door, through-
was going on: Who was large groups of other people or the-window type re-
Papa Doc? Baby Doc? neglect important historical facts? search posed another
What was the U.S. in- When and how do I intervene? problem: What if per-
volvement in Haiti? sonal history omitted
What was happening vital historical facts and
with Jean-Bertrand Aristide? I distributed cop- perspectives? While I could help students who stud-
ies of the Network of Educators on the Americas’ ied immigrant groups that I knew something about,
(NECA) booklet, Teaching About Haiti, which gave I had little time to read and research the Macedo-
my students the historical and political analysis they nians, Greeks, and Russians.
needed in order to make sense of the newspaper Travis, for example, was thoroughly confused

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 173

when his research on Macedonians revealed a personal stories as eyewitness accounts of events
snarled web of history involving Greece, Bulgaria, and who encourages students to “tell their stories,” I
and a historic trade route through the mountains. began to question my own assumptions.
His research took him back to 146 B.C., when Rome The Vietnamese group underscored my histo-
conquered the Kingdom of Macedonia, and for- ry vs. personal story dilemma. Their student-told
ward to today. He wanted to know why his grand- account emphasized a pro-American stance around
father immigrated. Instead of untangling the web of the Vietnam War, but said nothing, for example, of
Macedonian history, he spent time with his grand- U.S. support for French colonialism, its creation of
father, talking, asking questions, going through “South Vietnam,” or its devastating bombardment
photo albums, relying on his personal relation- of the Vietnamese countryside. How could I chal-
ships to decode the past. He arranged for a day at lenge the stories these students grew up hearing
the Macedonian lodge where he interviewed men from parents and elders in their own communities?
his grandfather’s age about their immigration ex- I worried that the rest of the class would come
periences. Because of my own limited knowledge of away without an understanding of the key role the
events in Macedonia, I let him. This was history via United States played in the Vietnam War, and with-
personal story—how much or how little of the his- out that understanding, how would they be able to
tory was included, I wasn’t sure. critique other U.S. interventions?
Likewise, when Meghan and I met one Satur- I talked with Cang, Tri, and Thu and gave them
day at the Oregon Historical Society, we discovered resources: a timeline that reviewed deepening U.S.
the letters James Mullany, an Irish immigrant, wrote involvement in Vietnam and numerous readings
to his sister in Ireland in the mid-1800s. In one letter from a critical standpoint. (See the Zinn Education
from 1860, he pleaded with his sister not to mention Project for more teaching resources.) I also intro-
that he was Catholic: “their [sic] is a strong preju- duced them to the film Hearts and Minds, which
dice against them here on account of the people here features testimony from numerous Vietnamese
thinking it was the Priests that caused the Indian critics of the war, as well as prominent U.S. antiwar
war three or four years ago.” Interesting. But in an- activists like Daniel Ellsberg. Without a sustained
other letter, he wrote of dialogue, this insertion
the Snake Indians who seemed weak and inva-
attacked a train of 45 After Sophia spoke about her sive. But I learned a les-
whites, “only 15 survived mother’s experiences, she son: Personal story does
but some of them died of not always equal history.
starvation … [A] com-
talked of inheriting her mother’s This lingers as a vexing
pany of soldiers … found strength to pursue her goals teaching dilemma.
them living of [sic] the even when she faces opposition.
bodyes [sic] of them that The Presentation
were killed by the [I] Once presentation dead-
ndians.” Could we count these letters as historic evi- lines hit, students argued over dates and who got to
dence? Whose voices weren’t included? What stories go first, last, etc. Our biggest struggle came around
might the Snake Indians have told? the issue of time. Students lobbied for longer time
Students using the voices of immigrants or slots. The group studying Mexican immigration was
characters in novels to tell the history created a di- especially ardent. They’d found great movies as well
lemma for me: What happens when personal nar- as short stories and informational videos, and invit-
ratives exclude the stories of large groups of other ed a guest speaker from Pineros y Campesinos Uni-
people, or neglect important historical facts? When dos del Noroeste (PCUN), the local farmworkers
and how do I intervene? If students tell only their union, to share information about working condi-
own stories or draw on personal testimonies, is that tions and the boycott of Garden Burgers, a national
“inaccurate” history? As an English teacher who veggie burger sold in stores and restaurants across
weaves literature and history together, who values the country. The group figured they’d need at least a

174 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

week, possibly two. We had five weeks left: four for arranged for our student Sokpha’s mother to come
presentations and a last sacred week to finish port- to class, and for a viewing of the film The Killing
folios and evaluations. Rosa said, “Look how many Fields. Sokpha’s mother told of her life in Cambodia,
days you used when you taught us about the Japa- of hiding in the deep tunnels her father built to keep
nese and Chinese. Two weeks on each! Aren’t the them safe from U.S. bombs, of her fear of the snakes
Latinos as important as the Asians?” They bargained at the bottom of the tunnel that scared her almost
with students who worked alone, like those studying as much as the bombs. She talked about the Khmer
the Russians and Greeks, for part of their time.
A week or so prior to presentations, groups
submitted detailed lesson plans. I met formally with
each group to make sure all requirements were cov-
ered, but also to question their choices. During pre-
vious weeks, I’d attempted to read unfamiliar story
and novel selections, and see video clips. I also went
over writing assignments: I didn’t want any surpris-
es on their teaching day.
The power of my students’ teaching was not
just in the individual presentations—in which stu-
dents provided historical information in a variety of
interesting and unique lesson plans—but also in the
juxtaposition of these histories and stories. Students
created a jazz improvisation, overlaying voices of
pain and struggle and triumph with heroic attempts
to escape war, poverty, or traditions that pinched
women into narrowly scripted roles. The students’
historical research and the variety of voices repre-
sented provided a more varied history of immigra-
tion than I’d ever attempted to teach in the past.
But the presentations were also like improvi-
sation, in that they were not as tightly connected
and controlled as the rehearsed piece I would have
conducted. There were off notes and unfinished
strands that seemed promising, but didn’t deliver an
analysis that strengthened student understanding of
immigration. Few students found research on quo-
tas, and few had time left in their presentation to
engage in a discussion that linked or compared their PHIL EGGMAN

After spending eight days at sea, Vietnamese refugees wait

group to another. The Haitian group, for example,
tied our past studies of Columbus and the Taínos to
present-day Haiti, but didn’t develop the history of
Duvalier or Aristide or U.S. involvement.
Although presentations varied in length and
depth, most gave students at least a look at a culture
they weren’t familiar with, and in the best cases, a
strong sense that racial and political background in-
fluence not only who gets into this country, but also
how people live once they arrive.
The group studying Cambodian immigration
to be taken aboard a U.S. command ship (May 1984).
Rouge, the Vietnamese, and the United States. On
her father’s deathbed, he said, “Go to America.
Leave Cambodia.” She did. Shoeless, nine months
pregnant with Sokpha, and carrying a 3-year-old on
her back, she walked for three days and three nights
from Cambodia into Thailand, dodging land mines
that killed some of her fellow travelers. She also
spoke of difficulties here—how her lack of language

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 175

skills kept her from finding a good job, her reliance
on Sokpha, the erosion of their culture, the Ameri-
canization of her children.
The group researching Haitians presented
background history tying the modern struggle in
Haiti with previous history lessons; among their
ROYAL NETHERLANDS NAVY
Migrants from Haiti, India, and the Bahamas standing on their overturned boat off the
coast of Port St. Lucie, Florida, 2015.
presentation’s strengths were chilling descriptions
of the refugees, their choice of story, their research
into Haitian culture, and their writing assignment.
Read aloud by a male and a female student, Danti-
cat’s two-voice story “Children of the Sea” portrays a
political young man who dares to speak out against
the Haitian government, writing to his lover as he
rides a sinking boat in search of refuge in the United
States. His lover writes of the increased military vi-
olence of the Tontons Macoutes, who make parents
have sex with their children and who rape and tor-
ture suspected supporters of Aristide.
Cang, from the Vietnamese group, recounted
Vietnam’s history through a timeline. Thu’s stories of
escape and life in the refugee camps created night-
mare scenes for her fellow students of drownings,
rapes, and the difficulties of families who got sepa-
rated. Tri pointed out the geographical settlements
of immigrant Vietnamese and their induction into
the United States. He talked about the struggle of
Vietnamese shrimp fisherman in the Gulf of Mexi-
co, the attempts of the KKK to drive the fishermen
out of the region, and the creation of Little Saigon
176 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
in California, a space where Vietnamese have forged
a community inside the United States, not unlike
many immigrants who came before them.
The student writing assignments generated ex-
cellent poems and personal narratives. After Sophia
spoke about her mother’s experiences, she talked of
inheriting her mother’s strength
to pursue her goals even when
she faces opposition. Her as-
signment for the class: “Write
about something you treasure
from your family. It might be an
heirloom, like a ring, but it can
also be a story, a memory, a tra-
dition, a personal trait. Write it
as a poem, a personal narrative,
or a story.” Komar Harvey wrote
an essay about his family’s love of
music:
You can hear music on the
porch before you enter our
house. Tunes climb through
those old vinyl windows and
mailbox and drift into every-
body’s ears in the neighborhood. If you came
during the holiday season you could hear the
Christmas bells chiming through the static of
that old crackling phonograph needle. You
hear the rumbling voice of Charles Brown as
if he were digging a hole up in the living room,
“Bells will be ringing … ” Nobody graces our
door during those Christmas months without
a little Charles ringing his bells in their ears.
Travis, the student who researched Macedo-
nians and talked about his grandfather’s struggles to
get to the United States, asked each student to write
a personal narrative about an obstacle they over-
came in life. Cang wrote about his difficulty learn-
ing English in the face of classmates’ ridicule. His
narrative had a profound effect on students (I have
not changed or corrected his language because it is
part of the story):
[After he left Vietnam, he was in the Philip-
pines.] In 1989 we came to America. That’s
when I started to go to school. I went to all
 of the classes I had, but I felt the blonde and
white-skinned people not respected me. They
make joke over the way I talk. . . . I’ll never
give up, I say to myself. One day I’m going to
be just like them on talking and writing, but
I never get to that part of my life until now.
Even if I can understand the word, but still
I can’t pronounce it, if I do pronounce it, it
won’t end up right. Truly, I speak Vietnamese
at home all the time, that’s why I get used to
the Vietnamese words more than English, but
I’ll never give up what I have learned. I will
succeed with my second language.
The group who had researched Mexican immi-
gration did indeed take several days for their presen-
tation. They taught about the theft of Mexican land
by the United States during the 1846–48 war with
Mexico, the immigration
border patrols, the effects
of toxic sprays on migrant Cang wrote
workers, and the migrants’ difficulty learning English
living conditions in Oregon. in the face of classmates’
The students also initiated a
debate on Proposition 187: ridicule. His narrative had a
Should the United States profound effect on
deny health and education
services to undocumented
immigrants? Then the presenters asked the class to
write a persuasive essay taking a point of view on the
question.
One day we watched the movie Mi Familia,
about a Mexican American family whose original
homeland was in California. As we watched, we ate
tamales and sweet tacos that Rosa and her mother-
in-law lugged up three flights of stairs to our class-
room. Then we wrote food poems that tied us to our
culture. Sarah LePage’s “Matzo Balls” is a tribute to
her grandmother:
Grandma’s hands,
wise, soft, and old,
mold the Matzo meal
between the curves of each palm.
She transforms our heritage
into perfect little spheres.
Like a magician
she shapes our culture
as our people do.
This is her triumph.
She lays the bowl aside
revealing her tired hands,
each wrinkle a time
she sacrificed something for our family.
Evaluation
On our last day, students overwhelmingly voted
that immigration was the unit they both learned the
most from and cared the most about. Komar, the
first to speak, said, “I never realized that Cambodi-
ans were different from Vietnamese. Sokpha’s family
went through a lot to get here, so did Tri’s, Thu’s, and
Cang’s.” Stacey, a member of the Haitian group, add-
ed, “I learned that the United States isn’t just Black
and white. I learned that my people are not the only
ones who have suffered in this country.” Khalilah
noted that she hadn’t real-
ized what research really
about his meant until she struggled
to find information about
Haitians. While others
added similar points about
various groups or presen-
students. tations they learned from,
Travis summed up the
conversation by saying, “I
didn’t know anything about Proposition 187 or the
discrimination immigrants have faced because that
wasn’t part of my family’s history. I didn’t know that
there was discrimination about who got in and who
was kept out of the United States, and now I do.”
Students learned from each other about immi-
grants’ uneven and unfair treatment. But they also
had learned lessons that would alter their interac-
tions with the “Chinese”—actually Korean—store-
keeper at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr.
and Fremont. At Jefferson, one of the most offensive
scenes I have witnessed in the hallways or class-
rooms is how U.S.–born students silence immigrant
Asian, Russian, and Mexican students as they speak
their own languages or struggle to speak English.
Throughout the year, Cang, Thu, and Tri’s person-
al testimony during discussions or read-arounds
about the pain of that silencing—as well as their
stories about fighting with their parents or setting
off firecrackers in their school in Vietnam—created

CHAPTER 3: WRITING THE WORD AND THE WORLD 177

much more awareness in our classroom than any
lecture could have.
I credit our study of history—for example,
the U.S. war with Mexico—as part of that change,
but through this student-led unit on immigration,
I watched students crack through stereotypes they
had nurtured about others. Students who sat by their
lockers on C-floor were no longer lumped together
under the title “Chinese”; they became Vietnamese,
Cambodian, Laotian. Students no longer mimicked
the sound of their speech as a put-down. Latinx stu-
dents who spoke Spanish near the door on the west
side of the building were no longer seen as outsiders
who moved into the neighborhood with loud cars
and lots of children, but as political exiles in a land
that had once belonged to their ancestors. The Rus-
sian students who moved together like a small boat
through the halls of Jefferson were no longer odd,
but seekers of religious freedom.
Throughout fourth quarter, I tossed and turned
at night, questioning my judgment about asking stu-
dents to teach such an important part of history—
and the consequence that much history would not
be taught. But after hearing their enthusiasm and
their changed perceptions about their classmates,
the world, and research, I put my critique tempo-
rarily on hold. Turning over the classroom circle to
my students allowed them to become the “experts”
and me to become their student. While I lost con-
trol and power over the curriculum and was forced
to question some key assumptions of my teaching, I
gained an incredible amount of knowledge—and so
did they. Z
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Bigelow, Bill. “Hunger on Trial: An Activity on the Irish Potato
Famine and Its Meaning Today.” Zinn Education Project. Available:
zinnedproject.org/materials/hunger-on-trial/.
Bigelow, Bill. 2006. The Line Between Us: Teaching About the Border
and Mexican Immigration. Rethinking Schools.
Bigelow, Bill. “Rethinking the Teaching of the Vietnam War.”
Zinn Education Project. Available: zinnedproject.org/materials/
rethinking-the-teaching-of-the-vietnam-war.
Come See the Paradise. Dir. Alan Parker. Twentieth Century Fox
Film Corporation, 1990. Film.
Danticat, Edwidge. 1991. Krik? Krak! Vintage Books.
Gesensway, Deborah and Mindy Roseman. 1987. Beyond Words:
Images from America’s Concentration Camps. Cornell University Press.
178 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
Gonzalez, Juan. 2011. Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in
America. Penguin.
Hearts and Minds. Dir. Peter Davis. BBS Productions, 1974. Film.
Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki, and James D. Houston. 1973. Farewell
to Manzanar. San Francisco Book Company/Houghton Mifflin.
Inada, Lawson. 1993. Legends from Camp. Coffee House Press.
Lai, Him Mark, Genny Lim, and Judy Yung. 1986. Island: Poetry
and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910–1940. San
Francisco Study Center.
Lowe, Felicia. 1988. Carved in Silence. National Asian American
Telecommunications Association.
Mi Familia. Dir. Gregory Nava. American Playhouse, 1995. Film.
Mullany, James. Letters from James Mullany to his sister Mary
Mullany, August 5, 1860. Oregon Historical Society Mss #2417, p.
10.
Okada, John. 1980. No-No Boy. University of Washington Press.
Sanchez, Adam. “Tè Tremblé: An Unnatural Disaster: A Trial
Role Play Probes the Roots of Devastation in Haiti.” Zinn
Education Project. Available: zinnedproject.org/materials/
te-tremble-haiti-disaster.
Shimabukuro, Mira. Relocating Authority: Japanese Americans
Writing to Redress Mass Incarceration. 2015. University Press of
Colorado.
Sone, Monica. 1979. Nisei Daughter. University of Washington
Press.
Sunshine, Catherine A., and Deborah Menkart. 1993. Teaching
About Haiti (3rd. ed.). Network of Educators in the Americas.
Takaki, Ronald. 1990. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of
Asian Americans. Penguin.
Takaki, Ronald. 1994. Journey to Gold Mountain. Chelsea House.
Teaching for Change. teachingforchange.org.
The Killing Fields. Dir. Roland Joffé. Goldcrest Films International,
1984. Film.
Wen-Chu, Edith, and Glenn Omatsu. 2006. Teaching About Asian
Pacific Americans: Effective Activities, Strategies, and Assignments for
Classrooms and Communities. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Yamada, Mitsuye. 1998. Camp Notes and Other Writings. Rutgers
University Press.
Yonamine, Moé. “The Other Internment: Teaching the Hidden
Story of Japanese Latin Americans During WWII.” Zinn
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the-other-internment.
Zinn Education Project. zinnedproject.org.
Chapter 4

Reading for Justice,

Reading for Change
 Reading for Justice,
Reading for Change

RICARDO LEVINS MORALES

D
uring my days as an undergraduate liter-
ature major, I took a course on literary
criticism. On the final exam, my professor
asked us to analyze a Wilfred Owen poem. I don’t
remember the poem or what I wrote. I certainly
didn’t know anything about Owen. Instead I recall
flailing about, feeling wildly out of control, bang-
ing verbs and nouns together in pretend sentences.
I also recall the “F” on my exam. I slunk away from
that class, convinced that I knew nothing about lit-
erature or how to write about it. A few years later
in a poetry class, one of my fellow students wrote
a poem about a cherry tree in his backyard. Our
poet-teacher went on for a while, fueled no doubt
by the vodka in her flask, about what cherry trees
mean in Japanese culture and why we should care-
fully consider the symbolism of the objects we place
in our poems. “But,” the writer said timidly, “this
was a cherry tree in my backyard on Klickitat Street
in Portland.” Once, Sherman Alexie came to talk
and write with my classes at Jefferson High School.
He laughed about a review discussing the symbol-
ism of the burning couch in one of his stories. He
told the class, “The couch was on fire and we car-
ried it out of the house. No symbolism. Just fact.”
For a few rocky opening years as a teacher, I
too attempted to become the interpreter of liter-
ature, but I landed at Jefferson High School where

CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE 181

students had low tolerance for boredom. They chal- Hurston, Louise Erdrich, Toni Morrison, Chima-
lenged my knowledge. They didn’t read the texts I manda Ngozi Adichie, Edwidge Danticat, and John
assigned. They failed the reading quizzes I used as Steinbeck. And when we read them, we need to
an accountability measure. My students rebelled read the social blueprint on which they were writ-
partly because my interpretation didn’t allow for ten. Slavery, the Depression, the reservation system,
their authentic reactions to the literature we read. the confined space in which women were forced to
As a white teacher at a predominantly African move—all must be understood as more than setting
American school, I failed to understand the many because to understand poverty, evictions, colonial-
ways that my race, age, gender, and class promoted ism, and social movements, students need to know
a single interpretation of the pieces we studied with- more than characters’ names and how to decipher
out giving space for my students’ lives, interests, or rhyme schemes and imagery in Wilfred Owen po-
experiences. ems. This is the challenge I set for myself as a teach-
Many lessons arise from these incidents. Cer- er. In this chapter, I try to show some of what I’ve
tainly, I learned that literature can be interpreted in learned. Z
multiple ways, and that often a piece is read differ-
ently based on the reader’s history, age, race, class,
gender, country of origin, and sexual orientation.
My unsuccessful approach led me to join a teacher
activist collective to rethink and retool my practice.
I started selecting texts and strategies that promoted
conversations, where the students and I could strug-
gle together to make meaning about the piece, our
lives, and the world.
As a teacher of literature, I want students to
learn to value their own thinking, to participate in
authentic discussion of reading materials, to hear
why others might have different, equally valid in-
terpretations of the same text, to argue and convene
evidence that proves their point, to bring in their
own lives as part of the dialogue, to discover other
people’s lives.
Literature should open conversations and
dialogue, should move us all to a greater under-
standing of the world and humanity—our failures
and our triumphs—our broken pathways to fuller
consciousness, our shattered and mended hearts,
our incredible capacity for generosity. These piec-
es should also help us listen to the voices that have
been missing, silenced, or repressed and help us un-
derstand the history behind those lives, so that we
can ask, “Whose lives matter? Who benefits from
traditional practices? Who is harmed?”
We need literature that demonstrates the ways
in which social forces have narrowed people’s lives,
and illuminate people’s complex struggles to gain
a more complete humanity. Our students need the
plays of August Wilson, Luis Valdez, and Lorraine
Hansberry. They need the novels of Zora Neale

182 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 Narrative Writing
Connecting Student Lives to the Curriculum

T
oo often, schoolwork alienates students;
the content of their classrooms seems
far removed from the daily struggles they
face: Dylan’s family has been arrested. Kacy’s moth-
er has cancer. Serena broke up with Chris. Teresa’s
baby brother has seizures. Darlene’s family has been
evicted, again. Trina’s house has no heat. Henry talk-
ed about how fat Gina is during math. Adam is wor-
ried about the bruises on his sister’s arm. Luanne was
molested on her way home from school. Teachers ask
students to perform tasks, memorize facts, analyze
texts that seem unimportant and disconnected from
the cauldron in which they live. But in a social justice
classroom, students’ lives are at the heart of the cur-
riculum. Because literature and history rise out of the
social conditions that create the struggles students
face, the link between their own lives and the texts
cracks the alienation that drives many students away
from school and moves students toward a greater un- CHRIS KINDRED

derstanding of the forces shaping their lives.

Over the years I have discovered that students
learn best when I embed writing assignments—like
narratives, poetry, and essays—inside a unit. In fact,
I rarely teach narrative writing in isolation. Students’
stories become an additional text in the curriculum.
At the end of the unit, students frequently use an-
ecdotes from their narratives in their culminating
essays. When I give students time to grapple with
big concepts in their lives, like coming into gender
awareness, racism, sexism, and displacement, they
are more likely to write with passion and power.
When these concepts transfer to the novel/unit,
I can couple the discussions, so students under-
stand that Cang’s anguish over people making fun
of his accent parallels the hurdles Eliza Doolittle’s
character in Pygmalion faces in 1916 London. The
languages, continents, and time periods differ, but
the abusive or patronizing treatment of people who
do not speak the standard language is the same. By
situating the curriculum in students’ lives, I send
the message that their lives are worth writing and
talking about, and that the difficulties they wrestle
with are the basis of the social problems authors
write about and the issues that activists work to
make right in a just society.
When jumping into a new unit, I figure out the
narrative hook that will help students explore the
unit’s themes by examining how those subjects in-
tersect and resonate in our own lives and contempo-
rary society. Before reading Warriors Don’t Cry, I ask
students to write a narrative about a time when they
were either a target of injustice or acted as an ally,

CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE 183

perpetrator, or bystander during an incident. When
we read The Color Purple or Their Eyes Were Watch-
ing God, students write narratives about growing
up male, female, or gender nonconforming, and we
discuss how family roles, advertising, and the media
have shaped our gender identity. During our study
of “Slavery and Resistance” through novels and
history, students write narratives about times they
stood up or wish they had, and we consider the con-
ditions that either allow us to resist or that strangle
our voices. In Grapes of Wrath, we prepare to meet
Ma Joad by writing about a time we acted with hon-
or and dignity in a tough time. When we read Tim
O’Brien’s book The Things They Carried, students’
writing mirrors O’Brien’s anguish about making a
difficult choice. Before we dive into August Wilson’s
play, Fences, we parallel the title by writing about the
fences or obstacles we have faced or overcome in
our lives. And in all cases, our classroom conversa-
tions continuously move between students’ lives, the
literature, and the broader society.
In the gentrification unit (see “Rethinking
Reasearch,” p. 155), I bring in students’ lives in two
ways. First, the unit itself is about their lives and the
unfolding narrative of how racial inequality, dis-
placement, and economic disparity—as well as re-
sistance and resilience—are currently playing out in
their own neighborhoods. And second, I ask them
to write a narrative about a time their homes were
lost, stolen, or restored. I say something like, “In this
narrative, you might tell a story about a delightful
time at home—a night when your ‘family’ celebrat-
ed the birth of a new child or the homecoming of a
relative who was in the military or college, or just
an incident that demonstrates your ‘family’ doing
something together. Your home may not be at home;
it might be hiking in Forest Park or dunking basket-
balls at Peninsula Park. You might tell the story of
a time when your home was disrupted.” Most stu-
dents wrote about their home being disrupted—by
divorce, evictions, mental illness, alcohol, or drug
addiction. Dylan wrote about the night his home
was stolen when FBI agents arrested his grandpar-
ents for drug dealing. Bridgette wrote about the
night her parents’ marriage fell apart, and she and
her sister huddled together in a closet while anger
ran loose in her house. And Desiree´ wrote about the
day her family was evicted:
184 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
I knew it was the eviction notice that came no
matter how hard [my mother] worked, how
good we were, how friendly of a neighbor we
were. I was young, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew
we were going to have to move again, but so
soon this time? Would we end up in a shel-
ter again? Would we have to switch schools?
Again? Tears swelled my eyes and poured
down my dirty, 8-year-old cheeks. My tiny
fists clenched so tight my knuckles turned
white, my whole body shook with angry sobs.
Barely brushing 4 feet tall, I was going to
destroy the whole world for what they were
doing to me: for taking away my security, my
happiness, my home.
These narratives do not stay in composition
books or as a conversation between the teacher and
the student; they become another text in the class-
room, as students share in small- or large-group
read-arounds (see “The Read-Around,” p. 15). As
students read aloud, I ask them to take notes on
each person’s narrative and to think about how their
classmates felt about their homes. At the end of the
read-around, I tell students to write the “collective
text” from the class. “If you add up all of our ages, we
have hundreds of years of experience dealing with
homes. Think back to your classmates’ stories and
summarize how people felt about finding, losing, or
keeping their homes. You might want to name spe-
cific people and their stories as evidence. Let’s read
the collective text of our classroom.” In our post-
writing discussion, students name both the anger
and sadness that accompanied the loss of homes.
But the fact that they see their displacement as per-
sonal setbacks or failures sets up the launch of our
unit on the gentrification curriculum, where they
learn more about the race and class mechanisms
that led to redlining, urban renewal, and the loss of
the homes of African Americans.
If I want students to care about what’s hap-
pening in the classroom, I need to be sensitive to
what’s happening in their lives—personally, but also
with the way economics and politics carve up their
homes and their sense of possibility. These narra-
tives are the passageway between the curriculum
and their lives. Z
 Teaching the Gender Narrative

A
s I write this essay, my
grandson, Xavier, is 7
years old. I have been
watching him gradually absorb
ideas from the media and school
and life about what it means to be
a boy. When he was 2, he wrapped
an old stuffed bear named Mary
in a blanket, rocked her, and sang
Otis Redding songs. He poured tea
at our tea parties, and he spooned
oatmeal onto Mary’s fuzzy mouth
in the mornings. As my husband,
Bill, says, Xavier was born with a
ball in his hand, so he navigated the
world of balls and bears, tea parties
and baseball with ease. Then he en-
tered school. Suddenly, he wouldn’t
wear pink or play with Mary any-
more. My daughter, Gretchen, who
is now grown and identifies as a les-
bian, asked us to call her Tommy as
a kid and liked to play Robin Hood,
climbing into our backyard tree to
play on the rope swing or with a
bow and arrow in hand for years.
She rejected dresses and dolls and
balls, but loved camping, horses, LOIS BIELEFELD / KQWEEN, 2014. FROM ANDROGYNY SERIES
and books.
Our students also traverse a
world where society narrows their gender bound- No one unit unpacks the unwieldy gender
aries, dictating through stories, toys, chores, and inheritance that students shoulder. Instead, mul-
clothing the path they are “supposed” to follow. tiple times throughout the year, I create curricular
Some, like Gretchen, are bold enough to break opportunities for dialogue between students’ lives,
through the boundaries; others willingly or unwill- their classmates, and the cultural artifacts discov-
ingly live within the lines. ered in literature and history. We critique cartoons

CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE 185

and advertising of stereotypical gender roles (see
“Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us,” p. 49); we read
literature where characters, like Celie in The Color
Purple, break or bend or succumb to gendered so-
cial conventions; and we study the movements that
disrupt the socialization and marginalization of
people. The gender narrative helps students recog-
nize those moments in their own lives when they
experienced social pressures to act within the gen-
dered straitjacket, and provides time and space to
ponder the consequences of those moments.
Teaching Strategy
I have discovered that this narrative depends on
multiple models in order for students to find their
way into their own stories. So often, especially with
issues around gender, many students take the tight-
rope walk of roles for granted and don’t question
them or understand how they came into being. And
frankly, most of us need the help of a community
when it comes to unpacking the ways our lives have
been shaped by those spoken and unspoken rules
we grew up with.
I have collected student and teacher stories
over decades. For the latest iteration of this writing
workshop, I like to begin with Donald Rose’s story.
Donald is a wonderful middle-school teacher in
Portland, Oregon. He’s the kind of teacher students
remember fondly years later when they write col-
lege essay tributes about a person who changed their
lives. In this story, Donald describes a time when
he was 4 years old, and his mother woke him in
the middle of the night to carry a battered, blood-
smeared robin outside because he was now the “man
of the house” (see “The Bird” p. 195). Before we read
Donald’s story, I distribute the gender collective text
chart (p. 187) and tell students that this is a place
to keep track of stories that surface for them while
we are reading other people’s narratives. After I read
the story out loud, I ask, “What does it mean to be a
man, according to this story?” Karmann talks about
how men are supposed to take care of women and
do the scary things, like kill spiders. The story al-
lows students to spin off into the ways in which their
own families adhere to or disrupt these common
understandings.
Then I ask them to make a list of stories that
Donald’s narrative evoked for them on the graphic
186 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
organizer. “This story reminded me of a time when
I saw a rattlesnake at my sister’s cabin. It was hissing
at the foot of the stairs. I didn’t know what to do. I
called out to my brother, Billy, who was sitting on
the deck, to take care of it. He didn’t want to deal
with the snake either, so he phoned a forest rang-
er who chopped the snake’s head off. Do any of you
have stories? Don’t worry if nothing came up. We
have lots more stories to read.” After students have
a few quiet minutes to reflect, I encourage some to
share their stories as a way of shaking loose mem-
ories for those who have come up empty. I repeat
these steps as we read through the stories, recalling
and sharing moments together in an attempt to both
locate compelling narratives to write and to loosen
the grip of the stories that keep us from experienc-
ing the fullness of our humanity.
Each of the stories I have included provides
insights into some facet of gender. Camila Arze Tor-
res Goitia’s, for example, explores the ways women
are made to feel shame over their growing bodies,
breasts, and hips. Justin Morris describes a fellow
student who projects a tough-guy image to cover his
hurting heart. Kamaria Kyle’s story puts her at the
edge of childhood, where one friend has entered the
world of boys and tight pants, while the other wants
to continue to race and climb trees. Jayme Causey’s
story invites us into the world of a boy who cries
too easily for his older brothers’ tastes, and Kronda
Adair’s recounts the rocky road of coming out as gay.
Once students pinpoint a story they want to
write, I take them through a guided visualization
and push them into the narrative writing. Typically,
we read-around during the next class period. These
are still rough drafts, but knowing they will share
their stories propels students to write strong pieces.
Before we read-around, I prepare students to listen
for the collective text. I say, “As you listen to your
classmates’ stories, take notes on what you learn
about gender from each of their experiences. After
everyone has read, you will ‘read’ the collective text
of our classroom experiences—about how society,
schools, and families have shaped our understand-
ing, attitudes, and beliefs about gender—and write
a summary paragraph, referring back to your class-
mates’ stories for evidence.” Z
u HANDOUT

Gender Collective Text

As you listen to your classmates’ stories, take notes on what you learn about gender from each of their experienc-
es. After everyone has read, you will “read” the collective text of our classroom experiences—about how society,
schools, and families have shaped our understanding, attitudes, and beliefs about gender—and write a summary
paragraph referring back to your classmates’ stories for evidence.

Student name Story What I learned about gender

CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE 187

u SAMPLE ESSAYS
Coming Out
by Kronda Adair
Sweet 16 was the worst year of my life. But in many
ways, it was also the best year because of what came
out of it.
After I started Teens Incorporated (TI), my
life got very interesting. Suddenly I was busy, busy,
busy all the time. I had to buy a planning calendar
to keep track of all the places I was supposed to be,
and it was almost always full. More importantly, TI
sparked a period of personal growth for me that
I’m sure will continue until I die. Every new subject
we learned about was a new topic for debate. I was
forced to decide how I felt about a lot of things I
never thought about before. The main purpose of TI
is to inform teens about sexuality. In the midst of
educating others, I began to examine my own sex-
uality and question the reasons behind some of my
behavior.
One day after TI rehearsal we were talking
about the ever-popular subject of our families. I
mentioned half-jokingly that before my brothers
were born I was the “boy” in the family. Out of four
girls I was the one who wore pants all the time, hat-
ed Barbie, loved remote control cars, sports, fishing,
and the outdoors in general; I was also the only one
who would clean the fish. In short, I was a genuine
tomboy.
After I mentioned this, my director Susan got
very serious and offered to take me out to lunch if I
wanted to talk about how I felt. She said that all her
roommates were lesbians and it was OK.
This thought had never even entered my head
and I had no clue how or why she would associate
tomboyishness with homosexuality. I mean, just be-
cause you were a tomboy didn’t mean you were gay.
Did it? Susan’s perception of my comment raised
questions and answers that I didn’t want to begin
to contemplate. But deep down I knew I had to at
least face the possibility. So that Sunday I met Susan
downtown and we talked. She got me to admit that
I was and had always been more comfortable with
and emotionally attracted to women. Then she said
that it might be just a phase, but if it wasn’t I was
going to have to deal with it. That was exactly what
I wanted to hear. I latched onto the first part of that
sentence. If it was a phase then I could ignore it until
188 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
it went away. So I proceeded to do just that. Susan
and I went back to work and except for once when it
couldn’t be helped, I never brought up our conversa-
tion again or gave any implication that I was affected
by it in any way. But despite my efforts, I couldn’t
quite go back to “life as usual.” The big question was
always in the back of my mind, but I didn’t want to
know the answer.
I found out the hard way that there was a high
price for shutting off a part of yourself that way. I
began to get depressed a lot without knowing why.
I went through extreme mood swings from really
happy to angry and eventually back to depression
that usually lasted for days on end. My problems
began to seem larger than they were. Inside it felt
like my life was falling apart, and I was under con-
stant pressure from all directions to get even better
grades. The worst part was that I closed my real feel-
ings off from everyone. I got into a vicious down-
ward spiral like when you eat when you’re depressed
and get depressed when you eat. I knew I needed
help, but I was afraid to ask, and I didn’t know who
I could talk to that would understand when I didn’t
understand myself. Whenever I got close to asking
for help, my low self-esteem kicked in. It was easy to
think of people who were worse off than I was and
feel selfish for even being depressed. I told myself
no one was interested in my problems, and I should
be able to handle it on my own. Except that I didn’t
know what “it” was.
The result of holding my emotions in for so
long was that they built up until I was forced to do
something to relieve the pressure. One morning in
English during a quiz that I was not prepared for,
I started to cry. At first it was only tears running
down my cheeks and no one noticed. Then Jenny
asked me if I was OK. Even as I nodded yes I started
crying harder. I wanted desperately to stop, but it
was totally beyond my control. I was taken to the
teen clinic where I cried for 40 minutes nonstop.
Everyone wanted to help me, but there was noth-
ing anyone could do. I felt completely hopeless, as
if I would never have a happy moment ever again.
And yet, there was still a voice in my head—call it
conscience, spirit, or whatever—that said it wasn’t
true. I could and would be happy again if I could
just learn to like myself. That was the real problem.
I had little or no self-esteem and I didn’t like myself.
 Once I came to this realization, I felt a lot bet-
ter. At least now I knew what the problem was even
if I didn’t have a clue what to do about it. From then
on I was at least able to function without losing con-
trol of my emotions. If I felt like things were build-
ing up, I found someone to talk to. I found out I
didn’t always have to talk about what was bothering
me to feel better. Sometimes just having someone to
listen was enough. Talking led to the first step of my
self-esteem recovery.
I started making lists. Every day I spent five min-
utes writing a list of things I liked about myself. The
trick was not to stop writing the entire time. It was
really hard at first, but gradually my lists got longer.
Then I realized that I was my own worst en-
emy. I started watching and listening for the little
put-downs I gave myself every day. When I caught
myself saying negative things, I reversed them. Once
I began to notice my own negative behavior, I no-
ticed it in others as well. It’s so easy to find yourself
playing down compliments and blaming yourself
for anything that goes wrong.
Then came the hardest step of all. I realized if
I was going to learn to like me, I would have to dis-
cover just who I was. So I set out to answer the ques-
tion I had been avoiding for so many months. Since
I didn’t have anyone I felt safe talking to, I turned
to books. I read everything on homosexuality that I
could get my hands on, and when I ran out of sourc-
es close to home or school, I turned to bookstores
and discovered the Catbird Seat.
The first thing I noticed when I went in was
all the gay newspapers and magazines available. I
started reading Just Out, The Lavender Network, and
Guide, but because they were newspapers, they were
very political. I wanted to read about people, not is-
sues. The second thing I noticed was how easy it is
to find everything because the sections are clearly
marked with large signs. For some reason the sign
that said GAY BOOKS seemed larger than the rest.
But I nerved myself and headed toward it, stopping
by science fiction, psychology, fiction, and children’s
books on the way. Finally I made it. When no one
jumped out with handcuffs to drag me off to the
deprogrammer, I relaxed a little.
Once I felt comfortable, I started spending
more and more time at the bookstore. I soaked up
everything I read like a dry sponge. I was amazed
CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE
at how much I identified with almost everything I
read. I didn’t feel so alone anymore because every-
thing I read brought home to me the fact that there
were lots of people out in the world going through
the same confusion I was. Most of the books I read
in the store were too expensive to buy, and I didn’t
want to take them home and risk my mom finding
them.
After a while, books weren’t enough anymore.
Now that I knew how many people shared my feel-
ings I wanted to know, where were they? That’s
when I began checking the newspaper for listings of
groups and I discovered Windfire, “a social/support
group for people under 21 who are gay, lesbian, bi-
sexual, or unsure.”
That first meeting was like being the new kid at
school. But I didn’t spend two years learning to be
an extrovert for nothing. Not only did I go in, but
after a while I felt comfortable enough to participate
in the discussion. I’d finally found a place where I
could be totally me, and I didn’t have to watch over
my words for fear of saying the wrong thing.
It was at this point that my school and home life
became a real problem. Now that I had a place to be
“out,” I began to resent having to be straight during
the rest of the week. Having such a big secret made
my writing classes harder because so many times I
couldn’t write the first thing that came to my head.
I’m positive my work could have been better had I
not felt that restriction. Besides that, the feeling of
isolation I hadn’t felt since middle school was back
again. Knowing the cause of my isolation didn’t help
me feel any better. Acting like two different people
took a toll on me, and I knew I had to do something
about it. I began to have doubts about my still-frag-
ile self-esteem. I wondered how I could continue to
feel good about myself when society kept portraying
gay people as child molesters who caused the entire
AIDS epidemic and even my own mother told “fag”
jokes and voted yes on Measure 8.
Windfire was a big help. Going to it helped me
keep my equilibrium and reminded me of the good
things about being gay. To help me survive during
the week, I started buying books and reading them
at home and school, which helped me keep from
feeling totally cut off. But I still didn’t have anyone
in school to talk to.
Then on Wellness Day I went to a seminar
189
called “How to Handle Your Sexuality.” When I got
there it was just about what I expected. I didn’t learn
anything new, but did like Billie a lot. I liked the way
she took all the questions seriously even though the
seniors had suddenly turned into giggling fresh-
men. Then there was the fact that Billie is one of
those rare people who just sends out GOOD VIBES
all the time. I considered sitting through the lecture
again just so I could watch her work.
Afterward I went to see if there was any way
I could see Billie again. I made an appointment for
the next week. When I went in I was really nervous,
but she made me feel very at ease and I never hesi-
tated about telling her that I’m gay.
It was such a joy and a relief to tell someone. It
was like half of the weight was lifted off my shoul-
ders and school was suddenly a better place to be.
Pretty soon I found someone else “safe” to tell and
the weight got even lighter.
Coming out never gets any easier, but I find the
more I do it, the more I want to. So far I’ve been
lucky enough to have only supportive reactions
from people I know are my real friends. Because of
that I can now say to myself and to others that I like
being gay. Because now I like myself and gay is just
part of who I am.
.............................................................
Losing Childhood
by Kamaria Kyle
I remember when she started wearing jellies, girly
shoes instead of her regular Nikes. I remember when
she started wearing tight jeans and colored ribbons in
her hair. I remember when she stopped going under
fences and up trees, but this was not going to be one
of my memories. I was not going to let this happen.
“Niki … Niki,” I yelled, standing on the last
step of her porch. She had a big white house that
stood in the middle of the block. This step was al-
ways the one we stood on ’cause if you look up at the
house, it towered over you so high, it looked like it
would swallow you. She appeared in the doorway
and ran down to the stair where I had been waiting.
We turned around and sat down.
“What do you wanna do?”
“I don’t know. What do you wanna do?”
190 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
“I’ll race you to Sabin,” I got ready to break.
“No, my jeans are too tight to be runnin’, she
said, smoothing her hands down the tight jeans. I
sat back down.
“I don’t know why you’re wearing them any-
ways. You’re only 10 years old. Who’s looking at
your tight jeans?” She didn’t say anything. She just
grinned and turned away like, “someone’s looking.”
“Let’s go to the store. I need a popsicle.” Niki
stood and started walking up the block.
“Hold up,” I ran to catch up with her. “You don’t
have any money.” She looked over her shoulder and
smiled. We kept walking.
When we got to the store, I was hot. It felt like
within the last two blocks the sun had got closer and
closer with every step. I was about ready to fall out.
I leaned up against the brick store.
“Come on.”
“Come on, what?”
“Just come on.” I wiped some sweat off my fore-
head and followed her into Mr. Tyler’s Mini Mart.
“Hi, Mr. Tyler,” Niki smiled.
“Hi, Mr. Tyler,” I repeated after her and smiled
as I followed her to the back of the store. Mr. Tyler
was a tall, tall dark man who knew every kid in the
neighborhood. I knew him real well. He was over at
my house sometimes visiting my mama, but I never
told anyone, thinking that the kids would say some-
thing about that.
Niki opened the glass, and we both leaned in
over the freezer, so the cool air could hit our faces.
Niki grabbed a red and a green popsicle and let go of
the freezer door. I jumped at the large slam it made
and look up at her like she was crazy for letting it go
so hard. She didn’t even see me looking at her be-
cause she was carefully watching Mr. Tyler, who was
reading the paper. She handed me the green pop-
sicle and grabbed my arm, pulling me to the door.
I realized what we were doing just as my stomach
growled, sensing the cool, green, icy popsicle in my
hand. I guess sometimes your stomach can take over
your conscience because I didn’t say anything as I
watched Mr. Tyler not watching us. Niki pulled me
out the door.
When I finished my popsicle, I felt guilty, like I
should go tell Mr. Tyler what we had done. But it was
too good and if I told, well, I liked the idea of getting
whatever I wanted free. So analyzing this problem
made me realize I would be prevented from getting
future popsicles, so I wouldn’t tell.
I continued to follow Niki. I didn’t know where
we were going, but it looked like she did. We went
exactly around the block from her house. I didn’t
know who lived there. It was almost exactly like Ni-
ki’s house, except it was brown.
“Whose house is this?” I asked.
Her eyes sparkled when she answered. “Ray.”
Wait a minute. Who was Ray? I didn’t know any
Ray. We walked up onto the porch, and she ran the
doorbell. I kept thinking, “Who is Ray?” Every boy
on the block’s race ran through my head, but I didn’t
know no Ray. A dark face came and opened the door.
He was slightly taller than Niki, who was slightly tall-
er than me, so he towered over me like Niki’s house.
When he smiled, his teeth were so white, I squinted.
“What’s up, Niki?”
“Hi,” she giggled. What was wrong with her?
She sounded like the talking doll my grandma had
given me last year, and we took her head off because
her voice was annoying. I nudged her with my elbow.
“Oh this is Nae.” That’s what she called me,
short for my middle name, Renae.
“Hi,” I said, still looking at her like she was
crazy. What was wrong with her? She was acting
like—I couldn’t even think of how to describe it—it
was like, like a girl. I was disgusted. She looked at me
and winked. I was pissed off. I just stared at her like,
“Let’s go.” She winked again. I continued to stare
back. She winked again. When she winked about the
sixth time, I knew it was obvious she wanted me to
leave, but I didn’t want to go yet, so I sat down and
examined Ray.
“So, Ray, how old are you? I’ve never seen you
playing around here.”
“Of course he doesn’t play. He’s a 6th grader.”
I was getting bored sitting on his porch, and I was
tired of seeing my friend acting like a dumb girl on
TV, so I broke. I just stood up and walked away.
“Nae … Nae,” I didn’t look back. This was the
last straw. Niki was a girl and that’s all there was to it.
On my way home, I thought of ways to get her back
to her old self, but I knew her days of climbing trees,
racing, and all those things the two hardest girls on
the block used to do together were gone.
CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE
Gender Narrative
by Camila Arze Torres Goitia
The smell of Sunday morning sweat permeated the
room as we sat on the chalk-splattered floor wait-
ing—lined like ants to be marched off to our weekly
measurements. Tiara was stretching—her head to
her knee and arms out long past her toes. Mono was
twisting her tiny core, placing her hands on each
side of her thin twig of a left leg. Her tiny waist un-
dented by rolls. I sat up straight trying to make my
stomach look long and flat as I gazed at them and
felt it churn. I had skipped breakfast that morning
in hopes it would change my weekly fate and was ex-
tra chatty during our daily pirouette challenge to try
and drown out the sound my insides were making as
they begged for a bagel.
It was my fifth year at Luis Calderini Dance
Academy. I was hooked after our first dance show
at the age of 10. They had painted my chubby face
with glitter and given me butterfly wings. It was the
first time my mother had ever called me beautiful
and the first time I ever felt I was. Half of us were
sorely off time for the first minute of our routine but
it didn’t matter. But what used to be a place of refuge
and fun and freedom had slowly and strategically
become more of a military academy. Here we were
at 7 a.m. on a Saturday—two hours into our day—
and my muscles ached and arms felt heavy from lifts,
and I wasn’t going home for another three hours.
It was my turn. Señorita Karina was calling
me up to her and Luis—the measuring tape in her
hands looking like a whip. I felt the plastic cinch and
cut into my waist as she pinched the love handles it
created by sinking into my skin. Her lips thinned.
“Half an inch,” she said. “Fifty.” And I went to
the mat. Fifty sit-ups. I knew the third slice of pizza
I had eaten on Thursday would inevitably leave me
here on the plastic mat of shame, sticky from girls’
quiet tears. The scale didn’t help. I had gone up 1
pound. That meant 100 push-ups were to follow.
The other four girls with “imperfect” bodies were on
either side of me as Tiara and Mono headed into the
next room to start adding onto the routine with the
other 20 girls who looked just like them. This was
my sixth week this year being locked out of prac-
tice and it was only March. I was 15 and my body
was changing. Though I had stretched out at 12 and
191
stayed what Luis called “a perfect ballerina” for a
couple of years, at 15, I started to round out. My hips
were wider and my tummy grew softer. And while
boys had started to look at me, I also started to get
placed in the back of the formation. Last year, while
Mono and Tiara were principals in The Nutcracker, I
was alternate for the Mouse King.
Midway through my prescription, Luis told me
I could stop. I thought that meant I could join my
friends, but he called me into his office at the long
end of a dark musty hallway lined with 10-year-old
girls that had no idea what was in store for them. Ka-
rina was waiting for me there, and Luis slowly gave
me a folder with my name on it. I opened it. Inside
were several sheets of numbers that increased and
decreased starting from when I was 13. Tears were
welling as I realized what the numbers were: my
weight and waistline. “We could keep you here,” they
said, “but you’ll never have the body of a dancer.”
They had been masking it with simpler things like
bad feet or poor turnout for months. But there it was.
And that was the beginning of the end. I told
my mom I was quitting—not that I had been kicked
out. I stopped going to quinceañeras, I dropped out of
the school dance team. Everything that I had under-
stood about myself as a moving work of art was gone.
Without class, I grew bigger and more uncomfort-
able with the space I was taking up. At Tiara’s sister’s
wedding, I watched everyone dance freely and laugh
and twirl and smile while I sat. Feeling like I wasn’t
allowed to move. Like my own body wasn’t worth
watching. Like I wasn’t just an alternate dancer but an
alternate human being. My self-esteem was locked in
the plastic container behind the Christmas lights in
the garage with my leotards, tights, and dance shoes.
When people asked if “the freshman 15” happened
in high school instead of college for me, I laughed
with them so they weren’t just laughing at me. When
people asked me to dance, I said, “I can’t.” And when
my mom stopped calling me beautiful, I believed her.
Camila Arze Torres Goitia teaches at Madison High
School in Portland, Oregon.
192 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
Maurice
by Justin Morris
Maurice was obnoxious. If you wanna get down to
it, he was a guy’s guy. Not very much of a people
person. You know the type: He’d call a girl out of her
name in the blink of an eye, and he’d cuss you out if
you looked at him the wrong way. Most of all, he nev-
er … I mean he never … ever … showed any kind
of emotion. Every school has a Maurice. He comes
in different shapes, colors, sizes, and genders. But
one Mother’s Day assignment meant the reshaping
of Maurice’s life. I was there, and I’ll never forget it.
I remember seeing him in the hallway before,
in between, and even during class. There he was: a
rolled-up magazine (VIBE) in his left hand, a bag of
Doritos (Nacho Cheesier) in his right, and his Wal-
kman stuck in his jacket pocket. His friends were
crowded around him, while his head bobbed rhyth-
mically back and forth, left and right, to the tape in
his Walkman. He’d say something now and then to
one of his friends or he’d say something smart to a
girl walking by. Mostly he was absorbed in his music.
I could tell that Maurice was putting up a
front. I’m not gonna speak for everybody when I
assume a lot of people knew exactly what Maurice
was all about. Nothin’, I mean, playing the role of a
tough guy seemed so natural to him, you just knew
there had to be a compassionate side hidden inside.
Somewhere. Just think about some of the guys you
know in high school who act so tough. You just
know they’re so full of it. Something was going on
inside of them to keep them so alive with distrust
and vulgarity.
He stood almost 6 feet tall, he was mixed, he
sported close-cut curly hair that was covered by a
baseball cap facing forward. He was one of those
skinny dudes who wore baggy clothes, and he al-
ways had his signature headphones that were either
glued to his ears or permanently draped over his
neck, cranked up at the loudest volume imaginable.
You never saw Maurice without his Walkman.
He was the reason why I went to third peri-
od English. He was the reason many people went to
third period, I think. Not because it was an easy class
(it wasn’t) and not because it was fun (it had its mo-
ments). It was because Maurice never sat on a desk
like the rest of us. That would mean admitting that
he was at least half human. Sometimes he arrived 10,
20, even 40 minutes late. On top of that, it would take
him the remaining class period to get settled down.
Our teacher wasn’t the least bit intimidated
by Maurice. In fact, I think that she was the reason
why he even bothered showing up to class. She often
leaned back in her chair while Maurice was stand-
ing somewhere running his mouth. She wasn’t be-
ing passive, in fact, she was letting Maurice have his
outlet. He had so much built-up energy, she made a
choice to allow him to vent some of it out in class. It
was either that or let him fight it out.
Maurice and our teacher, Mrs.___ played off of
each other like a comedy team. They were Grumpy
Old Men except one of them was a woman. She
treated him like an old friend, which is better than
the way some of the other teachers treated him. I
had a class with him last year. Mr. Marx, U.S. Histo-
ry, would give Maurice referrals every day.
“Go to the dean’s,” he’d say.
“Go ___ yourself, man,” Maurice would reply. I
always liked the way Maurice talked. He talked like
he walked; kinda slow, but you knew he was getting
somewhere.
What bothered Mrs. ___ the most was the fact
that there was more to Maurice than met the eye.
She was forever telling the class how gifted of a writ-
er he was, but he had yet to share some of his pieces
in class. He spent a significant part of the class peri-
od whispering and laughing with Little Homie, who
was almost always slouched in the chair next to him
(when Maurice decided to take a seat). Little Homie
was always sleepin’, and mostly always high, but on
the rare occasion he was awake and sober, he made
trouble with his partner Maurice.
“Yo man, women are like cows, dammit! There’s
no other way around it,” Maurice said. This was his
reply to a discussion we were having on women’s
rights. None of us were shocked, believe me. His re-
mark earned moans of approval from the guys and
a deafening smack of teeth in unison from the girls.
Mrs. ___ said, “Not all girls are like that, Mau-
rice, just the ones you go after.”
“Naw, man, it ain’t even about that. Damn—”
He wasn’t upset. He was actually smiling just know-
ing that Mrs. ___ was trying to clown him.
“What about your mom, or … ” Mrs. ___ was
interrupted by the ringing of the bell. Little Homie’s
CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE
eyes peeled open slowly. He rose out of his chair and
began to stagger aimlessly into the hallway as usual.
Sunday was Mother’s Day, our assignment: Write a
tribute to our mothers.
The next day, about 20 minutes into class, about
five poems have been read. The current poem is
mushy and way too sentimental. It mentions flow-
ers ready to bloom and endless loads of crap. I yawn,
and Mrs. ___ gives me The Look. Maurice is shift-
ing uncomfortably in the desk next to me. I read
my poem about the time my mother took me to see
Ghostbusters on my birthday years ago.
Immediately afterwards, Maurice gets up out
of his desk and walks out the door. This is his way
of asking if he can go to the bathroom. Ten minutes
later I’m aching for a smoke. I pass a note to Mrs.
___ asking if I can go to the bathroom. She passes it
back to me saying, “No.”
I ask her, “Why?”
She says, “Maurice hasn’t returned with the
pass.” Ah-ha.
“Maurice didn’t take the pass,” I say. She gives
me permission and I’m out the door.
I take a left and push open badly painted dou-
ble doors. I reach in my pocket for my smokes. The
back hallways are unusually dark. The faint smell of
marijuana lingers. I round the corner when I hear
a sniffling. Someone is up ahead. I walk a few steps
closer and I see a faint outline of a guy. His baseball
cap is on the ground in front of him. I slow down my
step until I’m right in front of the guy. I return my
cigarettes to my pocket.
“Are you OK?” I ask this without hesitation. I’m
freaked out. Next to him on the floor is a crumpled
piece of paper that was once folded. I bend down next
to him and he looks up at me with sad, wet eyes.
“Not really,” he says. I’m guessing that he rec-
ognizes me. Maurice and I have talked only a couple
of times. Nothing special. It’s dead silent except for
his sniffling. I wish I had a Kleenex so he could blow
his nose.
“Hey, is this your poem?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer. He just looks at me with a
vacant expression.
“Can I read it?” I ask hesitantly. It’s not like me
to meddle in another man’s business like this, but I
felt like I had to do something. He nodded his head.
His poem was called “Mother.” It was about his
193
mother speaking to him from her grave, telling him
how much he loves her and misses him. Mrs. ___
was right, he was a good writer.
“I’m sorry to hear about your mom, Maurice.
That’s gotta be tough … I don’t know what to say …
When did she die?”
“You don’t have to say anything. Not to me, not
to anybody, OK?”
“Aw, I ain’t gonna tell nobody. I’m not like that.”
“Good,” he said. And with that he put himself
together. He took the poem from my hands and start-
ed back towards the classroom. He turned around
and quickly said, “Thank you,” before walking up the
steps and walking through the badly painted double
doors. I couldn’t move. I didn’t know what to do with
myself. It made me sad to see the look on his face.
When I returned to class, I saw Maurice at
his desk just sitting there. Everybody else was busy
talking about their plans for the weekend.
Maurice reached in his coat pocket and put
his headphones over his ears. His poem was folded
neatly before him on his desk. Our eyes met for a
brief second. Little Homie woke up and nonchalant-
ly wiped the drool from his chin. Maurice turned his
head away from my gaze and began to stare out the
window, up at the sky.
.............................................................
Light Bright
by Jayme Causey
“Well, here we go again.”
“Every damn time, man.”
“You know Light Bright is a little soft, leave
him alone.”
Through elongated breaths and streams that I
wish I could take back, I muster a pathetic, “Hey
assholes, I can hear you.”
My three older brothers would look at me,
shrug, and then go right back to our ritualistic
roughhousing, consisting mainly of shoves and
poorly executed wrestling moves we picked up
from watching too much WWF. Every bout started
the same: We’d be outside of my dad’s house in deep
Southeast Portland, either playing basketball on the
unpaved street or jumping on the makeshift tram-
poline in the driveway, when an errant elbow or
194 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
cuss word would fly to an unexpected recipient. The
first shove would be thrown, then retaliation, then
sides would be chosen. Normally, it’d be me and
Anthony, who was just two years my senior, against
the two older siblings. Except when it was Anthony
and I who initially got into the scuffle, then it’d be
them all against me. Oh, to be the youngest.
Today is one of those days.
We are playing two-on-two in the driveway.
It had been real convenient for me when Sean, our
oldest brother, went away to the military because
then I got to be the fourth man in our impromp-
tu hoop games. Anthony goes up to shoot and JC
blocks him; the ball goes flying backwards. I see it
and take off after it. Anthony sees it and takes off af-
ter it. In the moment before impact, I let up, know-
ing that this collision is definitely a losing battle for
me. However, as he grabs the ball, Anthony trips
on my foot and goes sprawling in the middle of the
street. Edward and JC just about fall over laughing
while I try to help Anthony up.
“Yo, you alright?”
“What the hell, little bro. You tripped me.”
“Nah, you just tripped over my foot. Are you
alright?”
“You tripped me, man. I felt it.”
“Nah, the only thing you felt was the pavement.”
Edward and JC continue laughing as me and
Anthony grapple in the street. I’d like to say we were
going back and forth, wrestling one another to the
ground, but really he just had me pinned down with
his knee on my chest barking at me to apologize.
As I’m lying there, struggling to breath, half
because of the knee on my chest and half because
we’re all laughing at this point, I hear Edward yell
out, “DOG PILE!” Now I know I’m screwed.
Edward and JC sprint over to where Anthony
and I lie in the street and pounce on us. Anthony’s
knee dives deeper into my chest as we’re both thrown
off by the weight that has just collapsed on us.
As we’re rolling on the concrete, I manage to
wiggle away. Struggling to catch my breath and deal-
ing with the searing pain in my sternum, I feel it.
The heat in my face, the lump in my throat, the tears
welling in my eyes like an unattended bathtub. Once
they notice, it’s “Well here he go again,” Edward says.
“Every damn time man,” Anthony replies,
clearly exasperated.
 “You know Light Bright is a little soft, leave
him alone. He lives with his mom and sister,” JC in-
terjects, as if he’s defending me.
“Should we call her?”
They’re all looking at me at this point. Well not
really at me, more like through me. They don’t see
me. They see my own room at my Mom’s house, and
not the ones they share at Dad’s. They see me getting
dropped off and picked up when I visit them, and
them catching the bus to come see me. They see half
of the bloodline that we share and have made up in
their mind which side I take from.
“Hey assholes, I can hear you,” I let dribble out
weakly between sniffles.
The next day, when my mom comes to pick me
up, I don’t want to leave. After spending days with
my brothers, I never wanted to leave. I’d miss my
house, miss my room, miss my mom and sister, but
I never wanted to leave. I didn’t want to have to start
over, didn’t want to lose what ground I made up
there, whatever that was.
But I did. I climb in the car and shut the door.
My mom yells at me, “Just because your brothers
don’t make you wear a seatbelt doesn’t mean you’re
pulling that shit with me.” So I snap my seatbelt and
look out the window. Anthony, JC, Edward, and
my dad stand on the porch, waving together. I ride
away, alone. I don’t wave back.
Jayme Causey teaches at Jefferson High School in
Portland, Oregon.
.............................................................
The Bird
by Donald Rose
“Donald, wake up honey.”
My mom had entered my room. I was only 4
years old. My dad had died less than a year prior.
She explained that a robin had flown into our house
through an open door and now was trying to escape
through a large picture window in our kitchen.
“I need you to go downstairs and pick up the
bird and put it outside.”
I didn’t hesitate. When my father died,
well-meaning men from our small hometown on the
Oregon coast would shake my hand and say, “You’re
CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE
the man of the house now, take care of your mom and
sister.” Other men, mostly relatives, were concerned
that I wouldn’t hunt, fish, or worse, would perhaps
become a ballet dancer. I didn’t understand what it
was to be a man and wouldn’t know truly until I be-
came a father to daughters but I was going to try.
I walked down the stairs and heard a thump. It
scared me. My mom sat at the top of the staircase,
whispering, “It’s in the kitchen. The door is open.
Just put it outside.” My mom was deep in grief and
was very distant. She took care of our basic needs,
but her mind was always somewhere else. This was
evident when I asked her one day for the baby aspi-
rin and she just handed them to me. I ate the whole
bottle and needed to get my stomach pumped. That
was just a couple months earlier. I wanted her atten-
tion, so I bravely faced the bird.
Blood was smeared on the window and feath-
ers were on the floor. Near the door, a robin with
a bald and bloody head was wobbling to its feet. I
hesitated. It looked stunned and confused.
By this time, my mom was in the doorway en-
tering the kitchen. “Pick it up and put it outside.”
I walked toward the bird. My feet cold on the
marmoleum. I squatted and timidly put my hands
around the robin’s body. It didn’t fight. I stood up
and walked toward the kitchen door and set it on
the stoop. It just sat there. I was relieved.
The archetype of masculinity was as clear as
that window had been but it was just as impossible
to enter. I would bang my head against it over and
over again, hurting myself and scaring people along
the way. Becoming a “man” at 4 years old was an
exhausting and burdensome task.
Donald Rose teaches at Beaumont Middle School in
Portland, Oregon.
195

Tea Party, Mixer, Block Party, Backyard Barbecue
E
xperienced readers don’t balk at slow begin-
nings in novels. They are like swimmers who
dive into cold water knowing there will be
a delicious rush when they burst into a breaststroke
or an Australian crawl. But inexperienced readers
panic and drown. There are too many names, the
location is unfamiliar, they don’t see the point, they
think, “What’s this got to do with me?” They give
up too soon—before the writer has grabbed them.
In a class discussion about reading, I once asked
strong readers to talk about their habits. Renesa said,
“Even if I don’t like the first chapter, I keep reading.
I know it will get better.” Marvin, a poor reader, said
if he didn’t like the first few paragraphs, he couldn’t
keep reading. It tired him out just trying to remem-
ber the characters’ names, and long, descriptive pas-
sages bored him. Yet Marvin, like many poor read-
196 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
Lighting the Fire
NYKI TEWS
ers, could memorize the lyrics to popular music and
knew as much about hip-hop artists as I know about
most authors. The capacity was evident; the will
and the belief that he could succeed were not. For
nonreaders like Marvin, teachers must be willing to
overcome years of resistance to reading as well as
break well-developed nonreading coping strategies.
I use the “tea party/mixer” to entice poor readers
into novels (or historical periods). The tea party is
like a movie preview, presenting brief clips of the
story line and characters to draw the audience in.
For nonreaders or poor readers, this preview is es-
sential, especially as they approach texts generally
reserved for advanced classes. Most students exhibit
curiosity about the world and seek ways to become
experts about things they care about; my job is to
fire up that curiosity.
 Since I first encountered the mixer strategy at
a National Council of Teachers of English confer-
ence decades ago, the tea party has become a classic
opening act to light the fire for a new unit in both
novel and content studies in my classroom. (Many
Rethinking Schools and Oregon Writing Project folks
now use the terms “block party,” “mixer,” “barbe-
cue,” etc., instead of the original term “tea party” to
bring the event closer to students’ racial, class, and
perhaps political backgrounds.)
Basically, a mixer is a type of role play where
students are introduced to literary, historical, or
contemporary characters. Students are each given a
role, typically about a paragraph long. After reading
their role, their task is to get up and walk around
the room, finding the other characters in the book
or unit. I tell them this is like speed dating the char-
acters. Sometimes they have questions they need to
answer (“Who are you related to?”) or directions
(“Find someone who knows about redlining in
Portland”).
A successful tea party invites the audience
into reading the book or articles because they are
intrigued by the characters they encounter through
this role play. Through the roles I write, I must re-
veal enough details to draw students into the story
line, but not enough to satisfy their curiosity. When
they chat with students who portray other charac-
ters, students’ interest in the reading is piqued, and
they gain some background knowledge that helps
them ease into the novel/unit. On the best days after
the best mixers, a number of students demand that I
put the book in their hands at the end of the period.
Like any strategy, this is one attempt among many
to bring students, especially students who have diffi-
culty reading, into the classroom conversation.
For reluctant readers, this strategy helps sort
characters before they even enter the book, so they
aren’t confused about names and relationships when
they first encounter them in the opening pages. Fre-
quently, they leave this lesson with questions that
the activity provokes. For example, after meeting
Grandma India from Warriors Don’t Cry, students
wonder why she needs a gun. When they shake
hands with Janie from Their Eyes Were Watching
God, they ask why she had so many husbands. And
after launching the gentrification unit, they want to
know how Black land ended up public property.
CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE
Writing the Roles
When I am developing tea party/mixer roles for a
novel, I find a few significant and juicy tidbits for five
or six main characters. I am careful to avoid giving
away the whole plot with the pieces of information I
choose. I am also mindful not to crowd the tea party
with too many minor characters. This activity is an
appetizer, not a meal. Students should leave hungry
for more. I write a passage for each of these five or
six characters in first person so that the students
can enter the persona more easily. Sometimes I give
information about the relationships between char-
acters. For example, in Janie’s role from Their Eyes
Were Watching God, I share how many husbands she
has, how people talk about her:
Janie: This book is the story of my life with
three men. All I wanted was a man I could
love and respect who didn’t treat me like a
mule. People have always had their mouths
on me: talking about my hair and what I wear.
But believe me, I am a woman who’s going to
teach you something over the next few weeks.
At other times, I give details that help students
locate the literature in a historical context. For Kin-
dred, for example, I set the stage for students to enter
Dana’s time-travel world by signaling up front that
she will shift from contemporary times to historical
times:
Dana: It’s 1976. I am a Black woman from
Southern California, but I keep getting
snatched to the 1800s to save Rufus, the white
son of a plantation owner. As a Black woman,
going back to slavery days is no picnic. Unfor-
tunately, I have to continue jeopardizing my
life to save his to ensure that he will grow to
manhood and father the daughter who will
become my ancestor.
In this novel iteration of the tea party/mixer,
students find four other characters, talk with them,
take notes, and after they return to their desks, they
write out questions about the characters or book and
make predictions based on what they have learned
so far. I also ask them to draw a diagram or picture
that demonstrates how the characters are related. I
197
discovered that students make interesting connec-
tions when I leave this direction open. Some drew
concept maps; for example, with Their Eyes Were
Watching God, one student placed marriage in the
center of the map and each of the characters radi-
ating out from that keyword. Other students drew
Janie at the center with her husbands and grand-
mother radiating out. One student drew a picture of
a garden with Janie as the gardener and the men as
flowers she plucks. Again, this is an opening act, but
because I want to students to engage with the text, I
want to evoke their questions and imagination from
the beginning.
When I create mixers for historical/contempo-
rary events (see “Tulsa Tea Party,” p. 141), I use the
same format—one to two paragraphs, first person,
and details about the event, as well as connections
to other characters. But I also attempt to include
multiple perspectives on the topic as well as termi-
nology that they might encounter in their nonfic-
tion-reading journey. Typically, these versions of the
activity have many more roles, sometimes 15 to 20
depending on the unit. Students do not meet every
other character in this role play, but through the di-
versity of stories, they come into the study with an
appreciation of the complexity of the topic. They are
introduced to the big idea of the unit.
In the gentrification tea party/mixer I jump-
start the history of Jefferson High School’s neigh-
borhood by throwing a
neighborhood “block par-
ty” where students meet One student
characters who have lived Their Eyes Were Watching
through different stages God as the gardener and the
and faces of gentrification.
Thelma Glover’s role, for men as flowers she plucks.
example, introduces the
concept of “eminent do-
main,” which the class returns to more fully during
the study, but students also hear a first-person per-
spective from someone who was pushed out of her
home:
Thelma Glover: I owned a house on North
Commercial Street. Bought it in 1941. It was
the first house I ever owned. I had it fixed
up real nice, too—a new garage, a refinished
basement. Then some white men showed up
198 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
at my door in 1972 and told me that I’d have
to sell my house and leave the neighborhood.
I wasn’t the only one. They told all the neigh-
bors that we’d have to move. See they used
what’s called the law of “eminent domain” to
move all of the folks out of the neighborhood.
They told us our houses were run down and
“blighted.” That’s what they called it, “blight-
ed.” Like it was diseased or dying. Then they
built something for the “greater good” of the
“community.” Here’s how it happens, how a
neighborhood disappears: First, banks refuse
to give Black homeowners loans to fix up their
homes, then the city comes in and says the
homes are run down. Then the city tears down
all of our houses and builds Legacy Emanu-
el Medical Center, the Memorial Coliseum,
and the school district office. They bulldozed
300 homes and businesses in the Black com-
munity over by Williams and Vancouver av-
enues. It’s been 40 years, and I still miss my
neighborhood.
In this version of the mixer, I tell students
that they are responsible for teaching their class-
mates about how this character was impacted by
gentrification. “What time period of gentrification
did this person live through: Vanport, Albina in
1960–1970, or current gentrification? What details
from their story should
your classmates know?
drew Janie from Did your character resist?
Organize?” I give students
time to read the role, un-
derline important details,
and then flip the role sheet
over and write down key
pieces of information so
they can refer to those details when they interact
with others. When students begin circulating the
room, I say, “Interview at least six other charac-
ters and find people who resisted the push-out of
African Americans in Portland.” Once they return
to their desks, I ask them to conference with a few
others and write a paragraph summary of their
learning including: Who did they meet? What re-
sistance did they find? What questions are they left
with?
Raising Questions About Society we hid them during the day until it was safe
Because the mixer is the opening act of a new study, I for them to move on. We didn’t ask what hap-
want to alert students to the possibility of resistance, pened that night in Tulsa. We knew by watch-
hope, justice, and organizing. Too often these days, ing them huddle and cry in the basement that
the newspaper is full of disaster headlines: shootings it was terrible. When we drove to Greenwood
in malls, schools, night clubs; the overreaching greed later and saw the burned-down remains of
of a bank; an oil company their homes, we were
digging up sacred grounds. glad that we offered
It is sometimes difficult to lo- It is sometimes difficult to sanctuary, and they
cate hope. But in every unit I locate hope. But in every unit knew that God lived
teach, I introduce students to I teach, I introduce students in some white folks.
characters—real and imag-
ined—who stood up against
to characters—real and In the Portland gen-
injustice, who organized, imagined—who stood up trification mixer, I wrote
who fought back, who acted against injustice. roles for individuals who
for the benefit of the com- fought against redlining
munity. So when I create a and segregation, like Dr.
mixer, I locate people who Unthank, as well as peo-
resisted individually or through organizations, as ple who organized movements to challenge urban
well as people who crossed the boundaries of race renewal, like Mrs. Leo Warren, who created the
and class. Emanuel Displaced Persons Association to make
In the Tulsa mixer, for example, I wrote a role the city give owners fair value for their homes and
for Don Ross, who wasn’t alive at the time of the race to help renters move:
massacre, but who worked tirelessly as a state sena-
tor for reparations and for the city to acknowledge Mrs. Leo Warren: I created the Emanuel
the history it wanted to forget. I also included roles Displaced Persons Association in 1970 after
for women who acted as allies by providing shelter the city forced the folks who lived in the El-
during the night the Greenwood section of Tulsa iot neighborhood to move for the building of
burned down. Ruth Phelps crossed race lines to help Legacy Emanuel Hospital, the Memorial Coli-
survivors: seum, and the Portland School District office.
See, the Portland Development Commission
Ruth Phelps: Honestly, I couldn’t believe what and the Housing Authority of Portland had
was happening in Tulsa. We lived outside of been planning for all of this new development
the city along the road to Sand Springs, about a in the 1960s, but they never involved any of the
day’s walk north from Tulsa. We helped out the community in the planning. Then the planners
Black folks running away from Tulsa. We hid came knocking on our doors and told us we
and fed about 20 Black massacre victims in need to move out in 90 days. 90 days? “Didn’t
the basement of our home for most of a week. they have a long-range plan? After all, if your
We believed that the Golden Rule applied life’s investment was smashed to splinters by
whether people were white, Black, or Native a bulldozer to make room for a hospital, you
American. So when terrified and hungry Black could at least feel decent and perhaps tolera-
people came to our door, we hid them in our ble about it; but to have it all done for noth-
basement. I put an extra pot of beans and sow ing?” I created the Emanuel Displaced Persons
belly on the stove. Our house became a “safe Association to make them give us a fair value
house” for Black Tulsans who were not impris- for our homes. They offered a maximum of
oned by the white authorities. Just like the Un- $15,000 to homeowners and $4,000 to renters.
derground Railroad, Blacks walked through We got them to pay us what our homes were
the woods and along creek beds at night. Then worth. But we still had to move.

CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE 199

 Finally, I sometimes create roles for restrictive
laws or ideas that might permeate a text. For exam-
ple, in the memoir Warriors Don’t Cry, about the de-
segregation of Central High School in Little Rock, I
wrote a role for Jim Crow:
Jim Crow: I am not a person; I am racism
masquerading as federal and state law. I was
born in 1876. Some say I died with the Civil
Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act
in 1965. Others say I’m still lurking around
today. I was supposed to ensure “separate, but
equal” facilities for people of color, particular-
ly, Blacks and whites. But I never did do that.
In reality, my laws allowed for treatment and
accommodations that were usually inferior
to those provided for whites, systematizing a
number of economic, educational, and social
disadvantages. I created substandard schools,
transportation systems, and unequal facili-
ties. I allowed racism to flourish in the United
States.
Stories, even the fragments and teasers from
a mixer, move students into the streets and homes
and cupboards of a new study. While the mixer may
not kindle every student’s curiosity, the strategy
does promote a window into a new subject matter,
and it certainly beats “Head down to the book room
and pick up Fools Crow. Read chapters one through
three tonight. We’ll have a quiz tomorrow.”
Getting to Know You:
The Tea Party/Mixer
1. I tell students they have been invited to a tea
party, or barbecue, or block party. I vary this based
on the novel or unit of study I’m launching. Before
the class arrives, I list the characters on the board.
If there are names that are difficult to pronounce
or spell, I distribute name tags. This aids in spelling
and also alerts students to the number of characters
they should meet.
2. Prior to initiating the role play, I might give some
context. This might be as simple as “We are going to
read the play Pygmalion. Before we start reading, I
want you to meet some of the characters and alert
200 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
you to some issues we will be studying over the next
three weeks.”
3. After I distribute the roles, I say, “Read over your
roles to get a sense of the person on your note card.
Underline key pieces of information about your
character and flip the card over and make quick bul-
let points that you want to remember.” Sometimes I
alert students to specific information they need to
share. For example, in the gentrification mixer, stu-
dents need to tell what time period they lived during
and indicate any key terminology, like “redlining”
or “eminent domain.” Sometimes, they need to note
relationships between characters or who acted for
justice.
4. After most students have completed reading,
underlining, and making a bulleted list about their
character, I tell students that they are going to adopt
the persona of the character, to “become the per-
son.” I model this by holding out my hand and say-
ing, “Hi, my name is Janie. I’m the main character in
the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.” If this our
first tea party, I say something like, “This will feel
awkward the first couple of times you do it. Then
you will own the role.”
5. Before I turn them loose, I share a few of my
rules. If this is a historical role play, I often begin
by saying, “You hold the lives of real people in your
hands today. Treat them with respect. Many of them
have suffered.” I also remind them not to use accents
because often they are inaccurate and stereotypical.
Other rules include: “Do not just pass your role to
someone and say, ‘Read it yourself.’ Have one-on-
one conversations with others. This is speed dating.
If you are alone for a moment, soon a new partner
will appear.”
6. Then students, in their character roles, get up,
walk around, and introduce themselves to other
characters. In Hurston’s novel, I include roles for
Nanny, Tea Cake, Janie, Joe, and Logan. Students
must find the four other characters and write down
key information about them before returning to
their seats.
7. After sufficient time (perhaps 20 minutes), I call
students back together and ask them to write about
the people they met and about their own character.
I also ask them to write questions they have about
the characters or the novel and to make predictions
about what they think might happen.
8. I ask them to share their questions as a way of
prompting the reading. After the tea party for Their
Eyes Were Watching God, the class asked the fol-
lowing questions: Who were the men in Janie’s life?
Who treated her like a mule? Why do people talk
about her? How did Tea Cake teach Janie to love?
Why was Nanny so negative? How did Janie do Lo-
gan wrong? What is a “spit cup” and what happened
to Nanny that made her think like that?
they need and instead prepare to engage and excite
the students who come through our doors. Z
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
Au, Wayne, Bill Bigelow, Stan Karp (eds.). 2007. Rethinking Our
Classrooms: Teaching for Equity and Justice, vol 1. Rethinking
Schools.
Butler, Octavia. 2003. Kindred. Beacon Press.
Hurston, Zora Neale. 1978. Their Eyes Were Watching God.
University of Illinois Press.
Pattillo Beals, Melba. 2007. Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir
of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock’s Central High. Simon Pulse.
Shaw, George Bernard. 1914. Pygmalion: A Play in Five Acts.
Penguin
Wilson, August. 1990. The Piano Lesson. Plume.

9. Sometimes I ask them to draw a diagram of how

they think the characters are related to each other.
Students share their models on the board or over-
head and explain their reasoning. After a tea party
on August Wilson’s play The Piano Lesson, for ex-
ample, one student put the piano in the center of
a web and each character in a wheel around it. He
explained that the piano seemed to be the center of
each character’s problems.

In the introduction to Rethinking Our Class-

rooms, the editors wrote,

A social justice classroom offers more to

students than do traditional classrooms and
expects more from students. Critical teach-
ing aims to inspire levels of academic per-
formance far greater than those motivated or
measured by grades and test scores … Only by
systematically reconstructing classroom life
do we have any hope of cracking the cynicism
that lies so close to the heart of massive school
failure, and of raising academic expectations
and performance for all our children.

How does the mixer do all that? Students can

succeed if a teacher is willing to find the strategies
and lessons that hook them instead of pushing them
out. As a high school teacher, I’ve witnessed too
many students fail because they are poor readers.
When we hand students texts or readings, we must
stop expecting that all students come with the tools

CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE 201

 From Theme and
Evidence Wall into Essay

O
ne year I decided to make the
classroom a shrine, of sorts, to
student thinking. I had always
posted student work on the walls—po-
etry, narrative, and essay excerpts—as
a tribute to student writing. This time
I wanted to make the walls a trans-
parent, public display of student ideas
throughout a unit. Not a graffiti wall,
not an annotation, but something like a
classroom dialogue journal, the scroll of
our thoughts. This was the birth of the
emerging theme and evidence wall.
Because the theme wall functions
as a classroom archive, I begin the wall
soon after we start a unit. Here’s why:
Some of my students struggle with lit-
eracy. They read the words, but nothing
sticks. Partly, some lack vocabulary or
reading strategies, but more often, they
aren’t engaged enough with the text to
stick with it. Others read as if they are at
a movie theater, unconsciously watch-
ing a film and eating popcorn. They
can recite a summary of the actors and
the actions, but not why it matters or
whether it was sexist, racist, or prob-
lematic in some other way. They read
without a swelling of passion or out-
rage. I want to teach them to read like
a social and literary detective, to read
with questions and curiosity. But not
only my questions. Not only my curios-
ity. Theirs. Instead of putting packets to-
gether where they answer questions for
each chapter, I throw the learning and
NYKI TEWS

202 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

the work back on them, where it belongs.
That said, let me be clear: I am not hands-off
during class. Because we live in a society that wants
to distract us from thinking too deeply about the
incredible wealth disparity and the deterioration of
public schools, unaffordable health care, and inade-
quate public services, I set the stage with initial ques-
tions, typically about power and inequality, about
who benefits and who is harmed in any situation.
Sometimes I begin the theme wall immediate-
ly after the mixer. In the language and power unit,
for example, I ask students,
“What are the big ideas in
a unit? What excited or an-
gered you the most? What
are you thinking about?”
(See “Unlearning the Myths
that Bind Us” for more ex-
amples, p. 49.)
Harold answers, “Peo-
ple were made to feel infe-
rior and that their language
was inferior. And that led
to a crumbling of their so-
ciety.” On a sentence strip, I
write, “People were made to
feel their language was infe-
rior, which crumbled their
society.” I hand the strip to
Harold.
“Where did you see that inferiority that Har-
old is talking about in the mixer? Which charac-
ters?” I gather a few sticky notes. Daryl follows up,
“Joseph Suina. See, that was my character. He was
sent away to a reservation boarding school, and he
learned that his heritage was wrong. His language
was wrong.” I write “Joseph Suina” on a sticky note
and hand it to Harold. “Put that note at the bottom
edge of your strip.”
I ask, “Who else noticed something about lan-
guage and power in the mixer?” Denzel raises his
hand. “People were brainwashed. Their language
was taken away by the dominant culture and they
were taught that they were wrong.” I write this on
a sentence strip. Once students have the idea of the
sentence strip and sticky notes, I ask them to gath-
er in small groups and figure out what themes they
see emerging and what evidence they have based on
CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE
their character roles. They post these on a wall in the
classroom.
When students return the following day, I ask
them to go back to the theme wall and refresh their
memories before we start new readings. “What’s
coming up for you that you want to explore as we
learn about language and power? Where’s your pas-
sion? I’m not going to ask you to write about my
topics. You have to find your own, so locate your
interest. Yesterday, Denzel talked about brainwash-
ing, so he might want to keep notes about that topic
NYKI TEWS
as he reads today. What thread might you follow?”
Whether they annotate an article with marginal
notes, add sticky notes to pages in a novel, or use
a more traditional dialogue journal, this active en-
gagement between student and text and classroom
prompts students to put their minds in gear while
they read. These notes also become the genesis of
classroom conversations about the curriculum and
ultimately inform their culminating essay.
The evolution of student thinking is evident as
some initial ideas fade away and others bloom with
a fringe of sticky notes adhered to the bottom of the
theme strip. When students read the novel If We
Must Die about the Tulsa Race Massacre, the themes
“activism through education” and “Berneen’s awak-
ening racial identity” have many pieces of evidence
stuck to them, but “the role of a newspaper as a cat-
alyst for action” has only two. This was an idea that
203
blossomed early and fizzled out. Also, the students displacement. If I want students to care about their
build on each other’s evidence within the classroom writing and to write authentic pieces, I don’t draw
as well as between classes. Adam from first period the line between evidence from their lives and evi-
might add to the sentence strip Selena put up about dence from our readings.
power and relationships during third period. More
than any other activity, the theme wall claims the Writing the Essay Along the Way
classroom as student space. At the end of the unit, the theme wall replaces any
This strategy also benefits students who have prompt I might imagine for students’ essays. Instead,
been absent or who struggle to find their way back their own curiosity, their reading of the novel or
into class. The wall is a map, helping them return curriculum, is literally written on the wall. So when
I ask, “What do you want to
write an essay about?” they
can walk back to the wall
and select a topic. For the
politics of language, John
selected the role of boarding
schools in the curtailing of
Indigenous languages. Ryan
chose to write about Ebon-
ics, while Cheyenne wrote
about the havoc coloniza-
tion played on communica-
tion between generations.
Because these themes have
been discussed during class,
NYKI TEWS
students have already re-
hearsed the essay: balancing
to class discussions they missed and locate evidence evidence, sharpening an argument against a class-
for an essay. They still have to do the work, but they mate’s, and practicing their own analysis during
can find a more direct pathway back by figuring out class talks.
specific articles or chapters to read or re-read as they It is not unusual for a group of students to take
move into the essay. down a sentence strip and evidence and circle up
their desks and lay out a possible essay. Sometimes
Bringing in Their Own Lives students take photos with their phones of topics
Because many of my curricular voyages touch on they might want to write about. And other times,
the daily issues that students struggle with, I also oddly, they ignore the wall and create new essay
encourage them to bring stories as evidence in their topics, born on the ashes of the work they have al-
essays. During the language curriculum, Kaanan ready completed. The theme and evidence wall is
posted a memory about his teacher reprimanding one way that students make the curriculum their
him for speaking Ebonics. Alejandro added a sticky own—one site where their learning becomes public
note about kids teasing him for his accent in elemen- and collective. Z
tary school. And Gina explored the language divide
between her grandmother and her as evidence for
keeping mother tongue literacy alive. During our
unit on Smoke Signals, a number of students added
sticky notes about either their own or their parents’
drug and alcohol abuse. The study of gentrification
brought parallel stories of evictions, moves, and

204 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 Dialogue Journals

O
ne method I
use frequently
to equalize ac-
cess to articles, essays,
stories, and novels is the
dialogue journal. The
purpose of the journal is
to teach students to read
closely, but more impor-
tantly, to create an ongo-
ing space for students to
engage in critical reflec-
tion about the pieces
RAFAEL LÓPEZ
we are reading. Instead
of reading to consume the story line or just for lit- In the dialogue journal, students become the
erary elements, I encourage students to “talk back” authors of their own questions about reading, in-
to the author—to engage in a conversation with the stead of reading merely to answer my questions.
book, looking for whose voices are heard, whose are Because their dialogue journals are the starting
silenced, who has access to power, who has been ground for class discussions, students usually bring
harmed, and how women, men, people of color, and questions or passages they are really interested in
people in poverty are portrayed. discussing with their classmates.
Students create journals by stapling several Depending on the book, I might prompt stu-
sheets of paper together and folding the journal in dents to keep track of specific kinds of information.
half to create two sides. Sometimes students pur- For example, in the biographical novel Thousand
chase blue books and use those as dialogue journals. Pieces of Gold, I wanted to focus our discussion on
On the first day I give students the following in- immigration and history. I asked students to keep
structions: “On the left side, titled ‘Note Taking,’ jot track of:
down quotes, lines, and page references of scenes.
On the right side, titled ‘Note Making,’ make con- • Laws relating to the Chinese in the United
nections, ask questions about what’s happening or States.
what you don’t understand, make interpretations, • Roles of women and men.
analyze symbols, and respond to what you are read- • Historical evidence—description of camp
ing. Usually the journaling is open-ended, based conditions, what was happening in Western
on your response to the text. Sometimes, however, states, etc.
I might ask you to examine a particular passage, to • Relationships between racial groups.
draw a diagram, or to make specific connections.” • Similarities or differences in treatment

CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE 205

 of Chinese, Native Americans, African
Americans.
• Good jumping-off points to write poetry,
interior monologues, narratives, essays.
At the beginning of each class, I ask students
to read over their dialogue journals and circle ques-
tions or passages they want the entire class to dis-
cuss. After students have assembled their contribu-
tions, I divide them into small groups and ask them
to talk with each other using their questions/com-
ments to initiate the conversation.
Each student poses a question, an observation,
or a quote to the group, which they discuss before
moving to the next person. Because small-group
work requires students to share passages and ques-
tions, all students must continually go back to the text
to read and re-read for clarification—a technique that
helps both the skilled and the unskilled reader.
Each group posts one or two questions and
passages on the board. The class chooses one, and
we begin the class talk. In an untracked class, this
strategy keeps less-skilled readers involved in the
conversation. Once they’ve rehearsed and re-read in
the small group, they are ready to jump into a dis-
cussion—and usually ready to argue. For some stu-
dents, it pulls them back into the novel because they
like being part of the class debates.
In my Literature and U.S. History class, one
group returned to the full class discussion with the
following question: Is Craig Lesley (author of the
novel River Song) racist, sexist, or homophobic when
he makes the Mexican jokes, etc., or is he just trying
to develop Danny’s character? I took notes while the
students discussed the question—the following se-
lections are a partial snapshot of that discussion. My
hand wasn’t as fast as their voices:
Angela: I think he’s just trying to show
what Danny is like.
Aaron: Okay, but then why does he have
to keep bringing [racist remarks] up? Couldn’t
he just have him make those jokes during the
first few chapters, then leave it alone? When
he keeps doing it, it’s an overkill. It seems like
with the Native American issues there is so
much to cover, why spend time making jokes
about Mexicans or male nurses?
206 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
Janice: Wouldn’t he have to keep doing
it if it’s a characteristic? I mean, he couldn’t
just do it for a few chapters then stop or else
his character wouldn’t be consistent.
Aaron: Yeah. I hadn’t thought of that.
Sarah: I think he’s trying to make a
point about the Native American culture—
that since they are consistently being put
down—alcoholism, lazy—that they put other
people down, other racial groups.
Aiden: I think he’s just trying to make
it realistic. That’s how people talk; they make
fun of others.
Jim: Maybe he’s trying to make us think
about the racism, that’s why he puts in so
many—and against so many groups.
Aaron: But couldn’t he do that and then
have someone make a comment about it—like
Pudge? When Danny makes a joke, couldn’t
she say, “Hey, that’s not funny. Think about
how people talk about Indians”?
Janice: Yeah. Because people do that in
real life, too—stop someone when they’re tell-
ing a racist joke.
This questioning method puts students in
charge of the discussion rather than me. It vali-
dates their questions. Sometimes in large-group
discussions when a teacher lectures on symbolism
or a well-read student remarks on the imagery in a
passage, less-skilled readers are intimidated to ask
questions—which may often be more socially rele-
vant. With dialogue journals, these students have an
opportunity to figure out confusions with this small
group before taking a point to the large group.
Again, students learn from each other by chal-
lenging each other’s assumptions and listening to
other opinions. Writing about the use of dialogue
journals and the class discussions that stemmed
from them, Claire wrote, “I got ideas I wouldn’t
have thought of, interpretations I would not have
considered. When I really thought about all of it,
I acquired some new skills from [my classmates].’’
Mira said that her notes made it easier to write an
essay because she had page numbers and passages to
review. And Tracy said, “Writing dialogue journals
made me slow down to read.” Z
 Character Silhouette
T
he character silhouette is a
playful, joyful activity for most
students. Like the improvisa-
tion and literary postcard, this activ-
ity takes students back to the text and
provides time for them to talk about
the book or unit with a small group
of students. I assign this activity about
half to two-thirds of the way through
a novel or play; then we come back to
the posters they developed again at the
end of the book. During this activity,
students spread across the floor of the
classroom and into the hallway, tracing
a classmate’s body on big rolls of paper,
searching for quotes and page numbers, and discuss-
ing a character’s influences as they work on their
silhouette.
I begin by asking students to name the book’s
main characters. In most classes, I need seven or
eight groups because ideally each group has four
students. I let students choose their groups. If no
group chooses to work on a character, I don’t fuss
about it. I might end up with four groups creating
silhouettes for Celie and four for Shug, their favorite
characters in The Color Purple. The point isn’t cov-
erage, it’s pushing students to have more in-depth
conversations about the character.
I remind students to take their books and dia-
logue journals to the work group, so they can more
easily locate their notes as well as find the page num-
bers and references as they work. Each group spreads
a body-sized sheet of construction paper on the floor
and outlines the body of one of their classmates. On
the inside of the body, they list the character’s traits
and goals, then they find quotes or actions that illus-
trate those traits. They note the page numbers next to
the quote. On the outside of the body, they write key
influences on the character, including laws, historical
events, and race and/or class restrictions that shaped
this person. For example, with the character Melba,
CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE
NYKI TEWS
from Warriors Don’t Cry, students write “Jim Crow
laws” as well as “Brown v. Board” as outside influenc-
es because these historical events play a role in shap-
ing Melba’s character. They cite instances and quotes
about the struggle for integration around the outside
of Melba’s silhouette. On the inside, they might put
“hardworking” and “smart” as well as other character
traits, with passages and page numbers.
About 15 minutes before the end of a 90-min-
ute block period, each group tapes their silhouette
to the classroom or hallway wall and shares high-
lights from their poster. The posters provide quick
references for students, reminding them of quotes,
incidents, page numbers, or important events as we
discuss the book over the course of the unit. For the
struggling student, the small-group work provides a
place to catch up on the book; for other students, the
character silhouette creates a pause point to rumi-
nate on a character, exchange ideas with classmates,
percolate ideas for essay topics, and gather evidence.
We return to the silhouettes as we complete the
rest of the novel, adding new quotes or traits as they
emerge from the reading. When we brainstorm po-
tential topics for essays about the book, we revisit
the silhouettes for potential ideas as well as evidence
and page numbers of favorite quotes. Z
207
 Improvisations
and Interior Monologues
Returning to Key Scenes
ALAURA SEIDL
T
he mixer sets the stage for the novel or unit
and helps students get into the curriculum,
and the emerging theme wall, dialogue
journal, and group work provide opportunities for
rich discussions. But sometimes the story drags,
or the language is inaccessible for some students.
Able readers create images while they are reading,
but poor readers often struggle so much with word
meanings that they don’t visualize the story. In
working with all students, but especially with strug-
gling students, it is essential to get them to “see” the
book—and improvisations help do just that. Im-
provs can also make a “classic” work more relevant
by pushing students to create a contemporary ver-
sion of the scene.
208 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw’s play
about language, for example, has phrasing and
vocabulary that leaves poor readers confused.
I use improvisations to bring the work to life,
to make the meaning of the piece clearer by
staging it. I divide students into small groups,
give each group a provocative part, and ask
them to create a scene that will help the class
understand what took place in that particular
section of the play. In small groups, students
discuss the scene. As I move from group to
group, I catch snatches of questions: What is
going on? Who is Freddie? And then moving
to higher-level discussions: Why does Eliza
throw the slipper at Higgins? Why doesn’t
she fight back when he calls her a “squashed
cabbage leaf?”
As the groups re-read their scenes, dis-
cuss the content, and act out the text, they
provide new understandings to confused
students. One year when my class read Pyg-
malion, I asked students to relocate the scene to
contemporary times. “I want you to figure out what
about this section of the play can be seen at school,
in your home, or in the larger society. Goldie’s group
recreated a scene to portray language differences at
Jefferson High School. This led to a wonderful dis-
cussion about the politics of language in the Afri-
can American community. After performing each
scene, students stay in character on “stage” as the
class questions them. Although I usually begin by
modeling the kinds of questions I want students to
ask, they quickly take over. To Higgins, one student
asked, “Why do you feel like you can talk about Eliza
in that way?” Another student asked Eliza’s father,
“Don’t you care about your daughter? Aren’t you
just selling her? Isn’t that like prostitution?”
Disagreements about the interpretation of a
scene lead to engaged dialogue about character mo-
tivation, author intent, and society. Often, students
go back to the original text to “prove” their point to
the class. One year, Mark’s statement “Henry didn’t
love Eliza, he considered her a professional equal”
kept the class debating for an hour. In another class,
Licy questioned whether Eliza’s life improved with
her new knowledge or brought her misery. Her read-
ing and questioning of the play got at the politics
of language. But as she questioned, she also talked
about growing up in a Spanish-speaking home, and
the difficulty of moving between the English-on-
ly world of school and the Spanish-only world of
home—offering the class insights that would likely
be rare in class focused only on the text.
Teaching Strategy
About halfway through a novel, I say, “Write down
what you believe are the five pivotal scenes from the
book so far—times when people made important
decisions, when people were confronted with tough
choices.” After students select their scenes individ-
ually, they gather in small groups and share their
choices. Even creating this list produces interest-
ing discussions as students explain or defend their
choices. Each group writes their five scenes, with
page numbers, on the board. After students share
their lists, I add ones that I think we need to review
if they didn’t make into students’ top five. I make
the final choice of improvs and give one section to
each group.
I tell the class, “First, re-read the section you
will act out. Read it aloud as a group, or silently, then
discuss it. After you read, figure out how you will act
out the scene and designate which character each of
your group members will play.” Because I’ve taught
teenagers long enough to know almost every way
they can undermine my lesson through adolescent
silliness, I also say, “If you don’t take this seriously,
you will have to redo the scene.” The more fully I
articulate my expectations, the more seriously my
students take the assignment.
As students rehearse the scenes in the class-
room and in the hallway, I rearrange the desks so
there is room for an acting space. I also move from
group to group, listening in on their conversa-
CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE
tions, prodding them when needed, helping them
get in character, and reminding them that they are
not reading from the book, they are acting out the
scene. “You don’t need to memorize the exact lan-
guage from the text—it’s an improvisation, not a
scripted play. Get to the heart of what happened in
the scene.” Sometimes their spontaneous language
and reenactment brings the book closer to home.
When it’s showtime, I say, “Introduce the scene.
Give us a brief overview and tell us which character
each of you is playing.” Because I am shy and I know
how hard it can be to get up in front of their peers, I
also tell students, “This can be awkward. It’s hard to see
our classmates acting in an unfamiliar role. We might
be tempted to laugh at the incongruity, but we don’t
laugh at people attempting to work, nor do we laugh at
the painful scenes humans have had to endure.”
To encourage thoughtful, active participation
from the audience, I ask students to take notes on
each scene. “Listen for the lines you love. Some-
times in the moments of these unrehearsed scenes,
your classmates deliver incredible lines. Write them
down. After we finish watching the scenes, you will
write an interior monologue from one of the char-
acters’ points of view, so steal some lines along the
way. You will also ask questions about character
motivation and actions. Take notes so you will be
prepared.”
After each improvisation, I ask students to stay
“on stage” and in character, so the rest of the class
and I can ask them questions. For example, we might
ask Janie from Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes
Were Watching God why she agreed to marry Logan
when she didn’t love him. We might question why
Tea Cake felt he needed to hit Janie or ask Joe why
he made rude remarks about Janie in public.
Improvisations prompt students to re-read
the text for nuanced understanding. They discuss
contentious issues and argue them from multiple
perspectives. As students probe these charged sit-
uations, they arrive at more complex understand-
ings of the material. The arguments and discussions
prompted by these skits help students become bet-
ter readers and better thinkers, as well as inform-
ing their essays at the end of the unit. But they also
bring the students who have strayed or fallen behind
back up to speed with the class. Z
209
 Other People’s Lives
Persona Poems Teach Insight and Empathy
O
n the best days in my classroom, students
learn to read novels and primary sources,
to critique news and popular culture, to
write passionate essays, narratives, and poems—
but I would consider myself a failure if my students
didn’t also develop an empathetic heart. Empathy,
or “social imagination,” as Peter Johnston calls it in
Reading Teacher, encourages students to get inside
the head and heart of another human being. Poetry
(as well as interior monologues and historical fic-
tion) allows students to inhabit the lives of others,
to use their imaginations to humanize the abstrac-
tions of poverty, war, and racism by making literary
and historical situations vivid enough for the read-
er—and the writer—to be moved by people and their
circumstances: The unaccompanied minors riding
trains and crossing deserts from Central America,
the children ducking and dodging drones and bomb
210 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
blasts shattering the concrete
walls of their homes in Gaza,
the women and children in
Honduras and China and
Vietnam sewing shirts for U.S.
teenagers, the Yakama fighting
coal exports on the Columbia
River. I want my students to
use poetry to cross the bound-
aries of race, nationality, class,
and gender to find their com-
mon humanity with people
whose history and literature
we have studied.
I return to the persona
poem again and again as an
DAMON LOCKS anchor poetic strategy in my
classroom. Unlike many po-
ems I use, there isn’t an easy trick that helps students
write the poem—a repeating line and a list, an ex-
tended metaphor, a model poem providing a road
map. This poem leads with heart and imagination,
asking students to find that place inside themselves
that connects with a moment in history, literature,
life—and to imagine another’s world, to value it, to
hold it sacred for a moment as a way of bearing wit-
ness for another human being. This poem demands
emotional honesty, intellectual curiosity, poetic
craft, and the ability to imagine stepping into some-
one else’s life at the moment when their life changes.
The poet Patricia Smith described the persona
poem in her Torch interview:
There’s got to be some wrinkle in the life of
the person you’re writing about. Something
they’re angry about. There’s a texture to it … A
 lot of times, it’s not just the job or whatever. It’s
something that’s happened in their life that’s
making them talk, that has them angered or
sad or about to jump off of a building. You put
them in a situation that is interesting.
These “wrinkles” can be the result of decisions
imposed on people by governments—like the Japa-
nese American incarceration—but they might also
be personal, like Celie, from The Color Purple, rising
up and fighting back against the men who abused
her. By giving voice to historical and literary char-
acters, I hope students see the possibility of the past
being different, but also learn to see the future as
unwritten, a field of possibilities, the outcome de-
pendent, in part, on their actions.
Using History, Film, Literature, and News
Students enter the persona poem through a literary
or historical character. Typically, I saturate them
in a unit—reading historical texts, novels, plays,
short stories, and poetry, and watching film clips.
Throughout the entire unit, they take notes to un-
derstand the subject—from language colonization,
to Pygmalion, to the gentrification of our neighbor-
hoods—and to collect evidence toward discussions
and essays, but also to figure out what piques their
interests. Along the way, I ask them to “capture lan-
guage or images that sear into you, watch for words
or phrases that evoke memories or feelings.”
To prepare students to write the poem, I ask
them to brainstorm potential key moments and
turning points that a historical or literary charac-
ter faced in the unit we are studying. Students have
written persona poems from the point of view of a
young girl after the Student Nonviolent Coordinat-
ing Committee (SNCC) and Bob Moses visited her
small town in Mississippi, of a sister whose brother
was killed during the Soweto uprising, of Ma Joad
in The Grapes of Wrath when the sheriff tries to evict
her family, and of Henry David Thoreau about the
Mexican-American War.
After studying the incarceration of Japanese
Americans and reading Monica Sone’s Nisei Daugh-
ter and selections from Jeanne Wakatsuki Hous-
ton and James D. Houston’s Farewell to Manzanar,
students write persona poems. I ask students to
“choose the scene, the circumstance, the ‘wrinkle’
CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE
from our readings.” We brainstorm key scenes from
the books, places that make tears well up or anger
burn in our chests. I list these on the board.
Once we itemize potential scenes, I enlist stu-
dents to call out details. “What do you remember
about the scene? Remember, a poem must create a
picture in the reader’s head. You need specific details
to make that happen. People’s names. Street names.
Names of parks or boats or buildings. Clothing.
Language from the characters. Slogans. What details
do you recall?” I put these on the board.
I encourage students to return to the specific
pages of the scene or book to re-read the language
the author used. When we watch a film, I stop after
the first couple of minutes and ask students for de-
tails to model how to take notes. We never watch
or read all of the way through without stopping to
gather words and images from the “text”—whether
it is a novel, a film, or a field trip. “Lift off from the
writer’s words and details to fuel your poem.”
I use my former student Khalilah Joseph’s
poem “Becoming American” (p. 214) as an example
for my current students to examine because I like
the way she takes the situation and details from the
original text to create her poem. We also read Pa-
tricia Smith’s and Martín Espada’s poetry, but my
previous students’ poetry offers more accessible
models. Reading the writing of graduates from their
own school makes possible the idea that they can
also produce this level of work. Sometimes students
know the poet. Nowadays, the “older” student poets
who still “speak” from the pages of our literary mag-
azine are the aunts and uncles or parents of some of
the students I currently work with. Legacies.
Khalilah wrote from a segment in Nisei Daugh-
ter where the family burned their Japanese posses-
sions because neighbors warned them about “hav-
ing too many Japanese objects around the house.” I
pass out the segment from Sone’s book that Khalilah
wrote from, and we read it out loud:
We worked all night, feverishly combing
through bookshelves, closets, drawers, and
furtively creeping down to the basement fur-
nace for the burning. I gathered together my
well-worn Japanese language schoolbooks …
I threw them into the fire and watched them
flame and shrivel into black ashes. But when I
211
 came face to face with my Japanese doll which
Grandmother Nagashima had sent me from
Japan, I rebelled.
Then we read the poem Khalilah created from
the scene. As we read, I ask students to think about
what details Khalilah used from Sone’s book. How
did she take that scene and make a poem?
Students typically note that Khalilah put in
the particulars of what Sone burned and refused to
burn—her beloved Japanese doll, her mother’s po-
etry, her brother’s sword. This is the point where I
need to push students: “Why did she use these de-
tails? What do they tell us about what was happen-
ing to Japanese Americans?” These particular and
concrete specifics help the reader “see” the loss; they
are also the characteristics of great poetry that I
want students to notice and use. By bringing us to
the fire with the Sone family, Khalilah distills one
moment from the memoir and the incarceration to
depict the inhumanity, the attempt to erase a people
and culture.
I ask students to think about who the “I” is in
the poem and what other perspective Khalilah could
have chosen. Persona poems are typically, but not
always, written in first person. We also discuss how
Khalilah wrote from Monica’s point of view. Students
point out that she could have written from the moth-
er’s or brother’s perspective or from the perspective
of inanimate objects, like the fire, poem, sword, or
doll. Over the years, students have written spectac-
ular poems from the point of view of objects—the
last building standing after the fire destroyed Tul-
sa’s black neighborhood, the branding iron used to
“brand” enslaved Africans, Hector Pieterson’s shoe
after he was killed in the Soweto uprising.
Writers’ Choices
In order to get students to pay attention to how word
choice helps create the sense of resistance, submis-
sion, anger, and defiance, we read the poem a sec-
ond time. “For a moment, let’s return to the poem
and think about why Khalilah might have chosen
the words she did.” Students usually point out the
words like “surrender” in the lines “I could not sur-
render her/to the fury of the fire.” We talk about how
the word “surrender” depicts the stance of giving
up, like her brother does with his sword, but it’s also
212 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
a term used in warfare. Because Monica does not
“surrender” her doll to the “fury of the fire,” Khalilah
also demonstrates her resistance to the “fury” of the
events unleashing around her.
Let me pause to say that students often bring
up these points on their own. If they don’t, I might.
What I don’t want to do is dissect the poem for
them. There’s no better way to kill poetry than to tell
someone else what it means.
The other poetic craft Khalilah employs is the
use of questions at the end of the poem, turning
to face the reader. Because questions are another
writing craft I want students to incorporate, I ask
students to think about why she uses questions in
her poetry. “Who could ask us/to destroy/gifts from
a world that molded/and shaped us?” And again
in the last stanza: “If I ate hamburgers/and apple
pies,/if I wore jeans,/then would I be American?”
Of course, many students aren’t sure why she uses
questions. I’m not sure why, either, but I want them
to talk about how questions push the reader to think
about what it means to be American.
My intention in carefully reading and re-read-
ing Khalilah’s poem is to show students the specific
tools at work in her piece—concrete details from
the reading, word choices that match the content,
and evocative questions. Before students write their
pieces, I write this list of poetic tools that they might
use in their poems on the board.
Using the persona poem, students write the
heartache, tragedy, and joy—the stumbling foot-
steps, the missed opportunities, the unspoken and
wish-it-had-never-been-spoken words of the many
characters who crowd our classrooms: The warriors
for justice in our civil rights unit, the church-la-
dy-turned-activist in our gentrification study, Troy
and his son who fight across the pages of Fences, Eli-
za Doolittle attempting to learn “proper” English to
escape poverty in Pygmalion, or Dante and Aristotle,
the two gay Mexican American boys in Dante and
Aristotle Discover the Secrets of the Universe. Through
writing, students imagine different lives, give voice
to the voiceless, carve poetry out of the “rock expe-
riences” of their daily lives, and, as the poet Martín
Espada wrote, “document the presence of such social
forces as racism, sexism, and poverty, and in so do-
ing make those abstract terms painfully concrete.” Z
u SAMPLE POEMS
Harvesting Wheat
by Omar Hanson
You don’t know quite how to act.
I know you want me to shout, talk, say something.
The truth is, Baby, I don’t really wanna talk about it.
I wouldn’t know what to say.
It’s hard, talkin’ when your heart’s all in your throat,
makin’ it too tight to see straight.
The truth is, Baby, it hurts a man
to have his heart sold for a gold-plated quarter.
It might put him at a loss for words.
You understand, Baby,
I mean
you don’t harvest cotton from plantin’ wheat,
and you can’t squeeze water from a stone.
It’s the same way with me, Baby.
You can’t expect love from a man
who’s got a quarter where his heart was.
Written from a short story in Spunk, a book by
Zora Neale Hurston.
CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE
Opened Eyes
by Adiana Wilmot
I knew you weren’t the rising sun
who caused pollen to work its magic.
I knew you wouldn’t make the trees bloom,
but something inside of me blossomed
when you spoke of the horizon.
How was I to know
that my hands were needed
to hold up your imaginary sky?
You based our lives on a fairy tale,
a story easy for you to read,
but for me,
the pages turned slowly,
and with each turn
the paper sliced my skin.
It became too much for me to clean up.
If only you would’ve picked up a cloth
and scrubbed the redness off the floor with me,
maybe then your horizon could’ve been saved.
But I guess you had your own cuts to heal.
Your blood was more important than mine.
And instead of mixing our wounds into a marriage,
our fenced-up horizon began to crumble
Interior monologue written as a poem from the point
of view of Janie, the main character in Their Eyes
Were Watching God, talking back to her husband, Joe.
213
Becoming American Vietnam: No Scissors to the Truth
by Khalilah Joseph by Meg Niemi

I looked into the eyes of my Japanese doll They sent Dad back
and knew I could not surrender her in an army green
to the fury of the fire. ziplock freezer bag,
My mother threw out the poetry the kind Mama
she loved; shells sweet peas in
my brother gave the fire his sword. and stocks in the icebox
as a reminder of
We worked hours sunnier days.
to vanish any traces of the Asian world
from our home. They sent him as
Who could ask us a reminder, a token of the war
to destroy that his three-month-old child
gifts from a world that molded would spend
and shaped us? the rest
of her life
If I ate hamburgers trying to thaw.
and apple pies,
if I wore jeans, There were no scissors
then would I be American? to cut through to
the truth.
They even made sure
he was double-sealed
for our protection—
leaving a number
as his only identity.

If Mama had shaken that bag

to spill the truth,
would he have rattled
like those summer sweet peas
shaken from a pod?
Would I have heard
Sunday talk
of Kentucky catfish,
Jesus bugs,
and days ‘in country’?

Written after a unit on Vietnam that included

reading In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason.

214 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 The Metaphor Poem
Making Knowledge Visible

O
ver the years, I’ve come
to value the metaphor-
ical poem, along with
student drawing, as a way to find
out what my students understand
about the novel/unit we’re study-
ing. I’m not talking about the old-
school quiz on the difference be-
tween metaphors and similes; I’m
talking about extracting exactly
how students are making sense
of the curriculum. What do they
know? What don’t they get? What
pieces are missing in their under-
standing? Sometimes students
know things intuitively that they
have difficulty explaining. The
metaphor poem allows that dif-
ferent way of knowing to emerge.
For example, when we
studied a unit on the coloniza-
tion of languages, students drew
ROSE JAFFE

lips sewn shut, voice boxes re-

moved, names of languages on coffins. Their meta-
phors—and subsequent explanations—demonstrat-
ed deeper understanding than the mere recitation
of the facts: Colonial boarding schools “stole” In-
digenous languages in many places in the world; co-
lonial powers extracted both material and cultural
resources, like language. Metaphors help students
pull together peculiar and significant stories (as well
as ungainly elements) into a unified vision, a thesis,
about a character or unit of study—like language
colonization, gentrification, corporate control of the
media, or the character Celie from The Color Purple.
Metaphorical poems and drawings level the
playing field in the classroom. Often the students
who craft the most interesting and provocative met-
aphors don’t do school in the read, test, read, test
way. The metaphor poem allows for their technicol-
or view of the world to shine.

CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE 215

 Ultimately, metaphors give students an oppor- Crow laws, and gentrification.
tunity to step back from our study, meditate on the After reading Their Eyes Were Watching God,
details stacked throughout the unit, and reflect on for example, I hand out sample poems from my for-
what they mean. mer students, like Lila Johnson’s poem “Celie” (p.
218). We read the poem out loud, then I ask, “What
Creating Metaphors comparison does Lila use?” Students note that Lila
I introduce this activity about two-thirds of the way compares Celie to a record.
through a unit. I ask students to give me a definition “Here’s what I want you to notice—writers
of a metaphor and an example. Typically, they recite don’t metaphor hop. Lila didn’t start with a record
the mantra, “A metaphor is a comparison between and then move to a teapot. What words stay with
two things without using ‘like’ or ‘as’.” We look out her metaphor? Look back at how Lila used terms
the window of my classroom on C-floor at Jeffer- related to records. Highlight words or phrases that
son High School and show something about
create metaphors from how Celie is a record.”
what we observe. “The Any writing of poetry is about the Natalie points
track is a ribbon of poem, the metaphor, the collection out, “She shows the
blue, surrounding the record on a shelf, she
green sea of the foot-
of words that delight us, but these describes it ‘dressed/
ball field. Mount St. poems also provide student-driven in dust and age/full/of
Helens is a snow cone platforms that evoke discussion. cracked songs/you play
or (for the daring) a /when you are blue.’”
breast pressed against “Let’s ponder that
the sky.” Students have been drilled in this since ‘cracked songs’ phrase. What do you think Lila’s
their legs dangled in the short chairs of their 1st- poem is saying about Celie? I know many of you
grade classrooms, and as poet William Stafford not- haven’t read The Color Purple, but you can still read
ed, children create metaphors naturally, so I don’t the poem and make sense of it.” We continue to ex-
spend a lot of time on it—about two to five minutes. plore Lila’s poem, examining how she uses the re-
I find the action of creating is far more effective than cord metaphor to describe Celie’s relationship with
the naming and defining. someone who abused her. “How do you know some-
When we created metaphorical poems for one abused her? Where’s the evidence in the poem?”
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hur- I ask. LaDonna raises her hand, “Because she says
ston, I asked, “How would you describe Janie’s rela- his ‘liquor-heavy fingers’ and ‘red watery eyes’ play
tionship with her husbands?” Kirk said she was like a her when he is ‘blue.’” “Yeah,” James says, “it’s like
possession for Joe. He wanted to show her off. “How when he’s drunk he finds her and uses her.”
would you draw that? What metaphor could you use Once we’ve discussed Lila’s poem and students
to show that relationship?” Stephanie said Janie was have a sense of how to proceed with their own po-
like a ring on Joe’s finger. Emma said Joe put Janie ems, I pass out paper and crayons, which is always
on a pedestal, which kept her away from the other a big hit in the high school classroom. “Create a
people in town. “So if she’s a ring or she’s on a ped- metaphorical drawing for one of the characters.”
estal, what other words would you use to extend the The characters are literary or historical, depending
poem? What words go with ring and pedestal?” on the unit. “I’m not concerned about your artistic
After we have established that a metaphor ability. I want to see your thinking about the char-
is a comparison, and we’ve started thinking about acters. Think metaphorically. Remember the initial
the book—or unit—we’re studying, we list poten- comparisons you made—Janie as a ring on Joe’s fin-
tial topics to write about: names of characters from ger, Janie as a mule.”
the novel we’re reading or history we’re studying. I’ve discovered that the time students spend
Sometimes students call out abstract ideas that can drawing allows them to think more deeply about
be made visible through poetry, like apartheid, Jim their work. Most days, students sink into silence as

216 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

they color and draw. That said, it’s not unusual for
students to get stuck, so when it looks like a few stu-
dents have a strong grasp on their drawing and the
shape of their metaphor, I ask them to share their
drawings and discuss the comparison in order to get
other students started.
After students create their metaphorical draw-
ings, I encourage them to expand the language of
the metaphor in the same way that Lila did in her
poetry. I say, “On the back of your paper, write an
explanation of your metaphor. Then list the vocabu-
lary or language to expand the metaphor. If it’s a gar-
den, go for flowers, hose, water, vegetables, etc. Kirk,
you said Janie was a ring on Joe’s finger. What other
words do you have to extend that metaphor?” Before
we start writing, students share quickly, holding up
their drawings and outlining their metaphors.
As students move into writing their poems, I
remind them to look back at the models (see p. 218).
“When you are not sure how to move forward, look
back at how Lila, Don, Jessica, and others wrote
their poems. Think about whether you want to use
first person like Lila and Don Pendelton did in their
poems about Celie. If you
do, then begin your poem
with either the name or What strikes
the metaphor: ‘I am Celie.’ moves them in the novel or unit, late it into another form.
Or you can begin in third is focused and concentrated
person, “Celie was a re-
cord.” I also want students into a poem—the heart of their They must learn to extend
to notice the line breaks. interaction with the ideas.
“Line breaks tell the read-
er to take a breath. This
isn’t a paragraph. So once you’ve written, read your
poem out loud and see where you want the reader to
pause for effect.”
Metaphor Poems Evoke Discussion
Poetry writing is always about the poem, the met-
aphor, the collection of words that delight us, but
these poems also provide student-driven platforms
that evoke discussion. As students read their poems
the next day, we talk about the metaphors that stu-
dents use. In a Literature and U.S. History class that
Bill Bigelow and I co-taught, for example, students
pointed out that Don Pendleton compared Celie to
the floor, then to the ceiling. We asked, “What is he
saying about her? What does that metaphor imply
about how Celie changes?” In other words, this is a
great way to explore how characters change or what
happens to them.
Students become co-teachers as we move
through the poems. The discussions that follow stu-
dent poetry are simply more engaging than those in
which I provide all the questions and topics. What
strikes students, what moves them in the novel or
unit, is focused and concentrated into a poem—the
heart of their interaction with the ideas. Class dis-
cussion peers into this heart and reads it. Students
are more involved because they have a hand in shap-
ing the content of the class talk.
Not every aspect of the novel will be revealed
in the students’ poetry; perhaps not every character
will be written about. But I can weave in import-
ant points that escape the students’ lines and discuss
missing characters in the context of those who were
present. In students’ poems from The Color Purple,
for example, Mr. _____ was rarely, if ever, written
about. This omission alone gave us an opportunity
to raise questions.
The poem can serve as a rough draft or an
outline for an essay. Once
they’ve found their “pas-
students, what sion,” students can trans-
Getting students to write
poetry is not enough.
their metaphors, to artic-
ulate the flashes of insight
they find in their poems.
Don can use his floor/ceiling metaphor as a frame-
work to describe Celie’s change. Ednie and Steph-
anie can write about the objectification of women.
“The essay just grows out of the poem,” my student
Sonia Kellerman said one year.
Writing poetry is not the only strategy we use
to discuss the novels, stories, and autobiographies
read in class. But metaphor poems provide an op-
portunity for students to demonstrate their under-
standing of our curriculum in a way that more typi-
cal methods don’t offer. Z

CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE 217

u SAMPLE POEMS

Celie Celie
by Don Pendelton by Lila Johnson

I am Celie. I am a record
I am the cold hard black floor on your shelf
everyone walked on. the one
People have stained me and laughed dressed
but I stayed solid under them in dust and age
and did not squeak. full
I am the floor now of cracked songs
but once you go downstairs you play
I become the ceiling. when you are blue
the one
............................................... pushed
behind the others
Janie’s Garden cool black jackets
by Hasina Deary smooth golden sounds
the one
I am tired of being ready to bloom, your liquor-heavy fingers
ready to grow find
only to have you pull my roots on days
out beneath me. your red watery eyes
don’t know the difference
I’m tired of looking for sun and rain just an old record
to nourish me you play me
only to have you shade me when you are blue
with your hopeless darkness.
...............................................
I stand tall
with my stem firmly planted. Shug Avery
You sigh winds to blow me down. by Jessica Rawlins
I’m tired,
but I will not sleep. I am Shug.
I am the sweet breath
I will wait here every man holds onto at night.
in this garden I am the lingering scent
for a strong hand, that stays
a loving hand to bring memories of violets
to pick me from my sorrow. and lily kisses.
I am the sugar perfume
that comes on strong,
burns the senses,
then vanishes
leaving nothing
but the life of a stolen thought.

218 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 Writing the Literary
Analysis Essay
How Choice, Conversations,
and Models Bring Passion

U
riah opened her Smoke Signals essay by
comparing her reliance on alcohol to
that of Arnold, a character who drowns
his woes in beer. In his essay on the same topic,
Malik paralleled his anger and dependence on
smoking marijuana with Arnold’s need to dis-
appear to escape his troubles. During our read-
ing of memoirs from Native American boarding
schools, Larry’s and Dylan’s essay introductions
discussed their removal from their families and
placement in foster care. When we studied the ef-
fects of urban renewal on African Americans in
Portland, Oregon, while reading Renée Watson’s
This Side of Home, Desi opened her essay with a
story about the day her family was evicted.
Literary analysis essays do not have to be
alienating one-topic-fits-none resurrections and
rehashings of literary motifs, character flaws, or
symbol chases. Instead, these writings can offer
students opportunities to use literature to shine a
light on the tender places in their own lives that
they are figuring out or to explore their intellec-
tual interests.
For years, I suffered through the divide
between students’ love for writing narratives,
poetry, and fiction, and their crankiness when RICARDO LEVINS MORALES

approaching literary analysis essays. An easy

answer is that poetry and narratives are situated in stu-
dents’ lives, so they come more readily. This is true, but
their pushback against essays about literature cannot be
easily categorized as anti-intellectual or as teenage fas-
cination with themselves. They wrote essays with atti-
tudes. They wrote essays analyzing gentrification, cartoons,
language policies, and wealth disparity without significant
grumbling and, in some cases, with enthusiasm. Their writ-
ing zeal plummeted when they wrote literary analysis until I
changed my approach.

CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE 219

 My colleague, co-teacher, and friend Dianne similar passion for certainty and with a similar
Leahy calls literary analysis essays a “school-based intolerance for the moral complexity and am-
genre” of writing—writing mainly for school and per- biguity that resist simplistic formulations.
formance assessments. Like practicing test-taking,
this is a tedious task to do on a regular basis. At a con- I understand this search for “secure and cer-
ference where I presented on essay writing, I asked tain answers.” We live in a test-prep world that wants
a room full of language arts teachers, “Since you left students to construct an essay within the confines
graduate school, how many of you have written a lit- of a formula that is easily recognized as a “classic”
erary analysis that wasn’t a model for your students?” essay formation. At a time where public education
Exactly one teacher raised her hand. As teachers, we has become a question rather than a certainty, and
need to push the margins of the classroom to encom- where test scores dictate the survival of schools
pass a larger vision of writing about literature. in high-poverty neighborhoods, teachers may be
tempted to turn to “simplistic formulations” as an
Choice and Rehearsal act of preservation. Some teachers may also see
Students need to choose their own essay topics. these as “training wheel” essays, teaching students
Almost 50 years ago, my English teacher asked my the “basics” of essay writing until they are ready for
class to write about symbols in The Scarlet Letter. open-ended essay explorations.
I recently visited a classroom where a teacher as- Unfortunately, this leads to searching for easy
signed a similar topic. While I’m not arguing against answers to complex questions in both literature and
the subject as worthy of study or inquiry, I am argu- society. We live in a world where the beatings and
ing that assigned topics need to be buried if we hope killings of Black Americans fill our screens with
to educate students to think for themselves. too-often regularity, where tent camps of unem-
When students follow ployed families cram con-
their own interests in essay crete spaces under bridges,
writing, their writing is au- I need to help students where transgender students
thentic, driven by curiosity grapple with the outrages kill themselves at alarming
about the literature, and of- that defy simplistic solutions. rates, and immigrant hands
ten about the intersections grip jail bars after sweep-
between their lives, the Moving away from prescribed ing raids. I need to help
lives of the characters, oth- essays provides students students grapple with the
er readings, and the world. space to wrestle with ideas outrages that defy simplis-
Sheridan Blau calls this “in- tic solutions. Moving away
tellectual courage” in his ar-
rather than repeat other from prescribed essays
ticle “Performative Literacy: people’s perspectives. provides students space to
The Habits of Mind of High- wrestle with ideas rather
ly Literate Readers.” This than repeat other people’s
curiosity or courage leads students to ponder rath- perspectives. By giving students choice and room to
er than come to easy answers in their essays. Blau practice arguments, I hope to prepare them to create
writes about getting students to develop a “tolerance a more open stance in life.
for ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty”: Instruction that allows choice means gener-
ating opportunities for students to have authen-
The least competent readers tend to confuse tic, open conversations about the literature and the
intellectual sufficiency with certainty and com- world throughout the reading of the text. This means
pleted knowledge, and are inclined to equate turning over questions and insights to the students
uncertainty with ignorance, and ambiguity or through the use of theme and evidence walls (p. 202),
paradox with confusion. Readers who read dialogue journals (p. 205), improvisations (p. 208),
texts looking for secure and certain answers to character silhouettes (p. 207), narratives (p. 183), and
their questions may also read the world with a poetry (p. 210, 215) that provide multiple venues for

220 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

discussions led by students’ interests, questions, and
connections.
In this scenario, I am both architect of the
classroom and participant. Each strategy opens
up new possibilities for student-driven discussion,
but also encourages students to rehearse their ar-
guments with their classmates and to begin tenta-
tive steps toward an essay as they read, re-read, and
talk about the text. Here they can experiment with,
try on, abandon, or pursue potential topics. From
the thesis/evidence wall, for example, one student
might gather proof about how the character Troy
in Fences is a product of the racist society that held
him back from pursuing his dreams, while another
student collects evidence about how Troy destroys
his family through his self-centered actions. A third
student might have an epiphany about Troy’s wife,
Rose, while writing a metaphor poem. This choice—
this following a thread based on student interest and
passion—leads to bolder, braver writing.
As Dianne said, “Instead of the book being an
overwhelming puzzle that we try to solve, we use
the book to solve the puzzles of our lives.” I love her
framing of our practice. We teach literature to exam-
ine the themes of our lives, to figure out who we are
in the universe, to “solve the puzzle” of how we got
where we are and where we are going.
Selecting Topics
and Gathering Evidence
I begin the first day of essay writing by asking stu-
dents to travel our classroom where the walls tes-
tify to our conversations about the book or unit.
Theme and evidence walls hold the topics students
pursued during our journey through the reading.
Character silhouettes, filled with observations and
quotes about characters and the social conditions
that shaped them, crowd against one another on one
side of the room.
Students write throughout our reading of the
book. They respond to quotes, they talk back to
characters, they write at the end of debates. In other
words, they have frequently practiced and rehearsed
writing about the book, so when they arrive at the
actual writing of the essay, they are saturated in the
book. Most students enter this day with an essay
in mind because of the writing, activities, and dis-
cussions along the way. At the beginning of class, I
CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE
say, “Today we start the essay. Your job is to decide
on your topic. Check out the character silhouettes
and the evidence and theme walls. Take your phone
with you so you can take photos of the pieces you
need for your essay. Also, go through your notes, in-
cluding your poetry and narratives; for some of you,
these might jump-start your essay.”
After students have wandered the room,
talking and taking pictures, I bring them back to our
classroom circle and ask them, “What topics are you
thinking about?” After each volunteer shares, I ask,
“Is there evidence for this?” The class as a commu-
nity lists some of the evidence. This step helps stu-
dents who have been absent physically or mentally
to rejoin the conversation and hitchhike on their
classmates’ observations.
Once students have landed their topic, I en-
courage them to collect evidence. Sometimes we do
this in a file folder, sometimes in a map. Depend-
ing on the time of year, grade level of the student,
and their writing expertise, I might model this step
in class. I choose topics that students would not
choose; I never write a model that steals the thunder
from students. For example, I wouldn’t write about
Celie’s transformation in The Color Purple, because
that would be a likely subject for students to write
about. Instead, I might demonstrate assembling my
notes to write an essay about the role of white people
in the novel.
This first day takes most of a 90-minute class
period: roaming the room for ideas, brainstorming
topics, and a silent time devoted to the collection of
evidence. I call the class back together during the
final 15-20 minutes of class to share their subjects
and evidence in small groups. Sometimes I cluster
students by topic, so they can help each other with
evidence. I might say, “All of the people writing
about Celie in one corner; all of the people writing
about Sofia in another corner; the students writing
about social conditioning of men and women at the
table in the middle of the room.” Other times, stu-
dents gather where they sit and share. The fieldwork
on this day prepares students to launch their writing
the next day.
Teaching Thesis Statements
In my role as the director of the Oregon Writing
Project, I find the teaching of the thesis raises all
221
kinds of issues, especially when teachers return to
their classrooms after the summer institute and run
into a wall of resistance from colleagues who insist
on practices that encourage formulaic writing. As I
was writing this chapter, a middle school teacher,
Molly, reached out to our summer cohort:
I am in desperate need of your counsel. I am
introducing my students to argumentative
writing and trying to decide how I want to
present the idea of a claim/thesis to them. My
teaching partner is using the classic three-part
thesis. The 8th-grade teacher is adamant that
the three-part thesis is the ONLY way to teach
them. A colleague at another school says that
is what she uses as well. I dug through my
teaching books and found that many endorse
this formulaic style. I haven’t found some-
thing that feels like I can hand to my 7th grad-
ers and they will be able to run with it.
Does anyone have a different perspec-
tive? I need a voice to contradict my col-
leagues who are satisfied with the formula
before I get sucked in the vortex! Any and all
ideas/resources are welcome. I want to keep
pushing my students to think rather than
check off boxes and fill in blanks.
I love Molly’s question and her attitude of
pushing students to “think rather than check off
boxes and fill in blanks.” When I look back at the
most memorable student essays from my 40 years in
the classroom, many do not have traditional thesis
statements. I am wary of any three-part thesis state-
ment or formulaic writing.
On a side note, I had to look up the three-part
thesis statement, which an online writing website
noted was essential to the “standard American
style” five-paragraph essay. According to this web-
site: “a three-part thesis statement is easy because
you simply list your three main pieces of evidence.”
Their example: “Canada is the best country in the
world because it offers many great resources such
as: free healthcare, high-quality education, and
well-organized cities.” I am not sure what happens
to a five-paragraph essay if students have only one
or two points they want to make or if they have
seven.
222 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
I do teach students about the thesis statement
because without a direction, student essays become
a maze that leads the writer into numerous blind al-
leys. After students have harvested their topics and
evidence toward their essay, I explain the role of the
thesis statement:
• The thesis statement provides a road map for
the writer by stating what the essay will prove. It
answers the question: What is this essay about? The
thesis statement is more than a statement of the top-
ic—racial identity in The Bluest Eye or the struggle
to survive in The Grapes of Wrath.
• The thesis defines the writer’s interpretation
of a specific aspect of a piece of literature. For ex-
ample, “Ma Joad is the true savior in The Grapes of
Wrath because her actions and words demonstrate
the capacity for generosity and forgiveness.”
• A strong thesis helps the writer shape the
essay by clarifying its stance: What point about
the novel do you want to make? What is your per-
spective? It also helps the writer weed evidence: It
clarifies what the essay is about, but as importantly,
what the essay is not about and what evidence is not
relevant.
I also tell students that the thesis statement
is typically somewhere early in the essay, although
sometimes it can be stated implicitly as well as
explicitly.
As a writer, I frequently have a working the-
sis or direction, then I might adapt and change it
along the way as I write my way to understanding.
To approach writing as a process opens the possi-
bility that students, too, may write into awareness,
into knowledge about themselves and the book. In
short, instruction directed toward fostering authen-
tic writing must focus on the processes of learning
to write, placing an emphasis on what student read-
ers learn about their own writing rather than the
end product.
There is no handout that we can give students
that miraculously teaches them how to write. By
examining both student models and contemporary
writers, however, students can learn to recognize
how other writers approach writing essays. Simply
put, they need to know that essays make a point and
students need to figure out theirs.
Models: Raising the Bones
When I mix the genres of essay, narrative, and po-
etry, student writing comes alive. Patrick Phillips, in
the New York Times Book Review, opened his anal-
ysis of Michael Eric Dyson’s book Tears We Cannot
Stop: A Sermon to White America with a story of his
father taking him to hear a sermon at Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.’s church:
One Sunday in 1984, my father did something
unexpected, at least for a white man in Geor-
gia. He drove us past the little rural church
we usually attended and kept going 40 miles
south, all the way to Atlanta’s Ebenezer Bap-
tist—home parish of the Rev. Martin Luther
King Jr., and an epicenter of the American civ-
il rights movement.
Reading Michael Eric Dyson’s Tears We
Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, I
was often reminded of that morning, when I
was first exposed to the righteous anger, wry
humor, and unflinching honesty of a Black
pastor, determined to guide and teach his
flock. While Dyson is best known as a writer
and sociologist, he is also an ordained Baptist
minister, and his new book draws both its im-
passioned style and its moral urgency from his
years in the pulpit.
This twisting together of narrative and prose,
of personal reflection and analysis of a piece of liter-
ature, is at the heart of the transformation I seek in
my classroom.
I want students to write like real writers, not
fake school writing. In order to make that transition,
I introduce them to models, like Phillips’ review, but
also to essays written by my former students. In ear-
lier chapters, I discussed raising the bones of car-
toon essays (p. 61) and essays with attitudes (p. 122).
I use the same teaching strategies as we examine lit-
erary analysis essays. To move students away from
book-report formats of their earlier years and the
straightjacket restrictions of five-paragraph essays,
I feed them examples from my previous students.
Some of these are not perfect models, but they
demonstrate the idea of writing as an exploration
rather than a conclusion.
I distribute Uriah Boyd’s essay about Smoke
CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE
Signals, for example, and I read it to the class. Before
I start reading, I ask students to take margin notes
about how Uriah developed her essay in the same
way I asked them to annotate the cartoon essays
(see p. 65). The first time through the essay, I want
to hear what they are thinking. Uriah’s essay defies
the traditional way of writing about literature. The
twist is the way Uriah weaves her life throughout the
text. She opens with a personal anecdote in the same
way Lila Johnson did in her essay “Looking Pretty,
Waiting for the Prince” (p. 65) and Phillips does in
his review:
Nothing inside of me made sense. Nothing I
did made sense and I couldn’t figure out why
I was still so unhappy. For months, I’d been
trying to convince myself that I was fine, that
this was normal. But somewhere inside me
I knew that it was a lie. Spending most days
stoned out of my mind, or too tipsy to walk
straight, I told myself that this was the path
to happiness. Some days I’d even combine the
two; sitting alone on a curb somewhere, I’d
take a hit, take a sip. The fabric of my life was
rapidly unraveling, but I was too busy trying
to drug myself into bliss to see it.
Then, like Phillips, she slides into her essay topic:
Arnold, an influential character in Smoke Sig-
nals, finds himself in a similar situation. Con-
sumed with guilt for causing a fire that killed
some of his friends, and nearly killing his own
wife and child, Arnold turned to alcohol to
numb his pain. With each gulp, can, and bot-
tle, Arnold seeks relief—maybe even a sem-
blance of happiness—but what he finds is that
alcohol creates more problems than it solves.
She continues to compare her life to Arnold’s
as she proceeds throughout the essay, noting par-
allels and departures between her addictions and
“vanishing” and Arnold’s. The purpose of examin-
ing the models is not to have everyone write essays
that include their lives, but rather to break open the
genre, to present alternative possibilities as students.
Once students see what’s different about Uriah’s
essay, I want them to see what conforms to a “tradi-
223
tional” essay format. I pass out highlighters and say,
“Use a different color for each aspect of the essay.
Locate and highlight the introduction, thesis state-
ment, transitions, evidence, quotes, and conclusion.”
As students highlight, we discuss how these are el-
ements typically found in a literary essay, and their
essay should include those, but they should also find
a way (like Uriah did) to make the essay more than
an assignment for class. Later, we return to Uriah’s
essay to examine her use of poetic language.
Launching the Essay
Using Uriah’s essay as the launching point, I dis-
tribute sample introductions, and we read them out
loud in class (see “Writing Introductions” p. 131).
“Just try one kind. If that doesn’t fire you up, try an-
other one or create your own. In 10 minutes, we’re
going to read these out loud and see who caught
some fire.”
I find a short burst of hard writing at this point
yields large results. In the past, I gave students too
much time. This timed-write gets students started.
Too much time and they think they have to write a
genius draft. Ten minutes and they can cut off the
critic that lives in their heads. If 10 minutes pass and
students are still writing furiously, I keep the mo-
mentum going. If not, we pause to read.
I repeat this process with the evidence para-
graphs and conclusions, returning to models and
asking, “How did Uriah fold in evidence? How do
other writers?” We look at transitions, how writers
slide in and out of a quote, how they handle analy-
sis, how some use quotes and others use actions or
other characters’ observations. Although students
color-highlight evidence paragraphs to note these
pieces, I don’t stress a particular order.
I end each writing day with sharing. Sometimes
students read pieces of the essay—like the introduc-
tion and an evidence paragraph or a conclusion—to
the class for feedback. Sometimes students exchange
papers with a partner or a small group. Each read-
er demonstrates how others came at the same task,
showing multiple ways of building essays, moving
students forward in sections where they struggle
either with an interpretation of the book or writing
about the book. The cycle of writing, sharing, and re-
vising is purposeful and necessary because it builds a
culture of collaboration, moving away from “for the
224 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
teacher” writing into writing for both self and com-
munity. Students learn to write through false starts,
to draft and redraft as their ideas shift. As teachers,
we need to allow the space and time for this learning
instead of racing through to the next unit.
Student Reflection
At the end of a year, I ask students to reflect on their
writing and learning together. One section of Uri-
ah’s portfolio reflection focused on her essay about
Smoke Signals:
This year in particular, I took a huge leap
of faith in being so open about my past and
personal life. I took a lot of risks in reveal-
ing secrets and stories that I’d never before
shared. In a character analysis essay based on
the screenplay Smoke Signals, I made a very
personal connection to a character who had
a drinking problem. In turn, I finally allowed
myself to admit how askew my reality was at
that time in my life. Writing has not only al-
lowed me to learn more about myself as a per-
son, but also to use what I know about myself
and make connections to others. I figure the
more connections I make, the more opportu-
nities I’ll have to make my existence an excit-
ing and beautiful one.
As teachers we need to help our students re-
sist easy answers to hard questions, to persist when
they hit hard spots in reading, writing, and life, to
open up, as Uriah did, to revising their lives as well
as their writing. Z
u SAMPLE ESSAY
Smoke Signals: A Broken Story
by Uriah Boyd
Nothing inside of me made sense. Nothing I did
made sense and I couldn’t figure out why I was still
so unhappy. For months, I’d been trying to con-
vince myself that I was fine, that this was normal.
But somewhere inside me I knew that it was a lie.
Spending most days stoned out of my mind, or too
tipsy to walk straight, I told myself that this was the
path to happiness. Some days I’d even combine the
two; sitting alone on a curb somewhere, I’d take a
hit, take a sip. The fabric of my life was rapidly un-
raveling, but I was too busy trying to drug myself
into bliss to see it.
Arnold, an influential character in Smoke Sig-
nals, finds himself in a similar situation. Consumed
with guilt for causing a fire that killed some of his
friends, and nearly killing his own wife and child,
Arnold turned to alcohol to numb his pain. With
each gulp, can, and bottle, Arnold seeks relief—may-
be even a semblance of happiness—but what he finds
is that alcohol creates more problems than it solves.
In trying to distance himself from his own guilt
through alcohol, Arnold grew further and further
away from those that he loved. Victor, Arnold’s son,
wanted nothing more than to feel loved by his father.
Arnold was, at most times, unable to show his af-
fection for Victor because he spent most of Victor’s
life drunk, angry, and depressed. He once even hit
Victor in the face for dropping a can of beer. It didn’t
take long for Victor to see that Arnold’s dependence
on alcohol was turning him into more of a shell than
a father—there in body, but not in spirit.
Like Arnold, I could feel myself slipping away,
further and further into oblivion. Soon, my fami-
ly began to feel it, too. After school, I would come
home, eat, and stay in my room for the night. One
evening, while sitting on my bed writing, I heard a
gentle knock on my door, and it slowly crept open.
My aunt’s face began to come into focus.
“Hey, Riah,” she said.
“Hey,” I muttered. She sat at the foot of my bed
and I looked at her candidly, waiting for an explana-
tion of her presence.
“Riah, are you OK? I’m kind of worried about
you. We miss you downstairs, you know.” She chuck-
led, nervously.
CHAPTER 4: READING FOR JUSTICE, READING FOR CHANGE
“I’m fine, just been tired,” I replied a little too
quickly. I maintained a blank expression. After sev-
eral seconds of awkward eye contact, she finally
took the hint, patted my leg, and left without anoth-
er word. I stared at the door for a moment after she
left, feeling somewhat guilty, but quickly shook the
feeling. I vanished from my family just like Arnold.
“Arnold threatened to vanish. He practiced
vanishing … until one day, he did.” When Victor
was about 8 years old, both of his parents made
some serious decisions: After awaking one morning
to the sound of smashing glass, Arlene looked out
the window. When she saw her young son, Victor,
throwing full bottles of beer at his father’s pickup
truck, she was horrified and ashamed, then sudden-
ly enraged. She turned to wake her husband, “We
ain’t doin’ this no more! You hear me? No more!
We’re done with it!” She decided to quit drinking.
Arnold, however, decided that he couldn’t bear giv-
ing up alcohol, even if it meant losing his family.
So he packed up his things, threw them in his yel-
low pickup and drove off. As he drove away, Arlene
cursed him and threw his clothes into the road. Vic-
tor, with tears in his eyes, chased after his father’s
truck. “Arnold stops the pickup, gets out, and grabs
Victor … Victor grabs onto his father, holding him
tightly. Arnold hugs him back for a moment, then
breaks his hold and sets Victor down on the road.”
It was at that moment that Victor’s life transformed.
Young Victor would forever be marked by that crack
of betrayal and abandonment.
After my mom found out about me drinking
and smoking, she wouldn’t even look at me for days.
I actually didn’t mind too much—things were easi-
er when people left me alone, but she later told me
that she felt that this was all somehow her fault. I
imagine that she spent many sleepless nights, just
wondering where she went wrong. I wanted to tell
her that it wasn’t her fault … But honestly, I wasn’t
even exactly sure what the reason was.
Somewhere inside of Arnold, he knew that al-
cohol was not improving his situation. He reasoned,
though, that the Rez was the harbor of his guilt,
so he figured that by physically distancing himself
from his home, his depression would subside. In-
stead, after settling down hundreds of miles away in
Phoenix, Arizona, he was still consumed with guilt,
sorrow, and loneliness. It was a long time before he
225
realized that he needed to quit drinking if his life
were to improve.
Before this fact came into focus in Arnold’s life,
his actions had already severely damaged a few rela-
tionships. But slowly, he began making steps to con-
front his past without a bottle of booze to shield him.
He even befriended and confided in his neighbor,
Suzy. Sadly though, Arnold passed away before he
could return to his wife and son. Even after Arnold’s
death, Victor struggled to forgive his father for aban-
doning him. For years and years, Victor had built up
animosity and hatred for Arnold and his selfish ac-
tions, but deep down he did love his father. And once
he allowed himself to grieve over Arnold’s death,
Victor’s emotional wounds slowly began to heal.
In the process of realizing the detrimental ef-
fects that alcohol was having on my life, I broke a
few hearts: my mother’s, my friends’, even my own.
There was always a thought in the back of my mind
that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t the way to go
about things. I kept trying to silence the voice, but
no matter what I did, it was always there. Whisper-
ing, taunting me. Until one day, I stepped back and
looked at what my life was becoming. I thought, all
I ever wanted was to be happy, but I’m just about as
far away from happy as I could be. I’m falling apart.
How did I get to be so broken? To this day I am bus-
ied with the task of gluing myself together. I’m still
repairing broken hearts and reconstructing rela-
tionships. Some days I still think about all the dumb
choices I made, how things would be if I hadn’t been
so naive, how incredibly self-destructive my behav-
ior was. But I’ve reasoned that sometimes, we must
destroy in order to rebuild.

226 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

Chapter 5

The Politics of Language

 Teaching Standard English
Whose Standard?

W
hen I was in 9th
grade Mrs. Delaney,
my English teacher,
wanted to demonstrate the correct
and incorrect ways to pronounce
the English language. She asked
Helen Draper, whose father owned
several clothing stores in town, to
stand and say “lawyer.” Then she
asked me, whose father owned a
bar, to stand and say “lawyer.” Ev-
eryone burst into laughter at my
pronunciation.
What did Mrs. Delaney ac-
complish? Did she make me pro-
nounce “lawyer” correctly? No. I
say attorney. I never say lawyer.
In fact, I’ve found substitutes for
every word my tongue can’t get
around and for all the rules I can’t
remember.
For years I’ve played word
cop on myself. I stop what I’m say-
ing to think, “Objective or subjec-
tive case? Do I need I or me here?
Hmmm. There’s a lay coming up.
What word can I substitute for it?
Recline?”
And I’ve studied this stuff.
After all, I’ve been an English ALAURA SEIDL

teacher for more than 40 years.

I’ve gone through all of the Warriner’s Handbook
exercises. I even found a lie/lay computer program
and kept it in my head until I needed it in speech
and became confused again.
Thanks to Mrs. Delaney, I learned early on that
in our society, language classifies me. Generosity,
warmth, kindness, intelligence, good humor aren’t
enough—we need to speak correctly to make it.
Mrs. Delaney taught me that the “melting pot” was
an illusion. The real version of the melting pot is that

CHAPTER 5: THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE 229

people of diverse backgrounds are mixed together are keys to a secret and wealthier society and I want
and when they come out they’re supposed to look them to be prepared to enter, just as my teachers
like Katie Couric and sound like Anderson Cooper. wanted to help me.
The only diversity we celebrate is tacos and pad Thai And we should help kids. It would be mislead-
at the mall. ing to suggest that people in our society will value
my thoughts or my students’ thoughts as readily in
Unlearning “Inferiority” our home languages as in the “cash language,” as Jes-
It wasn’t until I heard Dr. Geneva Smitherman se Jackson calls it. Students need to know where to
speak at a conference years ago that I realized find help, and they need to understand what chang-
grammar was an indication of class and cultural es might be necessary, but they need to learn in a
background in the United States and that there context that doesn’t say “The way you said this is
is a bias against people who do not use language wrong.”
“correctly.” Even the terminology “standard” and
“nonstandard” reflects that one is less than the When Fear Interferes
other. English teachers are urged to “correct” stu- English teachers must know when to correct and
dents who speak or write in their home language. how to correct—and I use that word uneasily. Take
A friend of mine, whose ancestors came over on Fred, for example. Fred entered my 9th-grade class
the Mayflower, never studied any of the grammar unwilling to write. Every day during writing time I’d
texts I keep by my side, but she can spot all of my find Fred doodling pictures of football players in ac-
errors because she grew up in a home where Stan- tion. When I sat down and asked him why he didn’t
dard English was spoken. write, he said he couldn’t.
And I didn’t, so I’ve trained myself to play lan- I explained to him that in this class his writing
guage cop. The problem is that every time I pause, I couldn’t be wrong because we were just practicing
stop the momentum of my thinking. I’m no longer our writing until we found a piece we wanted to pol-
pursuing content, no longer engaged in trying to ish, in the same way that he practiced football every
persuade or entertain or clarify. Instead I’m pulling day after school, but only played games on Fridays.
Warriner’s or Mrs. Delaney His resistance lasted for a
out of my head and trying couple of weeks. Other stu-
to figure out how to say When more attention is dents around him struggled
something. paid to the way something is with their writing, shared it
“Ah, but this is good,” with the class on occasion,
you might say. “You have
written or said than to what and heard positive com-
the rules and Mrs. Delaney is said, students’ words and ments. Certainly the writing
to go back to. This is what thoughts become devalued. of his fellow students was not
our students need.” intimidating.
But it doesn’t happen On Oct. 1, after reading
that way. I try to remember the rule or the catchy the story “Raymond’s Run” by Toni Cade Bambara,
phrase that is supposed to etch the rule in my mind about trusting people in our lives, Fred wrote for
forever, like “people never get laid,” but I’m still not the first time: “I remember my next-door neighbor
sure if I use it correctly. These side trips cost a lot of trusted me with some money that she owed my
velocity in my logic. grandmother. She owed my grandmother about 25
Over the years, my English teachers pointed dollars.” Fred didn’t make a lot of errors. In this first
out all of my errors—the usage errors I inherited piece of writing, it looked like he had basic punc-
from my mother’s Bandon, Oregon, dialect, the tuation figured out—except for the odd capitals in
spelling errors I overlooked, the fancy words I used the middle of the sentence. He didn’t misspell any
incorrectly. They did this in good faith, in the same words. And he didn’t make any usage errors. Based
way I would “correct” my students’ “errors” years on this sample, he appeared to be a competent
later because I wanted them to know the rules. They writer.

230 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 However, the biggest problem with Fred’s writ-
ing was that he didn’t make mistakes. This piece
demonstrates his discomfort with writing. He wasn’t
taking any risks. Just as I avoid lawyer and lay, he
wrote to avoid errors instead of writing to commu-
nicate or think on paper.
When more attention is paid to the way some-
thing is written or said than to what is said, students’
words and thoughts become devalued. Students
learn to be silent, to give as few words as possible for
teacher criticism.
Valuing What We Know
Students must be taught to hold their own voices
sacred, to ignore the teachers who have made them
feel that what they’ve said is wrong or bad or stupid.
Students must be taught how to listen to the knowl-
edge they’ve stored up, but which they are seldom
asked to relate.
Too often students feel alienated in schools.
Knowledge is foreign. It’s about other people in oth-
er times. At a conference I attended, a young woman
whose mother was Puerto Rican and whose father
was Haitian said, “I went through school wondering
if anyone like me had ever done anything worthwhile
or important. We kept reading and hearing about all
of these famous people. I remember thinking, ‘Don’t
we have anyone?’ I walked out of the school that day
feeling tiny, invisible, unimportant.”
As teachers, we have daily opportunities to af-
firm that our students’ lives and language are unique
and important. We do that in the selections of liter-
ature we read, in the history we choose to teach, and
we do it by giving legitimacy to our students’ lives as
a content worthy of study.
One way to encourage the reluctant writers
who have been silenced—and the not-so-reluctant
writers who have found a safe but sterile voice—is
to ask them to recount their experiences using their
home languages in the text of the story in the same
way many published authors do. I sometimes recruit
former students to share their writing and their wis-
dom as a way of underscoring the importance of the
voices and stories of teenagers. Rochelle Eason, a
student in my senior writing class, brought in a few
of her stories and poems to read to my freshmen.
Rochelle, like Zora Neale Hurston, blends her home
language with Standard English in most pieces. She
CHAPTER 5: THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE
read “Tired of Chicken” to open a discussion about
how kids are sometimes treated as servants in their
homes, but also to demonstrate the necessity of us-
ing the language she hears in her family to develop
characters:
“I’m tired of washing dishes. Seems like
every time our family gets together, they just
got to eat and bring their millions of kids over
to our house. And then we got to wash the
dishes.”
I listened sympathetically as my little
sister mumbled these words.
“And how come we can’t have ribs like
the grown-ups? After all, ain’t we grown?”
“Lord,” I prayed, “seal her lips while the
blood is still running warm in her veins.”
Her bottom lip protruded farther and
farther as she dipped each plate in the soapy
water, then rinsed each side with cold water
(about a two-second process) until she felt the
majority of suds were off.
“One minute we lazy women that can’t
keep the living room half clean. The next
minute we just kids and gotta eat some funky
chicken while they eat ribs.”
… Suddenly it was quiet. All except my
little sister who was still talking. I strained to
hear a laugh or joke from the adults in the liv-
ing room, a hint that all were well, full, and
ready to go home. Everyone was still sitting in
their same spots, not making a move to leave.
“You ought to be thankful you got a
choice.” Uh-oh. Now she got Aunt Macy start-
ed …
After reading her work, Rochelle talked about
listening to her family and friends tell their sto-
ries. She urged the 9th graders to relate the tales of
their own lives—the times they were caught doing
something forbidden, the times they got stuck with
the dishes, the funny or sad events that made their
school year memorable. When Rochelle left, stu-
dents wrote more easily. Some. Some were afraid of
the stories because, as Rance said, “It takes heart to
tell the truth about your life.”
But eventually they write. They write stories.
They write poems. They write letters. They write
231
essays. They learn how to switch in and out of the
language of “marketplace English” as Rochelle does
so effortlessly in “Tired of Chicken.”
Sharing Lessons
And after we write, we listen to each other’s stories in
our read-around circle where everyone has the op-
portunity to share, to be heard, to learn that knowl-
edge can be gained by examining our lives (see p. 15
for a complete description of this activity). In the
circle, we discover that many
young women encounter sex-
ual harassment, we learn that
I teach Fred
store clerks follow Black stu- like tracking, functions
dents, especially males, more as part of a gatekeeping
frequently than they follow
system in our country.
white students, we find that
some of our parents have lost
their jobs, we learn that some of us have been forced
to move out of our neighborhoods because of the
increasing rents.
Before we share, students often understand
these incidents individually. They feel there’s some-
thing wrong with them. If they were smarter, pretti-
er, stronger, these things wouldn’t have happened to
them. When they hear other students’ stories, they
begin to realize that many of their problems aren’t
caused by a character defect. Sharing also provides a
“collective text” for us to examine the social roots of
problems more closely. Our lives become a window
to examine society.
Learning the “Standard” Without
Humiliation
But the lessons can’t stop there. Fred can write bet-
ter now. He and his classmates can feel comfortable
and safe sharing their lives or discussing literature
and the world. They can even understand that they
need to ask, “Who benefits?” to get a better perspec-
tive on a problem. But still, when they leave my class
or this school, some people will judge them by how
their subjects and verbs line up.
So I teach Fred the rules. It’s the language of
power in this country, and I would be cheating him
if I pretended otherwise. I teach him this more effec-
tively than Mrs. Delaney taught me because I don’t
humiliate him or put down his language. I’m also
more effective because I don’t rely on textbook drills;
232 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
I use the text of Fred’s writing. But I also teach Fred
what Mrs. Delaney left out.
I teach Fred that language, like tracking, func-
tions as part of a gatekeeping system in our country.
Who gets managerial jobs and who doesn’t, who
works at banks and who works at fast-food restau-
rants, who gets into what college and who gets into
college at all, are decisions linked to the ability to use
Standard English. So how do we teach kids to write
with honesty and passion about their world and get
them to study the rules of the
cash language? We go back
that language, to our study of society. We
ask: Who made the rules that
govern how we speak and
write? Did Ninh’s family and
Fred’s family and LaShonda’s
family all sit down together
and decide on these rules? Who already talks like
this and writes like this? Who has to learn how to
change the way they talk and write? Why?
We make up our own tests that speakers of
Standard English would find difficult (see “Writing
the Word and the World,” p. 109). We read articles,
stories, and poems written in Standard English and
others written in home language. We watch videos
and listen to people speaking. Most kids like the
sound of their home language better. They like the
energy, the poetry, and the rhythm of the language.
We determine when and why people shift. We talk
about why it might be necessary to learn Standard
English.
Asking my students to memorize the rules
without asking who makes the rules, who enforc-
es the rules, who benefits from the rules, who los-
es from the rules, who uses the rules to keep some
in and keep others out, legitimates a social system
that devalues my students’ knowledge and language.
Teaching the rules without reflection also under-
scores that it’s OK for others—“authorities”—to dic-
tate something as fundamental and as personal as
the way they speak. Further, the study of Standard
English without critique encourages students to be-
lieve that if they fail, it is because they are not smart
enough or didn’t work hard enough. They learn to
blame themselves. If they get poor SAT scores, low
grades on term papers or essays because of language
errors, fail teacher entrance exams, they will inter-
nalize the blame; they will believe they did not suc-
ceed because they are inferior instead of questioning
the standard of measurement and those making the
standards.
We must teach students how to match subjects
and verbs, how to pronounce “lawyer,” because too
often they are the ones without power and, for the
moment, have to use the language of the powerful to
be heard. But, in addition, we need to equip them to
question an educational system that devalues their
life and their knowledge. If we don’t, we condition
them to a pedagogy of consumption where they will
consume the knowledge, priorities, and products
that have been decided and manufactured without
them in mind.
It took me years to undo what Mrs. Delaney
did to me. Years to discover that what I said was
more important than how I said it. Years to under-
stand that my words—my family’s words—weren’t
wrong or bad, they were just the words of the work-
ing class. For too long, I felt inferior when I spoke.
I knew the voice of my childhood crept out, and I
confused that with ignorance. It wasn’t. I just didn’t
belong to the group who made the rules. I was an
outsider, a foreigner in their world. My students
won’t be. Z

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES

Bambara, Toni Cade. 1972. Gorilla, My Love. Random House.
Delpit, Lisa. 1988. “The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in
Educating Other People’s Children.” Harvard Educational Review
58(3): 280–98.
Shor, Ira. 1987. Freire for the Classroom. Heinemann.
Shor, Ira, and Paulo Freire. 1987. A Pedagogy for Liberation. Bergin
& Garvey.
Smitherman, Geneva. 1977. Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of
Black America. Houghton Mifflin.
Smitherman, Geneva. 1998. “Black English/Ebonics: What It Be
Like?” The Real Ebonics Debate. Beacon.

CHAPTER 5: THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE 233

 Reading, Writing,
and Righteous Anger
Teaching About Language and Society

ROSE JAFFE

M
y friend Karen worked as a relatively
new principal in a rural Oregon school
where the sons and daughters of winery
owners rubbed elbows with the sons and daughters
of their field workers. She recounted a story about a
typical day: “When I came into my office after lunch
duty, three Latinx students sat waiting for me. The
students told me the substitute kicked them out for
speaking Spanish in class. After verifying the story,
I told the substitute her services would no longer be
needed at our school.”
Karen is a full-time warrior for students. She
battles remarkable linguistic prejudice and historical
inequities to make her school a safe community for
her Latinx students. Before she arrived on campus,
for example, school policy excluded Spanish-speak-
ing English language learners from taking Spanish
classes. Latinx students had to enroll in German
classes to meet their world language requirement.
At another school, an urban one in the Port-
land area, a group of teachers tallied the grammat-
ical errors their administrator made during a fac-

234 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

ulty meeting. Their air of superiority and smugness
made my teeth ache. This same smugness silences
many students in our classrooms when we value
how they speak more than what they say.
“Nonstandard” language speakers must nego-
tiate this kind of language minefield whenever they
enter the halls of power—schools, banks, govern-
ment agencies, and employment offices. Language
inequity still exists, whether it’s getting kicked out of power. And social justice teaching in a language arts
class for speaking in one’s home language or being
found “unfit” for a job, a college, or a scholarship
because of a lack of dexterity with Standard English.
These days, most of our schools and school
boards fashion mission statements about “embrac-
ing diversity.” Multilingual banners welcome stu-
dents and visitors in Spanish, Russian, and Vietnam-
ese in the hallways of school buildings. But in the
classroom, the job of the teacher
(especially the English language
arts teacher) often appears to be
I want students to hear rooting the study in their lives:
whitewashing students of color the cadences of home
or students who are linguistical- and cherish them.
ly diverse. If we hope to create
positive communities in which
students from diverse backgrounds can thrive aca-
demically, we need to examine how our approach to
students’ linguistic diversity either includes or push-
es out vulnerable learners.
As educators, we have the power to determine
whether students feel included or excluded in our
schools and classrooms. By bringing students’ lan-
guages from their homes into the classroom, we val-
idate their culture and their history as topics worthy
of study while also showing students who speak the
dominant language that other languages deserve re-
spect, too. As Lois-Ann Yamanaka writes,
With language rests culture. To sever the lan-
guage from the mouth is to sever the ties to
homes and relatives, family gatherings, foods
prepared and eaten, relationships to friends
and neighbors. Cultural identity is utterly
akin to linguistic identity.
As a language arts teacher, I need to push stu-
dents to question the basic assumptions about Stan-
dard English and the way it legitimates inequality,
but I also need to teach students to cherish their
home languages, to learn the language of power, and
to talk back to those who discriminate against peo-
ple who do not speak Standard English.
The Question
In my Contemporary Literature and Society class-
es, we explored the question “How is language po-
litical?” Why language? Because language is about
classroom is about “reading” and uncovering power
relationships in the world. Whose language or di-
alect has power? Whose doesn’t? Why not? What
happens if someone has a Mexican or Vietnamese
accent? A British accent? How does language benefit
some and hurt others?
Through the study of language, students look
behind the social hierarchy that ranks some lan-
guages as standard and oth-
ers as substandard. I begin by
Whose papers get corrected for
language errors and whose are
judged correct? How might that
affect students’ feelings about
themselves? Their language? I ask: Who scores high
on SATs and who doesn’t? I want students to real-
ize that grades, achievement, high test scores are
not based on a meritocracy where everyone start-
ed out equal. We look at how some privileges, like
high SATs, might look like they are earned, but real-
ly have been inherited based on social class or race
or gender. We look at pieces of literature, we read
studies, we examine our own lives as we search for
answers to the question: How is language political?
Students’ Lives at the Center
To teach students to read and write and think criti-
cally about the “word and the world,” as Paulo Freire
phrased it, means to engage them in a study of their
lives in relation to the larger society. It is import-
ant for students to write about their lives even when
they are studying the politics of language because
their lives are part of the text of the class. Their ex-
perience with language helps us understand how
society creates hierarchies that rank some languages
as “standard” and others as “substandard”; some as
“educated,” others as “ignorant.” So before we begin
reading Pygmalion as a text to study language and
CHAPTER 5: THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE 235
power, we focus on our own lives and tongues.
Bringing in students’ language is more than
a feel-good gesture, more than erasing the shame
that comes when one’s language is considered infe-
rior. What Yamanaka writes about Pidgin, I could
have written about my home language, and many of
my students could write about their linguistic heri-
tage—from Ebonics to Spanish to Vietnamese:
Our present day Pidgin, Hawaii Creole En-
glish expression—labeled the language of ig-
norant people, substandard and inappropriate
in any form of expression, written or oral—
has retained its stigma of poverty, racism, and
powerlessness from the early days of the plan-
tation system.
For me, writing my poems and stories
using Pidgin has been a very painful process.
I cannot begin to tell of the importance of this
language whose speakers have been “system-
atically and institutionally duped into believ-
ing that we have no literary value or voice.”
As we discuss language and culture, students
write pieces about themselves, their homes, their
family sayings, their languages. We do what Ya-
manaka urges. We remember our homes without
censoring:
Language is power. A so-called bastard lan-
guage is charged with its own rage and ener-
gy … I will never move away from Pidgin …
Why would I move away? I tell young writ-
ers to use their ears and their sounds because
sounds sometimes come with such clarity, and
not everyone can render them in words. If you
can do it in Samoan, Armenian, Filipino, or
Vietnamese, do it. I tell my students to clean
their ears, listen, and render sound … I will
say it again—and I have come a very long way
in believing and knowing this—it is impossi-
ble to ban the sound of one’s memory.
I want students to hear the cadences of home
and cherish them. I encourage them to use their
“home language” as they write stories and poems.
We read, for example, Toni Cade Bambara’s short
stories and excerpts from Sandra Cisneros’ work
236 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
so they understand how to mix home language and
“Standard English.” The following excerpt from Pam
Clegg’s story, “My Nerves Wasn’t All She Got On,”
demonstrates how she code-switches between Stan-
dard English and Ebonics as she tells about getting
in double trouble—first, for her messy room, and
then for talking back to her mother:
“Pamela!”
What she want now? Dog, every time I
start watching TV she always wants to call.
“Pamela, git up here now!” Mama yelled
down the steps.
I knew it. She always gots to go upstairs
in our room.
“Ma’am?” I said when I entered the
room.
“Didn’t I tell you to clean this closet and
this room? It look like a pig sty. How can you
live in this mess?”
“Mama, this ain’t my stuff. It’s Tracy’s. I
cleaned my part of the room.”
“Girl, how you gon’ tell me this is Tracy’s
stuff when I’m looking at the clothes I bought
you scattered around this room and thrown
in this closet?”
“Mama, that’s no …”
“Girl, what is this? Now you tell me I
didn’t buy this for you.” She held up a pair of
pants that she bought me for school that year.
Then she turned and looked in the closet. “Oh,
my Lord. Girl, you got all these good clothes
up here just balled up and look at this.” She
pulled out an ugly brown skirt and showed
it to me. I didn’t want that thang in the first
place. Dog, I wish she would just leave. She
always worrying about our room …
Pam’s story, published in the Rites of Passage,
Jefferson High School’s literary magazine, always
brings about great sounds of laughter from students.
Most of us can relate to the dirty room scene, but
for many students the sound of Pam’s voice also re-
minds them of the voices in their homes.
When writing his college essay about a change
he made, Alejandro Vidales used home language as
a way of presenting and honoring where he comes
from:
 Growing up in the city of San Diego was hard thy of study. It says they count; their language is part
for me. Both of my uncles had been gang of a history that most textbooks ignore, or worse,
members. My older uncle, José, was in with label as incorrect. Speaking their languages and tell-
the 18th, but he lived in L.A. so I didn’t see ing their stories breaks the pattern of silence and
him much. My other uncle, Martín, was a Vato shame that “correction” without historical and lin-
Loco, and he lived with my guistic context breeds. How
grandma and me. The only else can we understand our
role model I had was my Speaking their languages society and our world if we
uncle. Man, he was bad, don’t bring in the lives of the
and telling their stories
and I wanted to be just like people living it?
him! The way he talked, breaks the pattern of silence Of course, I also have
walked, even the way he and shame that “correction” the responsibility of teach-
smelled. He was smooth.
without historical and ing students how to write
I remember going cruis- in “Standard Edited Written
ing with him. “Hey, man, I linguistic context breeds. English” because that is the
wanna be como tu when I “cash language” valued in
grow up. I’m going to have our society. As my former
more rucas than you. I’m going to be their student Khalilah noted when she returned from col-
Latin lover, rolling in my candy apple green lege to speak to my class, “No one asks you to write
low rider with a big Aztec Warrior painted on poetry in college. They want essays and they want
the hood. I’m going to be the coolest Cholo in them correct.”
San Diego.”
My uncle would hit me on the head and Reading the Word and the World
laugh, “You don’t know what it’s really like to During this unit we read literature from diverse per-
be a Cholo—always running from the police, spectives: Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers by Lois-Ann
watching your back. You don’t want to be a Yamanaka about the politics of Pidgin in Hawaii; Pyg-
Cholo because once you’re in, you can’t get malion by George Bernard Shaw, about the politics of
out.” English in England; “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by
When he told me these things, I didn’t Gloria Anzaldúa; and “Achievement of Desire” from
care, I just thought he didn’t want me to be Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez about the
cool like him. Every morning I would wake politics of English for people whose home language
up, put on my khakis and creased shirt that is Spanish. We also read a segment of Brothers and
my abuelita ironed the night before. My black Sisters by Bebe Moore Campbell; “From Africa to
shoes were so shiny I could almost see myself the New World and into the Space Age,” the first
in them. I slicked back my hair so much that chapter of Geneva Smitherman’s book Talkin and
my abuelita would say, “Parece que te lambio Testifyin: The Language of Black America; and the
una vaca.” [Translation: “It looks like a cow Ebonics issue of the journal Rethinking Schools.
licked your head.”] Then I put on my hair net We read these pieces, talk back to them, exam-
and headed out the door. ine how the characters feel about themselves, their
families, culture, and race. As students read, I ask
My observation over the past decade is that them to take notes on their readings, to think about
students, like Alejandro, write more freely when why one language is standard while the rest struggle
they use words and phrases of their home. Home under labels of “lazy,” “incompetent,” or “broken,” to
language is the link for many students that starts the think about whose languages are in those categories
words flowing. and whose aren’t. I encourage students to “talk back”
Bringing students’ languages, ancestors, say- to these readings, to imagine they are in a conversa-
ings from their homes into the classroom validates tion with the writer.
their languages, culture, and history as topics wor- For example, when responding to Smitherman’s

CHAPTER 5: THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE 237

“Black English/Ebonics: What It Be Like?” in the
Rethinking Schools issue on Ebonics, Kesha wrote,
“I used to think that Ebonics meant we couldn’t
speak proper English, that we were dumb. I’m glad
we learned the true history [of how Ebonics came
from Africa].” Later, reading the same piece, she not-
ed, “Reading these articles and watching the video
[The Story of English: Black on White] made me real-
ize that the words I speak and the way I speak came
from my African people. I felt pride.”
Ebony wrote, “People don’t understand Ebon-
ics, so they call it ghetto or
slang. They need to learn “Who made the standard?
the history.” Saqualla not-
ed, “A lot of us who speak Who died and
Ebonics are ashamed of our standard makers anyway?”
talk because the society we
live in expects something
different, looks down on us.” Responding to the quote,
“Attitudes shape expectations and a teacher’s expec-
tations shape performance,” Niambi wrote, “This is
so true. A kid can tell if they are being treated as if
they are stupid, and many times feel they must be if a
teacher says they are.”
Our discussions on these articles and pieces of
literature spark heated debates. After reading Ro-
driguez’s “Achievement of Desire,” students argued
about the need to leave their culture and language be-
hind in order to succeed. They compared Rodriguez
to Esther in Campbell’s Brothers and Sisters—people
who move up, “act white,” and leave their culture
and their people behind. Students asked each other:
Should LaKeesha, a young mother with a desire to get
off welfare and become a bank clerk, get the job even
if she speaks “nonstandard English”? How much are
we willing to change in order to get ahead? Is speak-
ing Standard English acting white? Does everyone
have to code-switch on the job? Kesha asked, “Why
we always gotta be the ones who have to change?”
Goldie asked, “Why can’t we be the standard?” and
Masta asked, “Who made the standard? Who died
and made them the standard makers anyway?”
There are no easy answers to these questions.
Brandon argued that it was economic suicide to
think that a person who spoke nonstandard English
could make it in the marketplace without learning
the cash language. Licy defended people’s rights to
retain their home language without the social stigma.
238 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
I also nudge my students to see if any of the
characters’ lives parallel struggles they face. When
students read a book that is as foreign to their lives as
Shaw’s Pygmalion, one of the ways they can engage
in the reading is by finding similarities to their own
lives, linking Eliza Doolittle’s struggle with English
in England and the world of my student Alejandro,
who crossed the border with his grandmother and a
coyote when he was 5.
Later, when students complete critical essays
on one or more of the texts we’ve read during our
unit on the Politics of Lan-
guage, they write about their
lives as well. Alejandro and
made them the Hecmarie compared their
difficulty learning English
when they came to the states,
and the taunts they faced,
with Eliza’s endeavors to learn “proper” English. As
Alejandro wrote in his essay about Pygmalion:
When I came to this country and started
school, it was a new experience. When I ar-
rived in my classroom all the kids stared at
me. I had hair like the white kids, but I was
darker than them. I was not Black though. I
was in between.
I was constantly made fun of because of
my accent. It seemed funny to my classmates
and all the stereotypes in the cartoons would
make them say stuff to me like “Arriba! Ar-
riba!” This really aggravated me. Like Eliza,
I wanted to be respected for who I was. If it
meant changing, I was willing to do it. I had
to teach people who I was and make them re-
spect me. In the process, I had to beat up a
couple of kids. But even though I changed, I
remembered where I came from. Eliza didn’t.
Djamila and Jason discussed the difficulty of
going “home” that Eliza and Richard Rodriguez
suffer after they’ve become educated and their own
struggles to belong in two communities: Hawaiian/
mainland for Djamila and urban African American/
suburban African American for Jason. Alisha Mo-
reland described the safety of her grandmother’s
kitchen and the harsh reality of the world (see p.
240).
Using Our Lives in Essays
Creating a social justice classroom means teaching
students to read and write. But instead of asking stu-
dents to write essays that demonstrate a close read-
ing of a novel, or engaging in a literary evaluation
of the text, social justice teaching creates spaces for
students to tackle larger social issues that have ur-
gent meaning in their lives, as Alejandro discussed in
his essay about Pygmalion. In the opening to his es-
say on language and power, DeShawn demonstrates
these works can reflect the struggles some students
deal with daily. Do they have to change like Eliza in
Pygmalion in order to be accepted and to succeed?
I was born Black, raised Black, and I live Black.
But now that I have achieved a job outside the
general Blackness, some say I’m white because
of the language I choose to speak at work. Have
I put my culture behind me in order to succeed?
Kaanan Yarbrough wrote his essay to an audi-
ence of teachers. He came alive to the study of Eb-
onics and the struggles around it in Oakland, Cali-
fornia. He began to understand his problems with
spelling, grammar, and writing might have been
influenced by home language. But he also came to
see that if his teachers understood more about his
“home language” they might have helped him more.
His essay is fueled by anger that he didn’t learn his
home language earlier:
Teachers should be able to teach students Eb-
onics if they want. People need to accept it. Eb-
onics is going to be here forever. You can’t take
a whole language and get rid of it. Teachers who
don’t know about Ebonics should learn about
it so they can build better relationships with
kids. Teachers would understand what kids are
talking about when they speak Ebonics.
When I went to school, teachers didn’t
really teach me how to spell or put sentences
together right. They just said sound it out, so
I would spell it the way I heard it at home. Ev-
erybody around me at home spoke Ebonics, so
when I sounded it out, it sounded like home
and it got marked wrong. When I wrote some-
thing like, “My brother he got in trouble last
night,” I was marked wrong. Instead of show-
CHAPTER 5: THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE
ing me how speakers of Ebonics sometimes
use both a name and a pronoun but in “Stan-
dard English” only one is used, I got marked
wrong. So when my teachers graded my pa-
pers, they would either put a lot of corrections
on my papers or just give me a bad grade. They
didn’t know where I was coming from.
People are going to speak and write how
they hear things from home. Kids should be
able to get taught both, but just know when
to speak “proper” and when not to. Like
when they go to a job interview, they should
speak proper, but when they are at home, they
should speak Ebonics. Teachers should teach
kids when and where to speak Ebonics.
I feel you can’t take a part of some-
one’s history and heritage away from them.
In school they teach us about a lot of stuff
that never happened, like when they say that
Christopher Columbus discovered America.
They might as well teach kids something that’s
real, like Ebonics, and help kids out.
Teaching students to question Standard En-
glish should happen in “inner-city” schools or
schools where linguistically diverse students repre-
sent the majority of the student body, but we should
also teach students to question the “standard” in
schools where the majority of students are of Eu-
ropean descent. Students must learn to identify not
only how their own lives are affected by linguistic
imperialism in society, but also how other people’s
lives are distorted or maligned by the media and his-
torical, literary, and linguistic inaccuracy. Z
REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
Anzaldúa, Gloria. 1987. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.”
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Spinsters/Aunt Lute.
Campbell, Bebe Moore. 1994. Brothers and Sisters. Putnam.
Owen, David. 1985. None of the Above: Behind the Myth of
Scholastic Aptitude. Houghton Mifflin.
Perry, Theresa, and Lisa Delpit, eds. 1998. The Real Ebonics Debate:
Power, Language, and the Education of African-American Children.
Beacon Press.
Shaw, George Bernard. 1914. Pygmalion: A Play in Five Acts.
Penguin.
The Story of English: Black on White. Dir. William Cran. PMI/Films.
1986. DVD.
239
u SAMPLE ESSAYS
Grandma’s Kitchen
by Alisha Moreland
We gathered together in Grandma’s kitchen. We
gathered in the name of food. In Grandma’s domain
she was the director and we were the employees.
Grandma would lift her chubby hands, one on her
hip, the other in the air—“I want you to get da eggs
fo’ the co’nbread. Alisha, I want you to make the
macaroni.” We all moved and were guided by THE
HAND, Grandma’s hand. There was a melody in her
kitchen; it kept us moving. Her kitchen contained a
rhythm that made our souls dance.
“Them black-eyed peas soaked and ready to
go, Grandma.”
Grandma turned and gracefully swayed her
finger. “Put ’em in that there pot with the ham
hocks.” The kitchen soon filled with the delicious
scents of soul food. Food from our roots, food that
made being Black wonderful. Food that spoke to us.
We gathered together in the name of food. It is what
makes us Black.
Food created an environment for us to use lan-
guage unique to Grandma’s household. I could tell
when Grandma had overexerted herself. She’d wipe
beads of sweat from her brow. Her food spoke. Her
actions spoke.
Looking back on my experiences in my Grand-
ma’s kitchen, I realized how crucial they were to my
development. I am talking about the things that
constitute Blackness. My language, tongue, vernac-
ular, vocabulary were Grandma’s kitchen. Food was
the rhetoric. I know “co’n bread.” I am intimate with
“black-eyed peas.” Language went beyond vocal.
Language is complex. It is the foundation of a
culture. It dictates actions, lifestyle, social and eco-
nomic status. It is powerful. In Grandma’s kitchen
food spoke for itself. It moved us, directed us. When
Grandma spoke, she was as Black as she wanted to
be. I have seen the influence of language. Grandma’s
kitchen immersed me in it. She nurtured me in the
language common to our household.
I became aware of the authority of language
when I became independent of Grandma’s kitchen.
Outside of her kitchen, I was kicked, hit, knocked
down, cut, bruised, beaten, brutalized, and raped by
a foreign authority—Standard English. The only lan-
guage I had known was the language of Grandma’s
240 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
kitchen. But it became unacceptable when time and
age forced me to move beyond my comfort zone.
The summer of 1993, my 7th-grade year, I was
selected to go on a trip to Mt. Adams. I had only
heard of Mt. Adams on television and from white
kids whose parents were environmentalists. I was
elated. “Grandma, I’m goin’ to Mt. Adams. My
teacher picked me to go.”
“That’s good. Who you going with?”
“I guess I’m going with them kids from West
Sylvan.”1
“Well, have fun, Baby. Huh, Mt. Adams. I’ll
say.”
I left the following week. We met at the West
Sylvan campus. As soon as I arrived, I knew I was
in for a change. I observed the people I was going
to conquer Mt. Adams with. We all had one thing in
common: We were 7th graders.
I looked past the fact that all the other kids
were white. Their physical attributes didn’t concern
me. It was their social attributes that inadvertently
ostracized me.
“Hi, my name is Jennifer. What’s yours?”
“I’m Alisha.”
Jennifer flashed a smile. “I’m so excited to be
here. We get to do some cartography and examine
the nitrogen/phosphorous levels in streams.”
“I thought we was going to Mt. Adams so we
can hike.”
Jennifer corrected me, “You mean to say, ‘I
thought we were going to hike.”
Hurt and angered, I lashed back, “No, I meant
to say what I said.” Jennifer took this as a cue to dis-
miss herself from my presence.
On the long bus ride, Jennifer made fun of me
with her friends, “She talks like a dumb fool. Funny
like. Ha! Ji! Ji! Ha!”
The joke was on me. I sat by myself in the back
of the van and talked to myself, “They ain’t no bet-
ta’ than me. I’m just as good as them.” My thoughts
were my only form of encouragement.
We arrived at the mountain. The van became
saturated with “Wow!” “Awesome!” I bellowed out
the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the
snow-covered peak, “That’s tight.”
Silence fell on the van. All eyes were on me.
Jason snarled at me, “Where did you get your lan-
guage from? ‘Tight’ is not used in the proper con-
text. There is nothing ‘tight’ about the mountain.”
Anger got the better of me, and I snatched the
back of his shirt. “Don’t tell me what ain’t in context.”
“Look, Felicia, Alisha, or whatever your name
is, you can’t even speak properly. ‘Ain’t’ isn’t a word.
But you wouldn’t know this because you ‘ain’t’
smart.” The kids on the bus leveled into laughter.
I sat in the back of the van by myself. I tried to
think of something positive inside, but couldn’t find
any morsels of encouragement. Jason had managed
to steal them from me.
If they only knew. If those kids only knew that
their putdowns cut and bruised me. When they crit-
icized my speaking patterns, they were talking about
the place I rose from, the only place I knew. They
were reprimanding Grandma’s kitchen, the corn-
bread and black-eyed peas of my home. They were
telling me that the love and nurturing I received
wasn’t good enough. Grandma’s kitchen language
was love and compassion. According to these kids,
my foundation was cracked and unsturdy.
Grandma used the word “ain’t” all the time.
The word flowed out of her mouth as smooth as wa-
ter sliding over rocks. Now the word had become
tainted.
I am from Grandma’s kitchen. Jason and his
friends temporarily broke me. Through the cracks I
learned an uncharitable lesson: The way you speak
dictates who you are. That means you can be as ar-
ticulate as Bill Clinton or Ron Herndon2 and have
no substance.
I may not have been able to articulate ideas in
Standard English in 7th grade, but I had substance.
I knew love, compassion, giving, and caring. Grand-
ma’s love, time, and commitment gave me substance.
I have learned to speak and write Standard English,
but I must tell you I would choose substance over
Standard English any day.
Grandma’s kitchen is the reason I am here. Her
language recipe will be a part of every kitchen I’m
in. It’s what I know and love.
1
West Sylvan Middle School is a predominately white school that
mostly draws from a wealthy West Hills neighborhood in Portland,
Oregon.
2
Ron Herndon was the leader of Portland’s Black United Front and
a strong, vocal advocate for school equity.
CHAPTER 5: THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE
Finding the Inside
by Mira Shimabukuro
“When you go to China” I told her, “you don’t
even need to open your mouth. They already
know you are an outsider … They know just
watching the way you walk, the way you carry
your face. They know you do not belong.”
My daughter did not look pleased when
I told her this, that she did not look Chi-
nese. Oh, maybe 10 years ago she would have
clapped her hands—hurray—as if this were
good news. But now she wants to be Chinese,
it is so fashionable. How can she think she can
blend in? Only her skin and her hair are Chi-
nese. Inside, she is all American.
—Lindo Jong, in The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
When I was in 7th grade, being ethnic was the
thing to do. My dad is Okinawan, born in Hawaii,
and that year I let everyone know my Asian-ness.
Sushi was in, and I boasted about my father’s sea-
weed rolls, which would show up in my lunches on
occasion. I ate with chopsticks wherever I could, de-
nouncing the forks I was handed in Chinese restau-
rants I patroned with my Caucasian mother. When
a friend came in one day wearing a hapi coat and
asked me what the characters meant on the back, I
quietly said I did not remember, kicking myself un-
der the table for not keeping up with my Japanese
lessons.
That summer I went to Hawaii to visit numer-
ous relatives and people who I was sure I shared
blood with even though I had no idea how. If I asked
dad, it took half an hour for him to remember and
then another half an hour for him to explain it to me
so that I could even begin to understand. All his rel-
atives were close—even fourth cousins by marriage.
We stayed with Shi-chan auntie on Maui.
There I met my twin third cousins, Stacy and Tra-
cy Okohama. They were a year older than I, but we
ended up spending all of our time together. We went
to the beach, helped auntie make rice crackers and
kimpira and went on long drives in the back of my
second cousin’s pickup. On one of those evenings I
learned what Lindo Jong had tried to explain to her
daughter.
It was a beautiful night. Sunsets in Hawaii can’t
241
be beat and the black-orange sky proved to be no ex- ly seen under the layers of leis on their shoulders.
ception. We were coming back from a visit to Auntie They are happy, seemingly breathless that they have
Sue’s pineapple farm where she had shown me how made it. I know they are not thinking of that night
to tell when the pineapple is ready for picking. Sta- as I am now.
cy and Tracy were discussing where different cities The wedding photographer calls us over. It is
were on the mainland when they suddenly slipped time for the big family photo. I scoot in next to dad
into words I couldn’t understand. and put my arm around him. Behind me, Auntie
“Where you stay now, Mira, eh?” Stacy nodded Sue, Shi-chan, and all the others crowd in. I am most
at me. certainly not the Hawaiian expert now. The genera-
“With Auntie, you know that.” tions surround me, half-Pidgin, half-mainland. Say
“No where you stay now?” she repeated. Tracy cheese, he says behind the camera and we do. It is
started to giggle. now that I see what part of me is Asian, what part
“What do you mean?” comes from Hawaii. It is too obvious. It is my family.
“She don’t understand, Stace,” Tracy laughed. It is in our blood. I now can let go of that night.
“Come on, tell me.”
“You no speak Pidgin?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Is that like
eakingspay-isthay-ayway?”
Tracy and Stacy howled, rolling around in the
truck.
“What you say? No dat’s Pig Latin,” they said
trying to sit up.
They decided to speak heavy Pidgin the rest
of the night. Shi-chan auntie would give them the
old “stink-eye,” as they called it, but they kept on
anyway. When my dad was in the room, he giggled
at their words and my other cousins would try to
smother their laughs. I alone could not understand.
And they knew. At home I had paraded around in
front of my friends. The Hawaiian expert. It was in
my blood, and to me that counted. I had lived on the
mainland all my life and my cousins knew this, even
before we met, but tonight they felt it and so did I.
Later in The Joy Luck Club, Jing-Mei Woo talks
about visiting family in China. As a child, she had
thought of herself as Caucasian and all her friends
agreed. She thinks back to her mom, so different
from Lindo, and her words. “Someday you will see,”
said her mother. “It is in your blood, waiting to be
let go.”
Not until Jing-Mei meets her half sisters does
she understand.
“And I now see what part of me is Chinese. It is
so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood. After
all these years, it can finally be let go.”
I’m now standing at my father’s wedding re-
ception. Shi-chan auntie is showing me photos of
Stacy and Tracy’s graduation. Their smiles are bare-

242 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 Celebrating Student Voice
Lawson Inada’s “Rayford’s Song”

L
awson Inada, a Japa-
nese American poet and
professor of literature
at Southern Oregon State Col-
lege, came to my Literature and
U.S. History class one year. His
visit was one of those lucky cir-
cumstances: The class was in the
middle of a unit on the history of
education and one of the poems
he pulled from his book, Legends
from Camp, was about a class-
room experience. When Lawson
read “Rayford’s Song” (see p. 246),
Bill Bigelow and I realized it was
an opportunity for students to
remember and explore their own
history as students.
In “Rayford’s Song,” Inada re-
membered one of his classrooms FAVIANNA RODRIGUEZ
in the 1930s in Fresno, a town in
California’s San Joaquin Valley where many people in the room was our teacher. Our textbooks had
of African, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, and Mexican pictures and stories about white kids named Dick
descent worked in the fields and canneries. “Our and Jane and their dog, Spot. And the songs in our
classroom was filled with shades of brown,” he re- songbooks were about ‘Susanna coming ’round the
called. “Our names were Rayford Butler, Consuela mountain’ and English gardens—songs we never
and Pedro Gonzales, Susie Chin, and Sam Shima- heard in our neighborhood.”
bukuro. We were a mixture. The only white person Some of the songs mentioned in the poem may

CHAPTER 5: THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE 243

 not be familiar to today’s students—for example,
“Old Black Joe,” a Stephen Foster song written in the
mid-1800s that attempts to create nostalgic memo-
ries of the days of slavery.
“Rayford’s Song” arouses strong emotions in
students because it speaks to how schools some-
Lawson Inada
times dampen our hopes and expectations. Many of
us have experienced the loss of our voices, our songs,
our stories as we travel through schools. We’ve been
told that we are not important, our people are not
worth studying, or our language is “wrong.” Inada’s
poem dares to speak about that silencing:
Our songs, our songs were there—
on tips of tongues, but stuck
in throats—songs of love,
fun, animals, and valor, songs
of other lands, in other languages,
but they just wouldn’t come out.
Where did our voices go?
Teaching Strategy
1. I begin this lesson with a technique I call “text
rendering.” After we’ve read Inada’s poem out loud,
I ask students to re-read the poem and underline the
words, lines, or phrases that strike them for some
244 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
reason—perhaps because they seem important to
the poem, students like the sound, or a line relates to
something in their lives: e.g., “Where did our voices
go? … I must correct you … One song, one voice.”
2. Once students have located lines and phrases, I
tell them that we are going to cre-
ate an oral group poem with the
words, phrases, or lines they’ve se-
lected. “Here’s how this works: You
are going to say your line or phrase
when there is a pause. Think about
how songs and poems work with
repeating lines, repeating words,
even an echo. For example, I might
keep saying, ‘Where did our voic-
es go’ throughout our oral poem.
There might be some awkward mo-
ments when two voices collide in
the middle of the room. That’s OK.
The big idea is to bring key words
from the poem alive in the room.”
3. Sometimes I have students begin
singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”
as background to the poem—or I
play a recording of the song softly
while we echo the lines of the poem.
4. I encourage students to call out lines or words to
form the new poem, in what might be described as
the literary equivalent of an improvisational musi-
cal composition. To model this, I sometimes invite
eight or 10 students to come in front of the room
and experiment as an example. Sometimes it takes a
few times to get this going. As students re-read lines
from the poem, they come to new understandings
about the piece.
5. After our oral poem, I ask students to write for
five minutes about the poem. “Just take a few min-
utes to describe how the poem made you feel, your
reactions to the poem, or perhaps some memories
that the poem evoked for you. There are no wrong
answers.”
6. When students are finished writing reflec-
tions, I begin a discussion. “You can read your re-
sponse to the poem or you can just talk from your 11. After students listen to their classmates’ pieces,
notes. I’d like to hear your thoughts, reactions, and I say, “Review your notes. Think about the stories
memories.” and poems you’ve heard and write a paragraph or
two on the ideas that emerged from the stories. See
7. We move on to writing by referring back to if you can find a common thread. You might want to
“Rayford’s Song.” “In this poem, Inada speaks of mention specific people’s poems or stories.”
schools silencing students, but he also speaks more
broadly about whose lives are included in the cur- As students listen to the personal stories of
riculum and whose are excluded. This is an event their classmates, they can learn to read our society.
from his life that he witnessed. I want you to think The silencing and marginalization of the history and
about times when you witnessed literature of people of color
or experienced the silencing of and women presents an ongo-
someone’s voice. You might also Many of us have ing problem in many schools.
write about times when you felt experienced the loss of This continued silencing can
your history was silenced or left be evidenced in contemporary
our voices, our songs,
out of the classroom.” school reading lists and sylla-
our stories as we travel bi and in the individual and
8. At this point, I tell a few through schools. shared experiences of students
stories of my own. For exam- like Rayford in Inada’s poem
ple, my 9th-grade teacher made and Masta Davis and others
me stand and asked me to conjugate verbs or pro- who peopled my classroom over the years. My hope
nounce words as an example of how not to talk. I is by teaching students to read their “collective text,”
tell students that when I was growing up, we never they discover that they are not alone in feeling invis-
saw or heard women in the curriculum—no histo- ible in the curriculum, and they see their absence as
ry or literature from a women’s perspective. I also a call for action. Z
tell them the story of my junior English teacher, Ms.
Carr, who broke that tradition. “You can write about
the silencing or the breaking of the silence. Just be- REFERENCES AND RESOURCES

gin by making a list.” Inada, Lawson, 1993. Legends from Camp. Coffee House Press.

9. After students list times when their voices were

silenced or included, or when they felt their history
or stories were silenced or left out of the classroom,
we share a few ideas to help others who haven’t lo-
cated their memories. “You can write this as a story
or as a poem.”

10. We finish with a technique that Bill Bigelow, my

co-teacher, and I call “reading the collective text.” As
students read their pieces out loud to the class, I ask
them to take notes as they listen to their classmates’
papers. I point to the blackboard where I’ve written:
“Collect evidence as you listen. How did your class-
mates feel about being silenced? Who was silenced?
Who silenced them? How did they respond?” (See
p. 15 for details on using the read-around as a teach-
ing strategy.)

CHAPTER 5: THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE 245

Rayford’s Song Pause. Classroom, school, schoolyard,
by Lawson Inada neighborhood, the whole world
focusing on that one song, one voice
Rayford’s song was Rayford’s song, which had a light to it, making even
but it was not his alone, to own. Miss Gordon’s white hair shine
in the glory of it, glowing
He had it, though, and kept it to himself in the radiance of the song.
as we rowed-rowed-rowed the boat
through English country gardens Pause. Rayford Butler sat down.
with all the whispering hope And while the rest of us
we could muster, along with occasional may have been spellbound,
choruses of funiculi-funicula! on Miss Gordon’s face
was something like a smile,
Weren’t we a cheery lot— or perhaps a frown:
comin’ ’round the mountain
with Susanna, banjos on our knees, “Very good, Rayford.
rompin’ through the leaves However, I must correct you:
of the third-grade music textbook. the word is ‘chariot.’
‘Chariot.’ And there is no
Then Rayford Butler raised his hand. such thing as a ‘chario.’
For the first time, actually, Do you understand me?”
in all the weeks he had been in class,
and for the only time before he’d leave. “But Miss Gordon … ”
Yes, quiet Rayford, silent Rayford,
little Rayford, dark Rayford— “I said ‘chariot, chariot.’
always in the same overalls— Can you pronounce that for me?”
that Rayford, Rayford Butler, raised his hand:
“Yes, Miss Gordon. Chariot.”
“Miss Gordon, ma’am—
we always singing your songs. “Very good, Rayford,
Now, class, before we return
Could I sing one of my own?” to our book, would anyone else
Pause. We looked at one another; care to sing a song of their own?”
we looked at Rayford Butler;
we looked up at Miss Gordon, who said: Our songs, our songs were there—
on tips of tongues, but stuck
“Well, I suppose so, Rayford— in throats—songs of love,
if you insist. Go ahead. fun, animals, and valor, songs
Just one song. Make it short.” of other lands, in other languages,
but they just wouldn’t come out.
And Rayford Butler stood up very straight, Where did our voices go?
and in his high voice, sang: Rayford’s song was Rayford’s song,
but it was not his alone to own.
“Suh-whing a-looow
suh-wheeeet ah charr-ee-oohh, “Well, then, class—
ah-comin’ for to carr-ee let’s turn our books to
meee ah-hooooome … ” ‘Old Black Joe.’”
“Rayford’s Song” appears in Legends from Camp. Coffee House Press, 1993. Reprinted courtesy of the author.

246 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

u SAMPLE POEMS

Hey! Go Boy!
by Thieson Nguyen

Hey! Go boy!
Don’t let people disrespect you.
When I can’t read I feel sad too.
They make fun about mistakes
The pronunciation that I shouldn’t make.
But what else can I do?
When I started English later than you.
Hey! Go boy!
Just try your best.
Ode to Spanish
by Sarah Scofield

A language
As beautiful as music:
Melodious verbs
Harmonious adjectives
Rhythmic nouns
Intertwine as I speak
An orchestra of words
Conducted by my tongue
I compose
A new song
As those around me listen
Musical sentences
Rich with the notes
Of culture
A romance language
Stirring the hearts
Of its listeners
The music plays on
As I watch with wonder how
My untrained yet experienced tongue
conducts the orchestra
and the music pleases me

CHAPTER 5: THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE 247

 “Accents”
We Don’t Need to Hush

“A
ccents” is a love
song to Denice
Frohman’s Puer-
to Rican mother, a tribute to
a woman whom society might
overlook or marginalize, but
whom Frohman raises up. I
use this wild ride of a poem
(see p. 252 for full text) mul-
tiple times in multiple ways
throughout the year. This
praise poem helps me initi-
ate discussions about iden-
tity and accents as I launch
my language study unit. With
this poem, I make clear my
stance that people have the
right to their own languages.
Frohman weaves her moth-
er’s cadence and pronuncia-
tion like a ribbon through the
poem, demanding respect for
her mother’s accent and giving
others the courage to speak up
as well. Because this poem is a
tribute to Frohman’s mother, I
SHARVON URBANNAVAGE
Denice Frohman

248 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

use it as a model for praising or talking back to a
society that marginalizes or belittles people because
of their accent, skin tone, sexual orientation, size, or
social class. In addition, Frohman’s rapid-fire lines
and deft handling of imagery, word choice, similes,
and metaphors work as a literary guide for how to
write poetry.
In an interview with Frohman, I asked her if
there was a story connected to the writing of the
poem, an incident that triggered it.
She answered:
I was visiting my mom in New York City and
she was talking loudly in Spanish to a friend
on the phone as she had always done when
I was growing up. I was staying in my child-
hood bedroom, just listening to her talk, and
it made me think about all the times her voice
had been invalidated by those
who treated English as a more
legitimate language. Most of “I wanted to undo
the poem was written during perception that having
the duration of her phone call, an accent was ugly or
which maybe lasted 20 min-
utes. I wanted to create some-
‘un-American.’”
thing that celebrated her and
challenged the hierarchies
of language that puts English at the top and
every other language at the bottom. I wanted
to undo the perception that having an accent
was ugly or “un-American.”
I use this story with students to demonstrate
how poetry is birthed, but also because Frohman’s
stance about challenging the hierarchies of language
—and using home language to talk back to those
rankings—is a key piece of my language unit.
In my first teaching of “Accents,” I learned a
hard lesson. I tried to focus specifically on languag-
es. But it was just too narrow; even students who had
stories about their languages being targeted had oth-
er things that were on their minds. When I stepped
back and looked at “Accents” in a wider context, I
realized that Frohman honored her mother through
the poem—certainly in celebrating her accent, but
also in showing her defiance, her unwillingness to
change who she is to gain acceptance. And it was this
larger message that students tapped into:
there is no telling my mama to be “quiet,”
she don’t know “quiet.”
her voice is one size better fit all
and you best not tell her to hush,
she waited too many years for her voice to
arrive
to be told it needed house keeping.
Poetry stirs the imagination and soul; some-
times students write about content that matches the
curriculum and sometimes they don’t. When I try to
force everyone to write about a particular topic, I get
bad poetry. Opening up to a larger context makes
room for students to share their joy and pain and
anger about topics close to their hearts.
During a workshop with Jefferson teacher
Andy Kulak’s sophomore class, I started the lesson
by talking about this refusal to
hush. “Today we are going to
the write love poems to someone
or something who needs to
know how wonderful they are.
Perhaps this might be someone
who has stood up and talked
back—or who needs to. First,
we’re going to watch Denice
Frohman perform her poem. The first time we watch,
I want her language to wash over you. Just listen.” I
haven’t met a student or teacher yet who hasn’t fall-
en in love with Frohman’s poem and performance.
She is sassy. She involves the audience. The second
time I cued the performance, I told students, “This
time, I want you to follow along with the words on
your handout. Make some kind of mark where you
love something in the poem.” After listening to the
poem a second time, I asked students to talk about
what stood out for them in the poem.
Nehemiah said, “I like that part where she re-
peated ‘too much.’” I asked him to read the part out
loud:
it got too much hip
too much bone
too much conga
too much cuatro
to two step
got too many piano keys
CHAPTER 5: THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE 249
 it got too much clave
too much hand clap
got too much salsa to sit still
“So why do you like that part?” I asked.
“The repetition of ‘too much’ creates a rhythm.”
“Exactly. I’m going to write that on the board
because when you write your poems, you might try
to insert a couple of words to create that rhythm
with repetition. It could be ‘too much,’ but it might
also be ‘I miss,’ or ‘I love,’ or some other short re-
peating phrase. Now I want you to return to the
poem and annotate it. Good writers teach us how to
be better writers. Go back through Frohman’s poem
and notice what you like about the poem, what you
think is effective.”
Kulak’s class was a slice of heaven, where stu-
dents felt significant, respected, and smart, so they
bent their heads over their papers and began mak-
ing notes in the margins of their poems.
When I asked students to talk about what they
noticed in the poem, Noah opened the discussion
by talking about the first line of the poem. He said,
“You can tell that she is a no-nonsense kind of wom-
an by the first line when she says, ‘my mom holds
her accent like a shotgun.’”
“Great observation. What other images or
comparisons does Frohman use to show us what
250 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
her mom is like?”
Students noted the “brass knuckles” and
“there’s no telling my mama to be quiet.”
Aurora said, “I like where she talks about
stretching her lips around English. Spanish is like
music, the language dances, feels free, but English
feels right or wrong. Like a straight chair.”
Leni liked the part where Frohman said, “my
mama doesn’t say ‘yes’/she says, ‘ah ha’/and sudden-
ly the sky in her mouth becomes a Héctor Lavoe
song.”
“Do you know a Héctor Lavoe song?” I asked.
No one did. Neither did I, but we decided we knew
that it must be beautiful and
open, like the sky. After stu-
dents discussed both the
poem and the performance, I
asked, “Why do you think she
wrote a praise poem for her
mother’s accent?”
Aurora was the first to
respond, “People are hated
because of their accents. My
family is from New Mexico
and they have endured a lot
of hatred and abuse because
of their language.”
“So sometimes we need
to praise what others put
down,” I said. “To find the
beauty and sing about it,
JOHANNA AUSTIN
right? Sometimes we need to
raise up our language. Some-
times we need to raise up our hair, the size of our
hips or lips or noses. Sometimes we need to raise
up people who society has humiliated or who have
known hard times. Sometimes we need to stand up
and talk back. Let’s start working on your poems.
Take out a piece of paper and write a list of people,
places, or things that need some love. I might write
about my mother because she kept the family to-
gether when my father went out drinking and spent
what little money we had. I might write about Jeffer-
son because the press and people who don’t know
the school put it down.”
I paused to give students time to jot down
some names. When I spotted a few silent pencils, I
asked, “Who has some ideas?”
 Nylee wanted to praise her grandfather and completed the poem. Those who finish early often
grandmother who emigrated from Ireland. Nehe- light the way for those who feel stuck.
miah decided to write about his great-grandmother, A few students read their poems before the pe-
“the only white person in our family, and she has no riod ended. While some wrote about language, many
filter on her. I love to hear her talk.” Aurora thought wrote the pieces they needed to write in Kulak’s safe
she might write about her father’s family in New harbor of a room: Rowyn wrote a praise poem for
Mexico. Another young woman told me that she her LGBTQ community, and Aurora wrote about
wanted to write about her mother because she was victims of rape in times of Trump; Tariq’s piece talk-
always putting herself down and didn’t know how ed about owning his own identity—how he refuses
wonderful she was. to give up wearing sagging
Once students had a list When a young person steps pants or using double nega-
of people or places to write tives instead of conforming
about, I asked them to return
onto the classroom stage, to how others want him to
to the poem and notice all paper in hand, and stands sound or act or dress.
of the things that Frohman before their peers, reading At moments like these,
praised about her mother: when a young person steps
with a sometimes shaky
her accent, lips, hips, tongue, onto the classroom stage,
pronunciation, words. “Now, voice, I know that I have the paper in hand, and stands
make a list about your topic. best job in the world. before their peers, reading
Can someone help me with with a sometimes shaky
an example?” voice, I know that I have the
Nylee raised her hand, “My grandfather’s red best job in the world. Because when Rowyn reads
hair, his sayings, music, dancing, and stories.” I their poem praising gay, bisexual, and transgender
wrote the list on the board next to Nylee’s grand- people, I know that the classroom is the place for
father. “Great. Now everyone make a list. We are radical transformation, a place where students can
almost ready to write. And don’t worry if you can’t throw their broken hearts on the classroom table,
think of too many things; sometimes they come and find love and acceptance. Z
while you are writing.”
After a few minutes, I returned students’ atten-
tion to the poem. “Frohman teaches us some poetic
tricks you might want to try in your poem. Nehemi-
ah noticed her use of repetition to create a rhythm.
Remember sometimes the repetition of two words
like ‘too much’ or ‘I believe’ can create that rhythm,
so try it out. Also, many of you noticed her compar-
isons—her use of similes and metaphors: ‘my mom
holds her accent like a shotgun,’ ‘her voice is one size
better fit all.’ So I would like you to try to use a series
of similes and metaphors in your poem. If you get
stuck, you might want to return to the poem—may-
be even borrow a couple of words or phrases from
Frohman to get you unstuck. Or you might drop
down and start a new stanza.”
Once students settled in to write, I circulated
around the room, stopping to talk with students
who seemed stuck, reading a few stanzas of those
whose pens rolled across the paper. I wanted them
to share before the period ended, even if they hadn’t

CHAPTER 5: THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE 251

Accents
by Denice Frohman

my mom holds her accent like a shotgun, it got too much hip
with two good hands too much bone
too much conga
her tongue, all brass knuckle too much cuatro
slipping in between her lips to two step
her hips, all laughter and wind clap got too many piano keys
in between her teeth,
she speaks a sanchocho of spanish and english, it got too much clave
pushing up and against one another, in rapid fire too much hand clap
got too much salsa to sit still
there is no telling my mama to be “quiet,”
my mama don’t know “quiet” it be an anxious child wanting to
make Play-Doh out of concrete
her voice is one size english be too neat for
better fit all her kind of wonderful
and you best not tell her to hush,
she waited too many years for her voice her words spill in conversation
to arrive to be told it needed house keeping. between women whose hands are all they got,
sometimes our hands are all we got,
english sits in her mouth remixed and accents remind us that we are still
so “strawberry” becomes “eh-strawbeddy” bomba, still plena
and “cookie” becomes “eh-cookie”
and kitchen, key chain, and chicken say “wepa!”
all sound the same. and a stranger becomes your hermano,
say “dale!”
my mama doesn’t say “yes” and a crowd becomes a family reunion.
she says, “ah ha”
and suddenly my mama’s tongue is a telegram from her mother
the sky in her mouth decorated with the coqui’s of el campo,
becomes Héctor Lavoe song
so even though her lips can barely
her tongue stretch themselves around english,
can’t lay itself down her accent
flat enough is a stubborn compass
for the english language, always pointing her
towards home …

“Accents” appears in Narrative Northeast, vol 3. Reprinted courtesy of the author.

252 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

u SAMPLE POEMS

Language Poem plaguing our thoughts

by Cang Dao We keep our secret
for if we speak up
People don’t know how we will hear the same things
I feel when they say, that others heard before
“You can’t talk like us.” “It’s your fault”
The words hurt me more than “They couldn’t control themselves”
it hurts them to say. “What do you expect? Look at their clothes”
Our lives were torn apart.
I’m getting an attitude. Our clothing was torn off.
Too many jokes. And our innocence torn away.
I cannot accept it. Someone took our feeling of security,
What’s wrong about me of feeling safe
that I may not be accepted by them? We are jumpy
Is it the way I look or We are scared
the way I talk? We are scarred
We pay the price
How many languages They will never be locked up for life
can you speak? In prison for three months
I speak four. then free to do it all again
We were not brought into this world
Is there something you to have our bodies taken and used for someone else
want from me? The strength
My beautiful brown eyes or The struggle
my lovely skin? The fear all remain
Don’t get jealous. years after the event took place
because that is what it does
I’m here to share with you People laugh at triggers
my knowledge, and joke about rape
but I am not here for you and think that it’s okay
to make fun of me. because it hasn’t happened to them
But it could
Like a newspaper that can But it might
show words but not voice So when society acts
people just don’t know how like it’s okay
I feel. when the goddamn president
of the united states
............................................................. gets away

When you ignore the cries for help

Victims When you ignore the tears from pain
by Aurora Mendez When you say that it was the victim’s fault
You have helped someone get away with rape
We stand even though we were pushed down You ruined a life just as much as the one who acted
Held to the ground You are as dangerous as an attacker
And hands covered our mouths
We continue to live,
but with more silence and destruction

CHAPTER 5: THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE 253

Praise Poem
by Rowyn Frederick
We stay determined,
never giving up,
even after years of living
under oppression and ignorance.
We are hated for who we are,
how we express ourselves,
and who we were born loving.
We are seen as invalid by people
who refuse to try and understand us.
People tell us it’s a choice,
or that we’re looking for attention,
or that “you’ll find a nice boy soon.”
But we are able to stay together,
and accept each other.
We find power in our own community.
We always get right back up
after we’ve been pushed down.
To us, it doesn’t matter who you are,
or who you love,
or how you express yourself
It just matters that you are human
We stay together,
Even after the hatred thrown at us,
The violence some of us have to endure,
The taunting and the insults.
They are still able to stay strong
and keep moving forward
They are understanding
They are accepting
They are gay
They are bisexual
They are transgender
I am queer
254 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
Madre
by Monica Vargas
My mother sometimes forgets how beautiful
she is no matter how many wrinkles and gray hairs she has,
so I ask her,
“What is the beauty inside of me?”
She says,
“Mija, you have the beauty of a mestiza.
Latina you are, but don’t mistake it as a chola.
Your brown hands reflect the rough skin
your ancestors grew from the field they worked,
the hot sun they carried behind their backs,
to put food on the table.
Mija. You have the beauty of sadness
inside of when I kissed my father, your grandfather,
for the last time before he passed
with lagrimas in my face,
all because of that “American Dream.”
Princess, I used to call you with that crown you always wore,
and it’s true, you have royal blood inside of you from your
Tarazco tribe with pure gold written in your name.
Chicana you are, but more like a gringa you act,
just don’t forget about your indigenous national anthem,
I’m sorry, Mija, for teaching you rock and roll.
You have the beauty of a Spanish woman
strong, dark, and proud.
Your brown eyes show a dark beauty filled with triumph.
Mija, I raised you here in this stolen land
so you can have a better life.
You have a tough heart for all that
blood, sweat, and tears your esclavo ancestors carried.
Now every wrinkle and gray hair that shows up more
each day is another beauty that you’ll see someday,
but not today,
yet it reminds you.
Te acordaras de mi,
when I’m gone.
Chapter 6

Creating a Vision
of Possibility

A
t the heart of social justice teaching is an
effort to reorient the curriculum in large
and small ways—by examining history
from diverse perspectives, by bringing marginalized
and silenced voices into the study of literature, and
also by helping students rethink who belongs in col-
lege. So when my students bump up against their
perception of who is “college material” and who
isn’t, my job is to use the everyday details from their
lives to teach them to see their brilliance and their
capacity to learn.
Some of my junior and senior students count
themselves out of college because they lack the typ-
ical credentials like high scores on SATs, a strong
GPA, and advanced classes. The repeated litany
from counselors and teachers of what it takes to suc-
ceed in college creates a hierarchy of experience that
teaches some kids to dismiss or devalue the aspects
of their own academic lives that don’t align with the
common view of who should attend college.
CHAPTER 6: CREATING A VISION OF POSSIBILITY
Passion Counts
The “I Love” Essay
ALAURA SEIDL
At Jefferson High School, real life intrudes into
many of the students’ school lives, interrupting their
attendance as well as their ability to concentrate and
deliver homework. One student’s family was evict-
ed; they lived in a car, then a campground. Another
student’s parents both lost their jobs, so he had to
drop a couple of classes and start working at a fast-
food restaurant to help his family. But even students
without these extreme circumstances have per-
formed poorly in school for myriad other reasons:
They didn’t see themselves in the curriculum; they
were bored by content that didn’t seem relevant;
they had other passions that they cared more about.
Before they write essays convincing admis-
sions officers to accept them into college, students
need to uncover and believe in their own capacity,
to understand that when they are guided by their
interests and passions, they exhibit the kind of cu-
riosity and attention to detail that leads to success.
When they are in places that feel like home—the
257
basketball court or the mock trial court, the dance
or art studio, the poetry stage—they exhibit amaz-
ing ability to focus and persevere, to practice and
rehearse, to harness their attention in ways that will
serve them in college or any other pursuit. They
need to be taught how their success in these areas
can demonstrate their success in others.
To help students story their lives so that schol-
arship committees can see the person behind the
statistics, I introduce them to Andrew Kafoury, a
Jefferson student who graduated many years ago.
Andrew was an exceptionally talented actor whose
grade point average didn’t match his stage presence,
his nimble-witted brilliance during class discus-
sions, or his ability to write across genres in ways
that either convinced us or made us laugh.
During a unit on college application essays,
Andrew wrote a passionate piece to gain accep-
tance into a college known for its theater program.
He used an unconventional
approach: He structured his
essay as a letter addressing
the head of the program. He
opened with a couple of para-
graphs describing his first
memory in the theater. Then,
in a brief paragraph he listed
what he wasn’t good at—the
list was long. In the center of
his essay, Andrew detailed the
reasons he loved acting. These paragraphs created
a verse poem with a specificity of language about
theater that sweeps the reader up in his passion, his
knowledge of the stage, and his willingness to play
any role. His essay ended with his current work and
his future dreams (see p. 263).
At first, I wasn’t sure if Andrew’s letter would
work as a model for college essays because so many
prompts today are bound to the common applica-
tion. But students found ways to weave parts, if not
all, of their essays into those prompts. I was also
concerned that students’ love of basketball, softball,
dance, or music wouldn’t translate into an essay that
showcased their academic prowess. But from read-
ing their papers, I discovered that a passion and the
willingness to pursue it demonstrate a student’s per-
severance and focus. Their essays reveal the dogged
determination that gets them up for a 5 a.m. prac-
258 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
tice, makes them choose rehearsals over hanging
out, teaches them how to harness time, and shows
that sometimes hard work overcomes perceived lack
of talent.
What Do You Love?
I break my own tradition of teaching essay writing
and start with the middle piece—in which Andrew
talks about his passion for acting—before examining
the whole essay. There is no set order for teaching
or writing an essay as the paragraphs are moveable
parts, but I love the wild ride of Andrew’s “I love
theater” section, and I want students to capture their
own passion. Here is the first of two paragraphs in
that section:
I love acting. I love putting on costumes and
becoming creatures I am not. I love my skin
sweating as bright lights send heat soaking
through my body. I love getting to know my
cast, watching the drama behind the drama. I
love the quick change, the blackout, the dry ice,
and stage combat. I love cranky stage managers
and quiet co-stars. I love watching ego-stricken
actors fall into decline while a new face emerg-
es from the shadows. I love the monster special
effects that steal the show, and that oh-so-pre-
cious moment when you, the actor, send the
audience head over heels with laughter. I love
the call sheet with my name on it, and the di-
rector who calls to say I’m perfect for the part. I
love the shows that I wish would go on forever
and even the ones I can’t stand till they’re over.
I love sitting backstage, exhausted from the
matinee, and knowing in another two hours
I’ll go out there and do it again. I love to play
the bad guy, and I love getting that killer role
I’ve always wanted. Hell, I love it when they
toss a spear in my hand and say, “Go stand
in the corner.” I love classical and contem-
porary, tragedy and comedy, romance and
swashbuckling! I live for the moment when I
run onstage for curtain call and the applause
gets just a little bit louder. I love the smooth
feeling of steady memorization, and those in-
tense moments when something unexpected
happens, like an actor not showing up two
 minutes before curtain, so the stage hands
have to make a split-second decision because,
damn it, man, the show must go on.
I begin by reading the two paragraphs of this
section out loud to students (see p. 263 for full es-
say). I ask them to think about what they learn about
Andrew here. I get students into small groups and
tell them to imagine that they are admissions officers
for College of Santa Fe. “Why would you accept him
or reject him from your college? What does Andrew
know about theater? What strengths does he show
us about his character?”
Students get the idea that his vocabulary is de-
tailed. He knows how to write. Sometimes students
argue about whether the repetition of “I love” is ef-
fective or overdone. Keisha says, “He knows about
kinds of plays, like where he says ‘classical and
contemporary, tragedy and comedy, romance and
swashbuckling.’” Kalisha points out that he knows
how plays work. “You can tell because he talks about
memorizing lines, lights, call sheets, curtain calls.”
Daniel notes that Andrew is a team player. “He
didn’t list all of the main characters he’s played. He
makes it clear that he would take any role to be part
of the play.”
Salim raises his hand. “I’ve been taking this
psychology class at the community college, and we
learned about the hero’s journey. This essay reminds
me of the hero’s journey. See how he tells the story
of his journey to his passion? He starts out learning
about theater at a young age and he pursues it, tak-
ing classes, getting in shows. Now he wants to study
it in college.”
If a student doesn’t make the following point,
I do: “There’s no presentation of Andrew’s acting
credits; instead he shows that his commitment to
theater is bigger than getting the lead—it’s to making
live theater happen.”
Lists Become Poetry
I ask students to create a list of things they love. “Put
down as many items as you can—skateboarding,
singing in the choir, playing basketball, fishing on
the Wilson River.” I make my own list on the board:
hiking, teaching, reading, writing poetry, and gar-
dening. I ask a few students to share.
After I walk around and see that most of them
CHAPTER 6: CREATING A VISION OF POSSIBILITY
have 10 or more items on their list, I say, “Share
your lists with a small group. If someone mentioned
something that you forgot on your list, add it. Then
choose one thing from your list to write about. If
you discover you don’t have enough to write, go
back to another item on your list.”
I return to the board. “One of the things you
noticed in Andrew’s essay is that we could tell that
he knew a lot about theater because he knew the vo-
cabulary. I’m going to show you that I know a lot
about hiking by listing nouns and verbs about my
passion.” On the board, I have already listed names
of trails my husband and I explore: Bear Valley, Sky
Trail, Boynton Canyon, Wildwood, and Chimney
Rock. I add names of parks, rivers, oceans, canyons,
and the birds and trees we glimpse along the way.
I list supplies—boots, water bottle, pack, lunch,
chocolate. I ask students to help me. “What else do I
need?” “Snacks, map, first aid kit, toilet paper.”
Then I add verbs: “stumble,” “perch,” “thread.”
“Your verbs are where you can play around. I could
just say ‘walk’ or ‘stumble’ and be done, but I want to
expand that list by putting in more verbs. I don’t just
walk. Sometimes we stop and sit, but there’s usual-
ly not a chair in the woods, so we perch on a rock
or fallen log. I can use the word ‘thread’ to describe
how we walk through trees.”
Students write their own lists of nouns and
verbs. I encourage them to get at least 10 of each.
Then I partner them up and tell them, “Listen to
your partner. Add to their lists. Your job is to coach
and challenge them to ex-
pand their lists.” We share
a few of these back in the
larger class.
We return to Andrew’s
two “I love” paragraphs. I
want students to notice how
he uses lists, how he balanc-
es adjective and noun com-
binations. For example, one
of my favorite sentences is
“I love the quick change, the blackout, the dry ice,
and stage combat.” The adjective/noun repetition
provides a rhythm in the paragraph. We re-read the
paragraphs. Later, we will dissect some of the sen-
tences to see how they work, but at this point, I want
them to get the rhythm in their ear, to write with
259
that music in their pens. Too much analysis of the pulling off in darkness, anticipating a new
construction too early keeps them from writing at landscape, starting my day with unexpected
breakneck speed on their own topic. beauty: frost-covered dirt fields, shimmering
“You have everything you need to write this,” dew over the grass and missing bases, or a gal-
I tell them. “Look back to axy of colorful mitts behind the dugout.
your lists and just keep
rocking forward. Look back Students write for 10 to 20 minutes. Sometimes
at Andrew’s essay if you get I kneel next to them and get them moving again by
stuck. You might use lon- suggesting a line or looking at their list and pulling
ger and shorter sentences. I words they haven’t yet used to launch them again.
might start with a short sen- Their goal is to write two paragraphs.
tence: ‘I love hiking.’ Then Students have written about their love of dance,
I might add a longer one: art, creating animated cartoons, making beats, play-
‘I love the long hikes, the ing sports, solving math problems, horseback rid-
short hikes, the hilly hikes, the flat hikes, the circle, ing, rock climbing, and cutting hair. My great-niece
and the out-and-back hikes.’” wrote about baking cupcakes. With enough encour-
I show them how a couple of other former stu- agement and time, all students will find something
dents entered this section. Desiree´ DuBoise wrote to write about. Partly this is the art of teaching—the
about slam poetry: pause, the wait, the time to reflect, the examples of
classmates. I don’t let them give up.
I love spoken word. I love hearing the words Not long after I turn them loose to write their
of others dance in the air and get stuck in my lists, some heads hit the desk, and others want a bath-
brain like sweet mo- room break—time-hon-
lasses. I love the feel- ored ways that students
ing of a stage beneath Students have written about demonstrate frustration.
my feet and a mic that their love of dance, art, Tanya, for example, says,
captures the verses that “I have no passion. These
flow from my lips and
creating animated cartoons, kids all have passion about
projects them to the making beats, playing sports, something. I don’t dance
hungry ears of the au- solving math problems, or play sports. I have ter-
dience. I love a pen in rible grades. I have terrible
my hand flying across
horseback riding, rock test scores.”
paper as if my fingers climbing, and cutting hair. “Let’s start with this:
had wings. I love scrib- What are you good at?
bling out and rewrit- What do you enjoy?” With
ing. I love my quickening heartbeats. Tanya, this leads to a discussion about providing
childcare for her younger siblings, a list of ways that
Nakeisha Gardner also followed Andrew’s she entertains and protects them while helping her
lead, but she played with sentence structure in ways mother. For another student it is her connection to
that I admire: her heritage through dancing.
I discover that Marie wants to be a police offi-
I love softball. I love bloody palms and ach- cer. I ask her “Why?” She tells me she likes to help
ing joints. I love cheering on my teammates people. “OK, that’s where you start. Let’s make a list
when we are up to bat. I love the stench of Icy of people you have helped. What have you figured
Hot crowding the van. I love how two braids out? We’ll go from there. How do you take what you
signify our strength. I love running the same learned from your passion and land it back in a col-
drills over and over until our calves are the lege essay? What did you learn from this that you
size of the Superdome in Louisiana. I love take with you, that will demonstrate how the skills

260 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

you learned from your passion make you a college
candidate?”
Once most of the pens have come to a halt, I ask
a few students to read their pieces to the class, so we
can see and hear these paragraphs
take shape. This quick read-around
gives the students who aren’t quite
How does baking
sure how to proceed more models, cupcakes
and the readers get to hear where to college?
their paragraphs sing and where
they sag. This is round one of the
essay writing, and typically the drafts are overblown
and wordy at this stage. We work on paring them
down later.
Raising the Bones of the Essay
After students write their “I love” paragraphs, we re-
turn to Andrew’s essay and read the entire piece. I ask
them to make notes in the margin. “What does each
paragraph do? Why is it there? What is its function?
How does it help build the essay?” This examination
of a model, which we affectionately call “raising the
bones” in the Oregon Writing Project, is a method I
use with poetry, narratives, and essays. I use it with
students in my high school classes as well as teachers
in my Writing for Publication class. Although I don’t
believe in formulas to teach writing, I do believe in
teaching students how to examine good writing to
figure out why a piece works and what they can learn
from that model to take back to their own writing.
For example, Andrew uses a scene to open
his essay, a memory of his first encounter with live
theater:
When I was 6 years old, I walked into the Fire-
house Theatre in downtown Portland and saw
a world unlike any I’d seen before: monstrous
toadstools, milky thick fog, boiling cauldrons,
bright lights, and faces sprouting out of the
trunks of molded gray trees in monstrously
horrifying expressions. It was as if they were
the faces of men waking from dreams, only
to find themselves locked in a block of solid
wood, desperately trying to scream, “Oh, my
God, let me out.”
Standing directly opposite the gloomy shapes
stood the pleasant sight of chairs—red, boun-
CHAPTER 6: CREATING A VISION OF POSSIBILITY
cy chairs that my buttocks slipped right into
when I sat down. They stretched 10 rows back.
Sitting in these chairs were people I’d nev-
er seen before all gathered for one purpose:
They were going to watch the
same performance of Annabelle
Broom, the Unhappy Witch I was.
connect After the play began, I stared at
the shapes on the other chairs.
As the audience laughed at over-
played punch lines, I thought
about the jokes I knew. When they gasped
at ferocious battle scenes, I remembered the
monsters I slew. Finally, when the applause
went shooting toward the performers, I re-
called my father clapping at my Stan Laurel
impersonation. Here I was, thinking about all
those crazy places my imagination and I had
traveled together, and I knew, from that point
in my life, theater would dominate my life.
I ask students to think about what kinds of
scenes they might use in their essays. Together we
create a list: a scene of their first memory with their
passion, a scene of themselves in action, a scene of a
victory or a failure.
Desiree´ chooses a poetry slam, Michael selects
a winning shot in a basketball playoff, Thomas picks
his Smith Rock climb, Daniel settles on filming the
Jefferson Dancers perform at the Newmark Theatre.
“Write it like a movie,” I urge. “Let us see it, hear it,
smell it. Put us in the blocks with you at the track
meet; bring us backstage before your performance.”
And, of course, students discover all kinds of ways
to make this essay their own.
James Wooten’s scene describes how pro-
crastination led to his current passion of creating
animation:
I remember having to write an essay in the 6th
grade on how something specific has changed
since its initial inventing. I had such a hard
time choosing a topic that I gave up completely
and decided to watch the Boomerang section
of Cartoon Network, which showed nothing
but old cartoons or cartoons that had been
canceled but were still amazing. As I watched,
I began to notice cartoons dating way back
261
 to 1969, and I remember thinking to myself: an ingredient, but sometimes using coconut
“Holy crap, this looks amazing for something milk instead of heavy cream turns out better
that was done over 40 years ago.” I accidental- than the original recipe. Baking taught me pa-
ly changed the channel to the current Cartoon tience—from waiting for the cakes to cool off
Network, and I noticed a huge difference in enough to frost to not opening the oven every
the animation. As time went and shows came two minutes because they are NOT DONE
on and went off, I saw there were differences YET. Baking has taught me not to give up. If
in styles as well. I watched any form of anima- I added too much salt because “tbsp” looks
tion that I could—from Cartoon Network to pretty similar to “tsp” when I’m in a rush, it’s
Boomerang to Disney to Nick OK to throw it away—take a
Jr. to movies. I stared at the deep breath and begin again
screen, rewound, stared some “Show the college with a clear mind. Baking
more, rewound, and stared yet admissions folks that taught me that the ingre-
again. The little details peo- your passion makes dients need to be exact if I
ple had put in, no matter how want every atom to collide
small, intrigued me. Details
you a candidate for just right at 350 degrees, and
like a wisp of smoke that slow- their school.” that timers are a baker’s best
ly dissipates as it ascends into friend, and that two minutes
the air. Details such as the fur too long results in a sad, dry
on an animal blowing in the wind. cake. Baking showed me that curiosity leads
to a delicious espresso cupcake, and that if I
After students write their scenes, we share have an interest I should pursue it because
again, learning from each other, noticing what is that is how I become great at it. I’ve learned
working in Uriah’s or Salim’s draft that students might that sometimes when you’re doing what you
add to their own essays. James’ scene helps us see him love, you get frustrated and want to give up,
at work, focused on the study of animation. Edith’s but if you keep pushing forward, it makes it
scene makes us see and smell the dance studio. even sweeter when you finally succeed.
For the final part of the essay, we circle back
to Andrew’s essay, but also push beyond it. Andrew I don’t believe that college is necessary for suc-
wanted to perform at the Oregon Shakespeare Fes- cess or happiness or to change the world, but I don’t
tival in Ashland, Oregon, as a life goal. For some want the hierarchy of schools to dictate who should
students, their life goal might align with their pas- and shouldn’t attend college. By teaching students to
sion; for others, their current passion is a platform value their own lives and experiences, we help them
that teaches them about how to push through hard reflect on the kinds of skills and intelligence they
times, to focus attention. I ask: “What do you learn bring to the world. Z
from soccer? How is it a metaphor for life? What has
playing music taught you? What do you take with
you from the gym floor into the classroom or life?
In this section you want to make the connection for
college folks about how your passion makes you a
candidate for their school.”
I admit that I frowned when Melanie wanted
to write about baking cupcakes. How does this con-
nect to college? But she made the link:

What I viewed as just a hobby has taught me

so much more than I expected. I know there is
always a way to finish strong. I may be out of

262 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

u SAMPLE ESSAYS
I Love Theater
by Andrew Kafoury
When I was 6 years old, I walked into the Firehouse
Theatre in downtown Portland and saw a world un-
like any I’d seen before: monstrous toadstools, milky
thick fog, boiling cauldrons, bright lights, and faces
sprouting out of the trunks of molded gray trees in
monstrously horrifying expressions. It was as if they
were the faces of men waking from dreams only to
find themselves locked in a block of solid wood, des-
perately trying to scream, “Oh my god, let me out.”
Standing directly opposite the gloomy shapes
stood the pleasant sight of chairs—red bouncy
chairs that my buttocks slipped into when I sat
down. They stretched 10 rows back. Sitting in these
chairs were people I’d never seen before, all gath-
ered for one purpose: They were going to watch the
same performance of Annabelle Broom, the Unhap-
py Witch I was. After the play began, I stared at the
shapes on the other chairs. As the audience laughed
at overplayed punch lines, I thought about the jokes
I knew. When they gasped at ferocious battle scenes,
I remembered the monsters I slew. Finally, when the
applause went shooting toward the performers, I re-
called my father clapping at my Stan Laurel imper-
sonation. Here I was, thinking about all those crazy
places my imagination and I had traveled together—
and I knew from that point in my life on, theater
would dominate my life.
That was when I was 6.
You see, I was one of those kids who was never
very good at sports or dance. I wasn’t interested in
politics. I understood only a few simple rules of sci-
ence, and I was completely out of the program when
it came to math. No, ever since I was 6 years old,
sitting in the Firehouse Theatre, I knew exactly what
I had to do. Acting would be my strong suit.
When Dr. John Weckesser asked me to tell him
why I was interested in the College of Santa Fe, I
froze up. It must have been the way he was looking
at me, doubtful and unimpressed, I sort of mumbled
and stumbled on sentences, trying to find 10-letter
words to impress him when I should have told him
the simple truth:
Dr. Weckesser, I love acting. I love putting on
costumes and becoming creatures I am not. I love
my skin sweating as bright lights send heat soaking
CHAPTER 6: CREATING A VISION OF POSSIBILITY
through my body. I love getting to know my cast,
watching the drama behind the drama. I love the
quick change, the blackout, the dry ice, and stage
combat. I love cranky stage managers and quiet co-
stars. I love watching ego-stricken actors fall into
decline while a new face emerges from the shadows.
I love the monster special effects that steal the show,
and that oh-so-precious moment when you, the ac-
tor, send the audience head over heels with laughter.
I love the call sheet with my name on it, and the di-
rector who calls to say I’m perfect for the part. I love
the shows that I wish would go on forever and even
the ones I can’t stand till they’re over.
I love sitting backstage, exhausted from the
matinee, and knowing in another two hours I’ll go
out there and do it again. I love to play the bad guy,
and I love getting that killer role I’ve always want-
ed. Hell, I love it when they toss a spear in my hand
and say, “Go stand in the corner.” I love classical and
contemporary, tragedy and comedy, romance and
swashbuckling! I live for the moment when I run
onstage for curtain call and the applause gets just a
little bit louder. I love the smooth feeling of steady
memorization, and those intense moments when
something unexpected happens, like an actor not
showing up two minutes before curtain, so the stage
hands have to make a split-second decision because,
damn it, man, the show must go on.
Yes, I do love theater. I grew up knowing
that out of all of the activities in the world, theater
would be the only thing (except debating) I could
compete in. Growing up, I was the son of a woman
who, with the help of friends, formed the North-
west Children’s Theater, a school dedicated to the
teaching of dramatics to children. It was here that
I took part in my first professional play—Annabelle
Broom, the Unhappy Witch. The Northwest Chil-
dren’s Theater gave me the experience of the good
play and the bad, the great actor and the sloth, the
touring show and the one that stays on main stage.
If I could have one dream fulfilled, it would be to
perform in front of a full house at the Elizabethan
Theatre in Ashland, Oregon.
263
I Love Animation
by James Wooten
People tend to call me childish for watching car-
toons. I’ve been called a nerd and a hermit because
I didn’t want to go outside and play with the neigh-
borhood kids because Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
was on. I’ve been called gay and unmanly because I
can attest to watching My Little Pony and Care Bears.
I let negativity flow in one ear and out the other be-
cause I’m not doing it for the approval of the people
around me. I watch cartoons for the research.
I love the different styles of animation. I love
the simplistic and the overly complicated. I love
pausing and watching frame by frame. I love the
special effects that are added postproduction. I love
the 12 rules of animation: I love the squash and
stretch. I love the anticipation, the staging and the
straight ahead. The pose to pose. I love the follow
through and the overlap. I love the slow in and the
slow out. I love the arc. I love the secondary action. I
love the timing and the exaggeration. I love the sol-
id drawing and the appeal. I love three-dimensional
animation, storyboards, and rough sketches. I love
hand-drawn and computerized. I love perspectives
and planning. I love animation.
I remember having to write an essay in the 6th
grade on how something specific has changed since
its initial inventing. I had such a hard time choos-
ing a topic that I gave up completely and decided to
watch the Boomerang section of Cartoon Network,
which showed nothing but old cartoons or cartoons
that had been canceled but were still amazing. As
I watched, I began to notice cartoons dating way
back to 1969, and I remember thinking to myself:
“Holy crap, this looks amazing for something that
was done over 40 years ago.” I accidentally changed
the channel to the current Cartoon Network, and
I noticed a huge difference in the animation. As
time went and shows came on and went off, I saw
there were differences in styles as well. I watched
any form of animation that I could—from Car-
toon Network to Boomerang to Disney to Nick Jr.
to movies. I stared at the screen, rewound, stared
some more, rewound, and stared yet again. The lit-
tle details people had put in, no matter how small,
intrigued me. Details like a wisp of smoke that
slowly dissipates as it ascends into the air. Details
264 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
such as the fur on an animal blowing in the wind.
It got me thinking: How far back does anima-
tion go? I looked it up and found that it goes way
back to 1906 to a company named Blackton who
created the first hand-drawn animation called Hu-
morous Phases of Funny Faces. All it had were sev-
eral scenes drawn on a chalkboard that seemed to
move autonomously. In reality, they just drew a
picture on a chalkboard, immortalized it in a film
frame, erased the picture, drew another, then start-
ed the process all over again. This was a huge jump
into a new age of filmmaking that revolutionized the
industry.
My research led me to the zoetrope, the kineo-
graph, and the praxinoscope when I realized what I
was doing. I was looking at the perfect topic for my
essay. But I didn’t want to write it. Writing the essay
required me to stop reading and focus on something
else, and I just couldn’t do that. I was hooked.
It was at that moment that I decided cartoons
would be my way of life.
The animation process is a long and tedious
one. I’ve poured hours into each character that I cre-
ate onscreen. I’ll never forget the chore of drawing
a one-inch line and erasing it a hundred times be-
cause it wasn’t straight enough. I’ll always remember
having my face plastered to the screen at all hours of
the night as I tried to finish just one last frame. It
not only takes patience, it also takes creativity and
perseverance. If I come up with what I may think is
the perfect idea, then I need to stick with it and do
what I need to do to take it on a journey from paper
to pixel. I’m willing to do anything to make sure my
content is viewed. And when it’s all said and done,
all I feel is euphoria and accomplishment.
...............................................
I Love Slam Poetry
by Desiree´ DuBoise
The thing about writing is that there is no hiding
the truth. When you are putting the very essence of
who you are on paper, there are no masks, there are
no facades, there is only you. You can crumple it,
ball it up, and burn it, but once you put yourself on
paper, there’s no going back. What’s scarier is taking
that onstage.
 I love spoken word. I love hearing the words of
others dance in the air and get stuck in my brain like
sweet molasses. I love the feeling of a stage beneath
my feet and a mic that captures the verses that flow
from my lips and projects them to the hungry ears
of the audience. I love a pen in my hand flying across
paper as if my fingers had wings. I love scribbling
out and rewriting. I love my quickening heartbeats
as I close my eyes and begin to pour my heart out to
the audience.
My favorite part is when it becomes a dance,
when my heart, mind, and body connect and there
is nothing left but my words and myself. And then
it’s over and it’s like waking up from a dream. But the
adrenaline is still pumping, and my knees are still
shaking, and all I want is to get back on that stage.
Even when it’s personal and its subject hurts me, it’s
freeing to get those words out there.
Sometimes it’s when I’m at my lowest point
that I discover myself. I remember being drained. I
was too tired to move, and too depressed to think.
My brain was crowded and weighing me down. So
I picked up a pen. I wrote a thousand poems that
night. Sitting alone in my mahogany-hued guest
room, I wrote until the moon was high and the
stars were bright. Then I wrote more. My first per-
formance poem, “Road Signs,” was a metaphorical
beauty. I had put all of the anger and fed-upness I
was feeling on that paper. The words got stuck in my
head like song lyrics. I was hooked.
I remember stepping up onto the stage at
Verselandia, Portland’s district-wide poetry slam.
Our names had been drawn from a fishbowl, and I
was called first. Of course. My whole body was shak-
ing, but I kept moving so no one could see.
Someday I hope to be onstage in New York,
brushing elbows with Miles Hodges and Carvens
Lissaint, maybe do a collab with Alysia Harris. I
hope to take my art and let the world see it, and let it
become something to be cherished. I recall my “spo-
ken word mentor” Mr. Kulak telling me to make sure
every stanza counted.
“Make every word a gift.” I hope that someday
my words will be a gift to those who need to hear
them.
The scary thing about writing is that there is no
hiding the truth. Then you take it outside of yourself,
you give it to others, and let them keep a piece of
CHAPTER 6: CREATING A VISION OF POSSIBILITY
who you are, and it becomes a part of who they are.
The thing is, once you’re there, once you let go, you
don’t want to go back.
...............................................
Athletes of God
by Uriah Boyd
I was an awkward little kid. In a household where
creativity and artistic endeavors were the norm, I
felt like a black sheep. My cousins were writers, my
aunt a painter, and both my mother and older sister
danced. She always wanted to make up little dances
for the two of us, and because I love my sister, I did it.
She would get so excited when I properly executed a
move and it made me happy. Her joy was contagious.
But when the time came for us to showcase to our
family what we had pieced together, I got nervous
and often times backed out. It was when I got accept-
ed to da Vinci Arts Middle School, the same school
that my sister attended, that my mother forced me
to sign up for dance classes. Now, I simply could not
imagine my life without dance.
When I’m dancing I feel at home. The scent
of stale sweat and rosin filling my nostrils is what
makes me feel relaxed and I am not the least bit
ashamed to say so. I live for sweaty hugs and the
feeling of not knowing whether my face is drenched
in perspiration or tears. I love the smell of Tiger
Balm. The sound of leather ballet slippers on old,
tired marley floors, and the bars that hug the walls,
holding them up after years of being strong. I love
dancers; the way we challenge the very laws of phys-
ics every time our feet lift off the floor. I love mid-
calf cotton-blend socks, oversized T-shirts that hang
wearily off the shoulder, and open-back leotards.
I am forever amazed by the many ways we can
manipulate the human bodies that we all possess.
I love the language of dance; how so much can be
communicated without the use of a single word. I
love the callused heels and bruised toenails—con-
stant reminders that my body is an instrument of
divine arts. I love the mountains and valleys of de-
fined muscles; quadriceps tensed, toes pointed, and
poised to strike the air. I am carving my shape into
the memory of the studio.
I can say more with my body than I could ever
265
hope to express verbally. Words are restricting and
have rules. Dance is free. When I dance, I don’t
need to think in words, just pictures and sensations.
Dance is a passion that I feel and breathe. It’s more
than a verb. It’s a confidante, a home, a sanctuary.
...............................................
Baking
by Melanie Luster
When I was 5 years old, I walked into grandma’s
kitchen as she heated up the griddle, still in her pa-
jamas. I knew right away that meant animal-shaped
pancakes. I grabbed my stool and rushed to her side,
eager to help. “Dry ingredients first, Melanie. Then
we’ll add the eggs and milk,” she said as I waited pa-
tiently for her to nod her head and allow me to dump
each ingredient into the big glass bowl. That was the
day I learned how to fold. We whipped up the egg
whites, and I watched them expand from a clear goop
to an airy substance that looked just like the clouds
outside her kitchen window. With my hand on the
big wooden spoon and her hand on mine, we folded
the clouds into the batter and watched them disap-
pear. How interesting, I thought, that all of these sin-
gle ingredients combined in a very precise way gave
me a fluffy cow-shaped pancake on my pink Barbie
plate. From that day on, the kitchen has become my
private world to create, explore, and push my limits.
I love baking. I love old recipes from my great
grandmother’s battered recipe box. I love the fizzing
of the baking soda and vinegar that turn the cake
batter brick red and produce perfect little red vel-
vet cupcakes. I love the smell of almost-done choc-
olate cake that makes you stop in your tracks and
follow the scent all the way into the oven. I love “Big
Red,” the mixer that sits above my favorite drawer at
grandma’s house and helps me whisk and beat and
knead batters and dough into decadent desserts. I
love tasting the unfinished product more than I
should, wearing my well-loved apron covered in
experimental baking stains, licking every last bit of
batter off of the spatula. I love my small sifter that
makes my arm ache from cranking eight cups of
powdered sugar through it to get just the right con-
sistency in my frosting.
I love choosing cupcake liners that suit my mood,
266 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
sweating over cooked frosting until my feet throb. I
love the way sprinkles are like jewelry for cupcakes and
I can dress them up however I want. I love the trial and
error. I even love the disappointment and tears from
the time my first chocolate cupcakes turned out oily
and flat because I forgot to add eggs. I love the fact that
I’ll never make that mistake again. But most of all, I
love the feeling of accomplishment I get when a look
of guilty pleasure takes over my dad’s face as he takes a
bite of my creation and says, “I think I may need two.”
What I viewed as just a hobby has taught me so
much more than I expected. I know there is always
a way to finish strong. I may be out of an ingredient
but sometimes using coconut milk instead of heavy
cream turns out better than the original recipe. Bak-
ing taught me patience—from waiting for the cakes
to cool off enough to frost to not opening the oven
every two minutes because they are NOT DONE
YET. Baking has taught me not to give up. If I added
too much salt because “Tbsp” looks pretty similar to
“tsp” when I’m in a rush, it’s OK to throw it away—to
take a deep breath and begin again with a clear mind.
Baking showed me that curiosity leads to a delicious
espresso cupcake, and that if I have an interest I
should pursue it because that is how I become great
at it. Baking taught me that the ingredients need to be
exact if I want every atom to collide just right at 350
degrees and that timers are a baker’s best friend and
that two minutes too long results in a sad, dry cake.
I’ve learned perseverance through days of bak-
ing to make a spread of five different kinds of cup-
cakes: lemon chiffon with fresh raspberry frosting,
chocolate with espresso frosting, classic vanilla,
pumpkin with spiced cream cheese frosting, and my
favorite, red velvet with cream cheese frosting. I’ve
learned that sometimes when you’re doing what you
love you get frustrated and want to give up, but if
you keep pushing forward, it makes it even sweeter
when you finally succeed. Baking has taught me to
take pride in the work I do and the things I create.
I wouldn’t dare bring a lopsided lemon cake to din-
ner. No, anything with my name on it will be done
with full effort. The transition I’ve made from cow-
shaped pancakes to fondant-covered, triple-layer
vanilla-bean cake has been the start to a wonderful
journey of experimenting and has showed me how
much you can excel when you really love something.
 Unsung Heroes
The “Significant Person” Essay

S
ometimes when I’m
getting students to
write college essays, I
don’t even say “college essay”
because it sends students into
immediate panic and anxiety.
Their vision of a college essay
is a list of their achievements.
Paragraph after boring para-
graph of accomplishments.
Instead, we just write the piece
as part of another unit we are
working on. The easiest es-
say to tuck in without their
knowledge is the “significant
person” essay. For example,
when we read Their Eyes Were
Watching God, we discuss how
Janie’s grandmother influ-
enced her, then we write an
essay about someone who is
important in our lives. When
we study the abolitionists
during Literature and U.S.
History, we talk about “moral
ancestors”—people who aren’t
related to us, but whose social
conscience and engagement
set a standard we want to
live by—and we write about
them. Around Thanksgiving,
KATHY SLOAN
we write essays about people
we’re thankful we have in our
lives. Sometimes the “Sweet Learning” lesson (see p.
27) acts as the essay’s starter dough. Later, students
can dig these pieces out of their portfolios to clean

CHAPTER 6: CREATING A VISION OF POSSIBILITY 267

up as a college essay. taught me the value of learning; Mrs. Johanson, my
But sometimes I hit the essay straight on—usu- speech teacher; Ella Baker, a civil rights organizer.
ally by busting their stereotypes of a college essay. I tell them, “Next to the person’s name, write a
We start by reading a couple of models, “Granny’s note about how the person touched you, why they
House” by Alyss Dixson, an essay that helped buy are important.” After students write their lists, we
her a ticket into Yale (p. 270). Or we read “Brenda share a few to percolate ideas for one another.
Bufalino” by Neena Marks, who landed a spot at Once they choose a person to write about,
New York University (p. 271). We “raise the bones” I take them through a series of quick-writes. We
of these pieces, looking at both the content and the begin by re-reading Neena’s description of Brenda
construction of the drafts. While Alyss’ piece about Bufalino:
her grandmother uses description, it also focuses
on her grandmother’s actions as well as the actions, Brenda Bufalino is as wild as her name. She
descriptions, and dialogue of the rest of her family. bursts in the room laughing. Her bell-bot-
Neena’s piece, on the other hand, toms rippling and flowing from
has the quick rhythm and intensity the draft she creates as the reck-
of a tap dance, evoking her men- They need to sound less door slams abruptly behind
tor’s looks, actions, and history. like themselves, her. Bam. My attention is fixed
Typically students say some- on the slim, shapely body de-
thing like, “That’s not a college
to share the world fined in black shiny spandex. Her
essay. You can’t write about ants they come from, shoes, black and witchlike, teeter
and urine when you’re trying to and to value those at three inches with a pointed
get into college.” Students need to places—even when toe. She storms across the room.
see that they don’t need to make Her dynamics in walking alone
themselves sound like Dick and society does not. almost knock me over. She sits.
Jane from the old 1st-grade read-
ers to get into college or to land a I ask students to describe their
scholarship. They need to sound like themselves, to significant person: “Tell me what they look like; let
share the world they come from, and to value those us hear them talk or give you advice. Brainstorm
places—even when society does not. details about the person: Do they wear an apron?
Smell like Old Spice? Run their hands through their
Writing the Essay hair? Push their glasses up on their nose?” Then I
I initiate the writing by asking students to make a share what I wrote about Mrs. Johanson:
list of people who influenced them. “This can be
someone you know, like a coach, a parent, a grand- It was Mrs. Johanson who made me a writer.
parent, a person in your church or summer camp. There was nothing young and attractive about
This can also be a person whom you admire, but this old English teacher. She looked more like
don’t know—a moral ancestor.” Throughout the a pigeon with her large breasts and sensible
year, we have studied “unsung heroes”—hidden he- shoes. Her teeth showed an intimate relation-
roes in both social movements (for example, Clyde ship with coffee and wine. But she carried the
Ross of the Contract Buyers League, a collection of magic that comes from turning teenagers into
Black homeowners on Chicago’s South and West their better selves for decades.
Sides who banded together to end predatory loan
practices) and in literature (Ma Joad, who stood Sometimes I run through a visualization
up for the dignity of those who had been forced off to help students dive into the piece and retrieve
their lands). memories.
Then I make a list on the board of folks I could For the next quick-write, I say, “Describe an
write about. I say a little about each one as I cre- incident with the person that illustrates how the
ate my list: Mr. Cetina, my elementary teacher who person influenced you. Neena took us through a

268 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

breathtaking class with Brenda Bufalino to demon- around to inspire and encourage those who got
strate her passion. I am going to write about Mrs. stuck along the way (see “The Read-Around,” p. 15).
Johanson because I realize that she saw my poten- College essays are purpose-driven writing—
tial when I didn’t. I’m going to start with the story getting into college or winning a scholarship—but
of her walking up to my desk during junior English every piece of work in my class is about more than
and telling me to go prep turning out a great prod-
for a debate on the draft uct. I attempt to make each
with Daniel Chin. Through assignment a move toward
Write fast. Be bold. Keep all
that story, I can show how creating a more just and
I didn’t believe I was smart drafts, even the ugly ones. equitable world. When I
enough to debate, and she people my classrooms with
proved to me that I could. these everyday heroes, I
Now, I don’t remember exactly what she said, but invite their visions, their work, and their values
I use my memory to get close enough. The exact into our space. I want my students to grasp the
words matter less than the intent. I will also de- idea that they, too, have the possibility of inspiring
scribe the classroom and the hallway.” others, of creating a better place than the one they
Sometimes, obviously, students write about have inherited. Z
people they don’t know. I ask them, “What has this
person accomplished that makes you admire them?
Be specific. Not ‘they are great and courageous,’ but
‘she fought cancer,’ ‘he helped get kids off the street,’
‘she was the first woman tap dancer to make it big.’
Go into detail. You will need to cut back later, but get
it all down now.”
For our last quick-write, I bring it back to
their lives. “What did you learn from this per-
son’s accomplishments that you will take with you
into your future? In other words, tie this person’s
achievements to your future goals or way of be-
ing in the world. Do you want to break barriers?
Support your family? Live a passionate life? Work
to end poverty or racism? What about this person
resonates with you?”
The quick-writes are a jumble—like pieces for
a quilt that need a unifying pattern to hold them to-
gether. I tell students, “Read back over your quick-
writes and think like a storyteller—get down scenes,
dialogue; make the person come alive. Play with
each part. Write fast. Be bold. Keep all drafts, even
the ugly ones—they might have a line or two that
can be saved. Fit this all together once you get all of
the details. Write first. Piece later. If you get stuck,
look back at the student models for a way out.”
Once students have a draft, I encourage them
to read back through first on their own, then with
a partner to figure out where their essay might be-
gin—with a description? With an action? With a
reflection? Once a few students have drafts, we read-

CHAPTER 6: CREATING A VISION OF POSSIBILITY 269

u SAMPLE ESSAYS
Granny’s House
by Alyss Dixson
The house seems smaller than I remember it, the
chain-link fence overgrown with grass, its wheat-
like stalks protruding out over the sidewalk. The
rest of the yard is mostly dirt, except for the winding
cement path leading to the front door. The entrance-
way is a mixture of dust and water, with footprints
leading in and out of the house from the 15 or so
little kids Granny’s always got running around, wild
and screaming. On the concrete patio in front sit
the usual gang of drunken male cousins, whistling
at any woman unfortunate enough to walk by. As
usual, they’re trying to impress one another with
their respective plans for the future. A sudden gust
of wind brings the smell of beer and cigarette smoke
blowing across the yard. It mixes with the smell of
greens and chicken coming from the house.
The rank odor of pee, courtesy of three gener-
ations of children sitting on the living room carpet,
greets me in the dining room as I come through
the door and perch on the edge of a worn wood-
en chair, one of the remnants from a once-elegant
dining set. The floor’s still covered in the same
flower-’n’-square pattern I remember from the last
time I was here nine years ago. The only difference
being, now there’s dirt in the corners of the room
and ants crawl freely, unmolested, across the floor.
The middle is still white, the pattern showing clear-
ly, although I notice the plastic covering from the
linoleum has long since peeled away.
Strange how none of this bothered me that last
visit. Then I felt at home among the boxes and books
stacked everywhere. I was one of the wild banshees
running around, screaming at the top of my lungs,
hair flying everywhere, dirty clothes and muddy
bare feet. Having spent the first four years of my life
in Los Angeles with my grandmother, the late-night
sirens, drunken old men, and seemingly endless
“Did you hear what happened to so-and-so? He got
arrested!” were normal, common occurrences.
Granny sits in her armchair, secure in a nest
of just-washed clothes, gossiping with all the female
cousins, most of whom are drunk and pregnant, or
have a small child sitting on their laps. As regal as
any queen, she grabs another shirt to fold, reaches
between her legs to pull out a pair of underwear.
270 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
Still talking, she yells at Jake to “get his Black
ass in here and eat somethin’ before it’s all gone,”
’cause she’s “not cookin’ nothing else.”
Getting out of my chair, I turn and wander into
the kitchen. Hoping to find something to do, I feel
like an intruder, unwanted and hopelessly “white”
after my years in Oregon. I hear M.C. Hammer
coming from the back bedroom and go to investi-
gate. I find one of my cousins named “Foots” imitat-
ing M.C.’s dance steps barefoot on the rough wood
floor. We’re standing between the two bunk beds
that are crowded against the walls, facing each other,
and I ask him to teach me how to dance. He just sort
of laughs and says sure, launching immediately into
the “Roger Rabbit,” the bane of my existence. Jerk-
ing like an idiot and feeling not only like a white girl,
but an Oregon white girl at that, I finally tell him I
have to go check and see if my dad is ready to go yet.
I find him in the living room with Granny and
my cousin Audra; the others have left, gone out-
side to joke and laugh with their friends. I notice a
certain uneasiness in my dad. He’s perched his full
300-pound frame on the edge of the chair and looks
like he’s being interrogated. Beads of sweat stand out
along his hairline. His eyes dart around the room,
careful not to rest on any one thing, afraid to look
condescending, aloof.
Audra is sitting on the couch that’s along the
far wall, pregnant belly rising up in front of her.
The baby’s father is in jail, and Audra is an ex–drug
abuser, like everyone else in the family. I’m skeptical
about how much of an ex-abuser she is because at
times she loses her grip on reality, to say the least.
The wall opposite the couch is lined with baby
paraphernalia: a crib, stacks of Pampers boxes, baby
clothes and toys, old suitcases, and picture albums.
The windows have long since been covered over
with junk. Joining Audra on the couch, I look at the
huge TV set pushed up against the wall. I remember
watching Scooby Doo as a child on that same set.
Now it’s used as a table, pictures of grandchildren
and great-grandchildren propped on top.
Audra grabs my hand and leads me to the
front bedroom, all the while giggling about what she
wants to give me. The room is a jumble of army cots,
clothes, shoes, children, and odds and ends picked
up in 64 years of life. Taking my hand, she slips a
large gold ring onto my finger. “I got it offa basehead
for five bucks, you like it?” she breathes, eyes wide.
I shake my head yes, and start to take it off. “You
can have it,” she says, all at once quiet, reminding me
of the cousin I remember from childhood, when I
was everyone’s baby and had to be fussed over, hair
combed.
My dad calls me out of the bedroom and stands
hitching up his jeans over by the front door. Granny
gets up to go into the kitchen and fix two big plates
of food for us to take home. Despite her bulk, or per-
haps because of it, she seems tired. Her shoulders are
sloped, and her smile isn’t quite as ready as I remem-
ber it. My dad tells me he’s going outside to talk with
a couple of cousins out there. I follow Granny and
tell her, “It’s alright, I can do it.” But she just smiles
and says, “No, baby. Grandma’ll fix you all a plate.”
I give her a hug and watch as she begins to pile
greens onto a ceramic plate. I guess all those years
in Oregon have changed us; now I feel above this,
repulsed even. I’m torn between the love I have for
my grandmother and anger at the family that’s put
her in these circumstances. I want to shout at them,
tell them all to just leave her alone. Ask them if they
can’t see what they’re doing to her. She’s spent the
last 50-some-odd years of her life doing things for
others. First with her younger brothers and sisters,
then with her own children, now with her children’s
children and any strays picked up along the way.
When does she get her turn to rest, to come home
and not have someone yelling, “Granny, what’s for
dinner?”
I sigh, and Grandma turns around and asks me
what’s the matter. I tell her, “Nothing,” but there are
tears in my eyes which I wipe away quickly, making
some complaint about all the smoke in the house.
From outside my dad calls me, telling me to “say
goodbye to Granny so we can git.” I give her another
hug and kiss, and say goodbye, walking out the door.
I’m almost to the gate when Granny calls to me,
“You forgot your plate, sweetheart.” I take it from
her and get in the car; she waves at me, and calls out
“Granny loves you, baby,” as we pull away. I wave
back and think, “I know Grandma, I love you, too.”
CHAPTER 6: CREATING A VISION OF POSSIBILITY
Brenda Bufalino
by Neena Marks
Brenda Bufalino is as wild as her name. She bursts
in the room laughing, her bell bottoms rippling and
flowing from the draft she creates as the reckless
door slams abruptly behind her. Bam. My attention
is fixed on the slim, shapely body defined in black
shiny spandex. Her shoes, black and witchlike, tee-
ter at three inches with a pointed toe. She storms
across the room. Her dynamics in walking alone al-
most knock me over.
She sits.
I begin to check the legend out more closely.
Her slightly aged face is framed by an exotic, busily
bright, multicolored turban with fringe. She jingles.
Her bracelets, rings, and necklaces clang together as
she slips her witch shoes off and pulls out a pair of
gray taps that resemble my grandfather’s golf shoes.
She is sly. I can tell just by the precision and intensity
she has in tying her shoes. She is a pioneer. The first
woman to put on a pair of flat tap shoes and still the
only woman considered a master.
She stands. She is there for us. No rank or
status involved, just rhythm. Purely rhythm. She
shakes her right foot over the floor and five billion
perfectly clear, even taps echo across the room and
penetrate my already intimidated mind. She shakes
the left perfectly.
“Are you ready to hoof?” she belts out in her
deep, gruff voice. We gather around. She begins
warming up our feet. She calls it a scale—taking the
foot through a full range of sounds by hitting differ-
ent parts of the taps. Suddenly, I feel like a musician,
orchestrating precise and intricate rhythms.
“Make your feet sing,” she smiles as she expos-
es her nicotine-stained teeth. Her voice, worn from
years of smoking, captures me. She begins to sing
the quality of the taps: Gung ga ge go cac-ta-cha. The
rhythm internalizes. I am possessed as I start sing-
ing to myself.
Wow. I am tapping, making sounds so clear
and precise, as if each tap ignited a light that carried
through my center and out each extremity, filling the
room with a warm, yellow light, giving me security
to let go of my fears, my intimidations, my doubts.
I feel myself tapping as my feet supply the music.
Never before has my tapping, my dancing, felt so
271
integrated. I glance to catch Brenda’s enormous en-
couraging smile; we share the emanation and clarity
in the room as the dancers light their taps and burn
free of inhibitions.
“Now you’re tapping,” the baritone voice ex-
plodes with raw inspiration, shaking the walls of
Jefferson’s “Dungeon” dance studio. The four walls
contain my light. My inspiration integrates with
the sound of Brenda’s voice and pours openly into
a new place for me—a place where dance and life
have no boundaries.

272 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 Creating a Vision of Possibility
The “Finding Your Heart” Essay

CHRIS KINDRED

T
he “aha moment” iteration of the college es-
say asks students who haven’t even lived two
decades to inventory their lives and then
scrutinize them for a time when they had a moment
of clarity and insight about their lives. This paper is
like a heat-seeking device, finding the student’s heart:
What matters? What’s important? Why? When was
the moment they knew that? How might this vision
connect to what they want to spend their lives doing?
I changed my major several times during col-
lege—from math to marine biology to literature.
And after I graduated, I started a master’s program
in medieval literature, then switched to law school,
and finally ended up a teacher. So I know that al-
though it was an illuminating moment when my
chicken died and I dissected it as a 4th grader, that
moment did not necessarily shine a light on my fu-
ture career. Still, learning to find and define those
moments that shape us can make us see our gifts
and our potential.
I ask students to imagine they are members
of the admissions committee at a college. We play

CHAPTER 6: CREATING A VISION OF POSSIBILITY 273

through scenarios: Who would they want on their
campus? Would diversity be important? Would it be
an asset? Would they only let in people who could
afford it? Were they looking for valedictorians?
What other skills and values would they look for?
Would they want people who spoke one language?
The same language?
After this preparation, I ask them to think
about what a college should know about them and
what their GPA and SAT scores might not make
apparent. “Why would you be a valuable asset to
a campus? What skills, attitudes, or values do you
bring to the school? For example, I know that some
of you work after school to help your parents out.
Some of you have overcome difficulties that demon-
strate what a hard worker you are. I was the first
in my family to go to college. That’s a big deal be-
cause it means that my
mother didn’t know a
lot about college, and
These moments are like DNA; you
admissions folks want remember them for
to know these kinds
of things that make
you special.” I tell them that a résumé can list their
achievements, but only through story and essay can
they give the admissions committee true insight
into their lives.
Selecting a Topic
To move toward the essay, I ask students to dive into
their lives by sharing from my own. “Think about
key moments in your life. Don’t think about this
as a college essay yet. Just list 10 key moments of
your life that you think have defined you, that you
remember vividly. These moments are like DNA;
you remember them for a reason. Some might be
joyful. The first moment I’m listing is when my
mom and dad came to Grant Elementary School for
open house, and they read my 1st-grade writing and
laughed. Some moments may be heartbreaking, like
my dad dying when I was 13. Another one I’m list-
ing is the time I told my friends to stop making fun
of a boy who had polio for the way he ran. I will also
list the time I wrote a play about Abraham Lincoln
when I was in 3rd grade. Notice that I’m jumping
around as the memories surface? There’s no order.
Some I will discard. Some might repeat other essays
I wrote. I’m putting down debating about the war in
274 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
Vietnam during Mrs. Johanson’s speech class, even
though I’ve already told you about it and written
about it. These moments tell something about the
kind of person I was becoming in high school. I en-
dured tragedy. I learned that I care about justice. I
liked to write. Don’t limit yourself. Just make a list.”
Once students have some notes, I ask them to
look back on my list. By talking about my topics, I
demonstrate how I want them to sift through theirs
to determine what they might write about. I select a
few and talk about how I can take some into a college
essay, while others I need to discard. For example, I
can make all of those that deal with a similar topic
into one essay. I might start in 1st grade with my
folks, follow with my 3rd-grade play, and then go
to Mrs. Johanson’s class because I could use these to
talk about my passion for writing and reading as well
as my sense of efficacy
in the world. I might
write about my dad’s
a reason. death, but I choose
not to. I might write
about the time I stood
up to my friends because it was a turning-point mo-
ment in my life when I stopped following the crowd
and started thinking about others. This essay would
show college or scholarship committees about my
commitment to justice. As I tell students, “A college
essay is not just about what you want to do in life; it’s
also about how you want to be in life.”
Then I move students into small groups to
share their lists. “You don’t have to talk about every-
thing you put down, but share the ones that seem
like possibilities to you. Listeners, I want you to help
your partners think about why this might be a good
college essay. What do you learn about your class-
mate? What would a college admissions or scholar-
ship committee learn? Which ones does the writer
seem most excited about?”
Writing the Essay
Once students select one or more moments from
their lives to write about, I ask them to freeze one
frame. We examine a few illuminating moments
that Jefferson graduates describe—like Dyan Wat-
son’s description of playing saxophone in Japan
(p. 277), Chelsea Henrichs’ essay about her dance
teacher (p. 279), and Chetan Patel’s piece about
his heritage (p. 278). These models explore ways to
enter the essay by focusing in on a particular inci-
dent in students’ lives that helps a college or schol-
arship committee understand a bit more about the
candidate, their cultural background, and their
aspirations.
To remind them of the importance of creating
scenes, even in essay writing, we re-read Chelsea’s
opening description of Elena Carter’s dance class:
“If I came to see you, I’d ask for my money
back! I’ve paid. Give me something to watch!
If you’re going to dance, dance,” the tiny, dark
woman says over the banging of the piano. We
all laugh, but I take what she says and store it
away. Her words make me push myself harder.
I am the fairy queen. I am Juliet. I start to lose
myself in this character that I have created for
her. I imitate her gracefulness that I know daz-
zled audiences, though she’s never told me. I
watch her and I see where I hope to get. I want
to be beautiful and powerful at the same time.
I want people to want to watch me dance.
As we read Chelsea’s first paragraph, we notice
the dialogue, the description of Carter, the sound of
the piano, and Chelsea’s interior monologue.
I move into a guided visualization, both to help
students remember the scene and to slow down the
class as we move into writing time. When the stu-
dents open their eyes, I ask them to capture the scene.
“Write fast. It’s OK to make mistakes. Get the scene
down. Make a movie for your reader. Let us see and
hear it.”
Teaonshae starts her es-
say with a scene of her doing
hair on the front porch of her When school is done
house. Ayanna opens with a
story about a teacher who be-
right, students also learn
lieved in her as a way of edging to tap into the great
to an essay about wanting to reservoir of humanity.
become a teacher herself. Desi
writes about visiting her father
in prison.
Once students have their openings, we return
to the mentor essays by Dyan, Chetan, and Chelsea
to look at the multiple ways these students move for-
ward in their essays. We examine how Dyan starts
CHAPTER 6: CREATING A VISION OF POSSIBILITY
her piece with a scene from her homestay in Japan:
I sat on the floor and assembled my saxo-
phone. As I adjusted the reed, I searched for
a song I could play. Just as I was about to
plunge into a blues standard, my Japanese sis-
ter handed me a book turned to a famous folk
song. While I played, my Japanese host family
sang along, covering my sight-reading bloop-
ers. I couldn’t believe it! Here I was in Japan,
a 16-year-old playing a Japanese folk song on
the alto saxophone—an instrument known
for swing and bebop.
In the following paragraphs, Dyan alludes back
to that scene to evoke both what she learns and what
she takes with her into the future—the desire to be-
come a teacher who embraces students with diverse
heritages. “In the years ahead, I want to create that
scene over and over. I want to teach others how to
communicate with music and with other media. As
a teacher, I want to help my students break down the
barriers between Blacks and Asians, Americans and
Japanese, and others as well.”
Chetan’s essay also begins with a scene. He de-
scribes the culmination of his work to learn about
his heritage:
Dressed only with a sheet folded like dothu, I
stood onstage and read in my native language,
Gujarati, about the importance of strong fam-
ily relationships. I finished, and when the
curtains came down, I hurried off the stage as
a group of three girls took their position for
a dance. Fifteen minutes
later, I was back onstage,
singing about the life of
Narsinh Mehta, an old In-
dian saint. As I looked out
on the audience filled with
faces that looked like mine,
I sensed how after six years,
I had helped to establish
Indian culture in the youth. These were a few
of the many activities performed by the Chil-
dren’s Prayer Group during last year’s Diwali.
It had been our largest and finest celebration
of the Hindu New Year.
275
 Chetan uses his descriptive opening to move
into a flashback telling the story of coming into
awareness of his language and religion. Chetan’s es-
say doesn’t tell admissions officers what he wants to
do or his career choice; instead it demonstrates his
focus on reclaiming his heritage over a six-year peri-
od. Like Dyan’s, his essay shows his values.
Chelsea’s essay, like Chetan’s, begins with a
scene, then she enters a series of flashbacks about
when she first entered Carter’s dance class. Then she
moves forward into her multiple encounters with
the teacher, giving the readers examples of her lan-
guage, her history, and her passion. Chelsea’s essay
ends like Dyan’s with a sense of where she’s heading
after high school, but like the other students, her es-
say also illuminates her vision of entering a career
by focusing on various aspects of the passion that
infused her mentor’s work.
The focus on “college and career readiness”
that permeates most high schools is certainly an
improvement over the days when schools target-
ed a narrow band of mostly white, mostly affluent
students as “college material.” But left out of most
of these conversations are the ways in which our
lives are about more than our jobs. School isn’t
merely preparation for college or a career. When
school is done right, students also learn to tap into
the great reservoir of humanity not only to figure
out what they want to do, but also to recognize the
kind of person they want to become. Because the
“aha moment” essay taps into the heart of students’
lives, writing the paper helps them divine the ways
their curiosity, courage, and passions have been
shaped over the years, and hopefully signals the
values they want to nurture as they move forward
in life. Z

276 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

u SAMPLE ESSAYS

Saxophone When I traveled to Japan, I was the stranger. I

by Dyan Watson was clumsy with chopsticks. I felt awkward taking
my shoes off when I entered a home. Using the cor-
I sat on the floor and assembled my saxophone. As I rect greeting presented a constant challenge. After
adjusted the reed, I searched for a song I could play. a week, I began to adapt—things no longer seemed
Just as I was about to plunge into a blues standard, my strange to me. Instead, they were just different. Be-
Japanese sister handed me a book turned to a famous ing totally emerged in Japanese culture helped me
folk song. While I played, my Japanese host family appreciate the differences instead of mocking them.
sang along, covering my sight-reading bloopers. I From crossing the street to saying hello, I learned
couldn’t believe it! Here I was in Japan, a 16-year-old to accept and sometimes treasure the differenc-
playing a Japanese folk song on the alto saxophone— es between our cultures. I also discovered many
an instrument known for swing and bebop. similarities.
That night, as I tossed on my mat, I gloried in I came back to my high school determined to
what took place. We had “jammed” together. Few know more. I wanted to match what I learned from
words were spoken, yet we understood each other my Japanese family with what Asian American au-
clearly. Music proved to be the universal language. thors wrote. I read personal accounts of the Japa-
In the years ahead, I want to create that scene nese American experience—connecting the lives of
over and over. I want to teach others how to com- the Japanese I had met with those who were born
municate with music and with other media. As a in the United States. I wanted to see how the cul-
teacher, I want to help my students break down the tural values of their motherland affected second and
barriers between Blacks and Asians, Americans and third generations.
Japanese, and others as well. Participation in this cultural experience push-
As a musician, I have learned that music is es me to be open-minded to others from various
more than just a pastime—it models the way we can backgrounds. When I become a teacher, in my
live together as people. As a Black youth, I realize classroom, I want my students to attain these same
the importance of learning to accept others’ differ- goals. I want them to know that by harmonizing, we
ences without losing my own identity. will understand and appreciate each other more—
Each of us is part of a symphony. In a good allowing us to become better musicians and better
symphony, each instrument knows its own strengths people who compose great symphonies.
and weaknesses. Every instrument has limitations:
The euphonium can only go so high, the clarinet so
low. But when the two instruments merge, a power-
ful range is present, resulting in music that entices
ears to come and listen.
To create great music, each instrument must
give a little. When playing with a flute, a trumpet
shouldn’t play full capacity or it will trample the
gentle sounds of the flute. The trumpet must soften
enough for the flute to be heard. The trumpet will
still be identified as a trumpet. It has just shared it-
self with the flute.
Working hard to harmonize without drown-
ing out anyone is what cultural diversity is all about.
It is about sharing my culture’s history and myself
with others while they share their history and them-
selves. It is about broadening our understanding of
people with different backgrounds by participating
in intercultural activities such as study abroad.

CHAPTER 6: CREATING A VISION OF POSSIBILITY 277

The Children’s Prayer Group
by Chetan Patel
Dressed only with a sheet folded like dothu, I stood
onstage and read in my native language, Gujarati,
about the importance of strong family relation-
ships. I finished, and when the curtains came down,
I hurried off the stage as a group of three girls took
their position for a dance. Fifteen minutes later, I
was back onstage, singing about the life of Narsinh
Mehta, an old Indian saint. As I looked out on the
audience filled with faces that looked like mine, I
sensed how, after six years, I had helped to estab-
lish Indian culture in the youth. These were a few
of the many activities performed by the Children’s
Prayer Group during last year’s Diwali. It had been
our largest and finest celebration of the Hindu New
Year.
Six years ago, it wasn’t like this. I watched ep-
isodes of Mahabharata with my mother, but never
understood a word of the ancient Hindu epic. Each
episode was in Gujarati, a language I had forgot-
ten in my childhood. Sure, I could say things like
“She went outside” or “Give me some food,” but I
couldn’t hold a conversation or read a single word.
People would call me a dorjivo to my face, thinking I
didn’t know they were saying I was stupid. The worst
part was watching my grandfather’s eyes burn as he
scolded me for not caring about the importance of
the past. It’s not that I didn’t care; I take great pride
in my Indian culture.
But learning about India meant learning about
Hinduism, another title I claimed but knew nothing
about. All the Hindu scriptures were in Gujarati. It
was as if my culture was behind a locked door, and
language was the key I needed.
I tried to avoid learning Gujarati. I checked
out books and encyclopedias, trying to comprehend
what it meant to be Hindu. But the books weren’t
meant to be read by a 12-year-old. The only thing I
learned was that I believed in hundreds of different
gods—only a small part of the religion.
My parents were too busy working to teach me
Gujarati. People in the Indian community, especial-
ly older members, grew sick of ignorance shown by
children my age who had the same problem. One
day, my friend’s grandfather, Ramanbhai, decid-
ed to form the Children’s Prayer Group, dedicated
278 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
to teaching first-generation Indian children about
their past, including Hinduism and Gujarati.
Thrilled, I marched with my brother and sister
every Sunday at noon to Ramanbhai’s house. He told
us of Prince Rama and his victory over Ravana, and
the reason we are vegetarians—a question I’d always
asked my father, but never received an answer for.
He taught us ancient prayers and told us to respect
our parents by telling them “Jai Shri Krishna” every
morning before leaving for school. We soon started
to read and write in Gujarati. The only problem was
that only a few children from the Indian community
attended.
It was a cold November day when Ramanbhai
told us about an idea he had rolling around in his
head. “This Diwali, let’s celebrate with a party. When
I lived in Zambia, we had a big celebration.” His plans
were set into motion, and we thought of a clever way
to get Indian children to attend. Most kids thought
Indian functions were boring, but it was going to be
different this year. We ordered 20 pizzas for dinner,
just for them. Although we only sang two songs,
hundreds of people showed up for the celebration,
including many children. The following Sunday,
new faces were present at our meeting.
Six years later, our group size has tripled since
its creation, and our Diwali celebrations now include
dances and plays. My life changed in those years be-
cause of the program. Now I can understand what’s
happening when my mother watches an episode of
Mahabharata, and more importantly, I’ve regained
my Indian identity.
A Lesson in Passion
by Chelsea Henrichs

“If I came to see you, I’d ask for my money back!

I’ve paid. Give me something to watch! If you’re go-
ing to dance, dance,” the tiny, dark woman says over
the banging of the piano. We all laugh, but I take
what she says and store it away. Her words make
me push myself harder. I am the fairy queen. I am
Juliet. I start to lose myself in this character that I
have created for her. I imitate her gracefulness that I
know dazzled audiences, though she’s never told me.
I watch her and I see where I hope to get. I want to
be beautiful and powerful at the same time. I want
people to want to watch me dance. I first met Elena
Carter when I was a sophomore, and she choreo-
graphed a piece for the Jefferson Dancers. I was an
understudy for a part that was flirtatious and fast.
The need to please her and pull her style of ballet out
of my body was a challenge. My love for ballet grew
stronger after each rehearsal with her. In her ballet
class during my junior year, I learned not only about
ballet, but also about passion.
Elena’s passion comes from the country where
she’s still a citizen: Mexico. Even though her father
was an American, she is Mexican, and she is very
proud of her country. Elena’s passion soared when
she was a member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem.
As a senior, I’ve gotten the chance to be a teacher’s
assistant for Elena’s “Ballet 2” class. In the small studio
overlooking the football field, I’ve witnessed Elena’s
teaching. With shouts of “Zam!” and “Yes!” she brings
out the passion in her students. She uses humor and
paints pictures with her words. “Ashley, you are giving
me skim milk. I want eggnog with whiskey!” Elena
pushes her students to reach their limit, to tell a story
with their bodies and faces. She teaches that ballet is
not just a series of steps, but reaching your audience,
even if the audience is just her.
When I leave Jefferson in June, Elena will be
one of the teachers who I carry in my heart. She en-
couraged me to let go of my inhibitions and to re-
member that ballet is about passion. She showed me
how to make a move “more,” to have “volume,” and
to push myself to the edge. Elena taught me through
example, not only of her life, but in the way she car-
ries herself. She stands out in a crowd. She taught me
to be a dancer.

CHAPTER 6: CREATING A VISION OF POSSIBILITY 279

Chapter 7

Responding to
Student Work
 Responding to Student Work
Teaching the Writer, Not the Writing

E
arly in my teaching career,
I responded to student
writing the way my very
diligent senior English teacher,
Mrs. Copper, responded to mine:
I marked every error and gave stu-
dents grades on their content and
on their usage: 87/56. How this top
number was derived was one of the
great mysteries of the universe. The
bottom number corresponded to a
negative two points for every gram-
mar, punctuation, and, in my case,
typing error.
But Mrs. Copper didn’t teach
me to be a writer. She didn’t even
teach me to catch my errors. No,
I credit Ms. Carr, my junior En-
glish teacher who looked like she
stepped out of a D. H. Lawrence
novel, with making me a writer.
Instead of marking every mistake
I made, she wrote comments in the
margin: “You must share this with
your mother.” “I can tell how much
your father’s death continues to
impact you.” “This reminds me of
an Emily Dickinson poem, ‘Hope
is the thing with feathers.’” “Your
RAFAEL LÓPEZ
description here is like a passage
from Madame Bovary. You must read it.” Her open who believed in my capacity to write coherent ar-
compassion, her conversation, her stance that said guments so much that she swept me along with her
she already considered me a writer, made me take encouragement.
my writing seriously. And then there was my speech Responding to student writing is a delicate
teacher, Mrs. Johanson, who pushed me into debate, dance. As a teacher, I need to give students enough

CHAPTER 7: RESPONDING TO STUDENT WORK 283

feedback to move them forward, but not so much that their own writing and revising. When they waited
I overwhelm them or make them feel inadequate. I’m for my feedback, I was a roadblock in their develop-
not trying to “fix” every error in a student piece—con- ment instead of a catalyst for change. The response/
tent, punctuation, grammar—all in one fell swoop. I writing strategies that I created over the years place
have witnessed—and have been responsible for—stu- the writing back in my students’ capable hands. Be-
dents shutting down and losing the sense of them- cause I want to develop lifelong writers, I work on
selves as writers. I still recall the poet Walter Pavlich teaching the writer and fostering habits and tools
telling the story of his high school English teacher they can use when they write long after they have
who said, “You will never be a poet.” Fortunately, left my classroom.
Walter didn’t believe her. What if teachers knew in
their bones that every student can write? What if we Teaching During Writing—
believed that it’s not the errors that we need to count Stopping the Problem Before It Begins
up in student prose and poetry, but their insights and My first round of response to papers happens during
smart use of language? What if we understood that class while students are writing. I watch to see who is
everyone has stories to tell, ideas to share? What if checking their phone instead of putting pen to paper,
instead of being accountants tallying up mistakes, we doodling instead of writing, cradling their head and
became water witches or dowsers, surfacing the bur- pretending they are too tired to write. Although this
ied stories and brilliance of each of our students and might look like “I don’t care about class,” these signs
teaching them how to use their talents? often indicate distress, not knowing how to start the
Responding to writing should take place during paper. During quiet one-on-one conversations, I re-
and after the draft. In the past, I spent hours poring mind students of things they said during class or a
over student papers in coffee shops or attempting to story they told as a way to move them into their writ-
sneak in a paper or two during staff meetings. This ing (see “Writing the Cartoon Essay,” p. 58).
was not productive. While I still respond to stu- Another in-the-midst-of-writing response is
dent writing at the end of the process, I believe that stopping class before the end of the period to get
far more energy needs to be students to share a section of
placed on responding—and their draft. In an essay, this
teaching—writing while stu-
Students literally see how might be their introduction;
dents’ heads are bent to the writers use these tools in a narrative, this might
task. This post-grade marked- to develop their stories. be the opening of the sto-
up paper illuminates little
Their papers are a rainbow ry. These quick “share outs”
about how to propel the stu- helps kids who are confused
dent forward. It’s about “sum- of colors, showing how see a way forward.
mative assessment.” It’s about character description, After the first day
a grade in the book. Unless setting description, of writing, I quickly read
students went back and re- through students’ drafts to
vised, I spent precious hours dialogue, and blocking see what is working and what
of my life on a task that didn’t function in building a story. is problematic in their writ-
promote or improve student ing at this moment. I don’t
writing. It’s why students look wait until the paper is due
at the grade and toss their pieces into the recycling to correct course. I divide their papers into three
bin instead of revising or only revising for a better stacks: those that demonstrate understanding of the
grade. Instead of attempting to teach students after content and skill in their essay or narrative; those
they have written by marking up their paper, I now who are on their way, but who missed key pieces;
respond to their writing while they write—as well as and those who did not understand how to tackle the
after they have written. assignment. Then I look for patterns of errors: What
Because my classes are writing intense, I need- did most students misunderstand? For example, af-
ed to find ways to make the students responsible for ter the first day of the cartoon essay, I noticed that

284 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

students wrote general statements without backing
them up with evidence from the cartoons. (See “In-
the-Midst Writing,” p. 59.) When students wrote
neighborhood narratives, I realized that many sum-
marized actions instead of creating scenes with dia-
logue, blocking, and character description. I jump-
start class the following day with a craft lesson that
addresses problems I observed. Often, I use excerpts
from the students who “got it” as models in the craft
lesson.
With the cartoon essay, I returned to a former
student’s model and showed how Joe Robertson
used specific details to prove his point about the
lack of Black characters in cartoons (see “Essay Craft
Lesson,” p. 289). The lesson ends with students re-
turning to their essays, revising, and annotating one
of their evidence paragraphs to show where they in-
cluded names of characters and titles of cartoons.
When they moved forward after this lesson, most
amended their essays to include features missing in
their opening drafts.
In the case of the neighborhood map narra-
tive, I created a lesson that showed the difference
between scene and summary in a story. Again, they
highlighted and annotated samples from former
student narratives on the same topic, then revised
spots in their narratives that summarized actions
and made them into scenes.
After the Draft: Putting the Revision in
Student Hands
Because my goal is to teach students to become in-
dependent writers, I teach a revision lesson instead
of asking them to turn their first draft in to me on
the due date. For the narrative, I hand out the “Nar-
rative Criteria Sheet” (p. 42). Students pick up four
different colors of highlighters, crayons, or colored
pencils. I tell them, “Select one color to represent the
first of the four elements of fiction listed on the ‘Nar-
rative Criteria sheet.’ Start with dialogue. Take your
dialogue color and mark all of the dialogue in your
story in one color.” After students have marked the
dialogue, I say, “Let’s share a few pieces of dialogue
out loud.” Then we talk about what we learn about
the character by reading the dialogue.
Once students have noted their dialogue—or
lack of it—we move to revision. “If you don’t have
any dialogue, don’t worry about it. That’s what re-
CHAPTER 7: RESPONDING TO STUDENT WORK
vision is for. Go back to your piece and find a spot
where you can insert some dialogue. If you do have
dialogue, check to see if you can add more or im-
prove the dialogue in your piece.” Sometimes I give
students large sticky notes for their revisions; some-
times I just say, “Place a ‘1’ in the margin where you
want to insert dialogue and then write a ‘1’ on an-
other piece of paper and add the dialogue.”
Some students need more assistance with this.
With beginning writers, I show a piece that I have
written without dialogue and then we discuss where
to add it. I also encourage students who located di-
alogue in their narratives to come to the document
camera and demonstrate where and how they in-
cluded it.
We repeat the highlighting process with each
element in a narrative—blocking, character devel-
opment, and setting. With each element, students
share their pieces with classmates to provide models
for those who need to add more details. We spend
an entire class period working on this revision.
Later in the year, I add more sophisticated nar-
rative techniques—like flashbacks and figurative
language. This activity helps students literally see
how writers use these tools to develop their stories.
Their papers are a rainbow of colors, showing how
character description, setting description, dialogue,
and blocking function in building a story. Again,
I am demonstrating to students how to revise, not
marking their papers for what’s missing. By giving
time, space, directions, and models, I insist that all
students revise their papers.
Once students have a revised draft, I cement
the lesson by asking them to step back and think
about the kinds of changes they made in their writ-
ing. I give them the following instructions:
1. On your final—or most recent—draft, high-
light five places where you made changes from the
original. These changes might include genre addi-
tions (character, setting, dialogue, blocking) or they
might be changes you made in your word work, sen-
tence, or verb revisions.
2. Number each of these changes 1–5.
3. On a separate sheet of paper, write why you
made the revisions you made. Include your process.
285
For example, after calling my sister to ask about her es and figure out how the writer constructed them.
memories, I added more details about the day she Also, I don’t teach this sentence and word work
nearly drowned me at Swimmers’ Delight. Talking in isolation; these lessons are the second or third
to her reminded me about how our father built a fire round of revision in student writing. Students im-
and roasted hot dogs, how he put the watermelon in mediately implement their sentence revisions into
the river to cool. I also added a reflection about how their revised drafts.
this incident demonstrates my relationship with my Sometimes I find these gems in students’ pa-
sister. pers; other times I find them in the books we read.
I use the same highlighting revision process But I am also a sentence saver, so whenever I read—a
with essays, using the Essay Criteria Sheet (see p. novel, a newspaper or magazine article—I am on the
67). I ask them to select color highlighters and high- lookout for lyrical language that I can introduce to
light their introduction, thesis statement, transi- my students or borrow for myself.
tions, evidence, analysis, One of the first les-
and conclusion. Students sons I teach students is
Writing is not magic; it’s not a
highlight and share each how to embed lists in their
element, then stop and talent that some have and others narratives and essays to
revise during class. If don’t. It’s a craft—like playing make the language come
their papers drift from the piano or playing basketball. alive. Lists create a rhythm
the thesis, I tell them to that lifts up sentences. In
find the key words in the the following excerpt from
thesis statement and highlight where they turn up in my sentence-revision lesson, we note how the lists
the rest of their essays. I even use the same post-re- function in each sentence. We see how Sinnamon sets
vision reflection model to return them to earlier up her list with her first sentence: “where everyone
drafts to notice the changes they made and to ana- wears their courage like battle armor.” She follows this
lyze why they made them. up with why they need that armor: gun-totin’ fools,
Ultimately, having students revise based on dime sack sellers, dimly lit streetlights.
criteria and asking them to step back and analyze
their process helps them internalize the tools writers I peer over the broadened neighborhood of
use based on genre. When we illuminate the moves Albina and Killingsworth, where everyone
that writers make, we teach students that writing is wears their courage like battle armor. In a
not magic; it’s not a talent that some have and others world full of gun-totin’ fools, dime sack sell-
don’t. It’s a craft—like playing the piano or playing ers, and dimly lit streetlights, I had no choice
basketball—it’s a series of strategies or tools that but to bravely maneuver through silent chaos
writers employ. When we move away from a one- to get home that night.
and-done assignment with a grade at the end, stu-
dents become writers. We look at another example. Scott Russell
Sanders’ opening sentence, like Sinnamon’s, estab-
Teaching the Poetry of the Sentence lishes the groundwork for the next sentence, “When
Many students struggle with basic sentence struc- I was a boy, the men I knew labored with their bod-
tures, spelling, and punctuation, but I don’t address ies.” The follow-up sentence tells who those men are.
those on the initial revision because the first level He uses multiple lists that also show how to use both
of rewriting needs to focus on the demands of the commas and semicolons.
genre and content. Sometimes I teach traditional
sentences, like introductory and coordinating claus- When I was a boy, the men I knew labored
es, when I notice students exhibit a pattern of errors with their bodies. They were marginal farm-
in those structures; however, I have found greater ers, just scraping by, or welders, steelworkers,
success by showing students examples of elegant carpenters; they swept floors, dug ditches,
writing and asking them to take apart the sentenc- mined coal, or drove trucks, their forearms

286 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 ropy with muscle; they trained horses, stoked
furnaces, built tires, stood on assembly lines
wrestling parts onto cars and refrigerators.
After we read over the mentor sentences, stu-
dents find one or more places to add lists to their
sentences (see “Sentence Revision” p. 292).
As we move through the year, I add onto our
sentence knowledge. Sometimes I create sentence
lessons for a particular essay or fiction piece. For ex-
ample, in the “Passion Counts: The ‘I Love’ Admis-
sions Essay” (p. 257), students write sentences that
include both repetition and lists. During a lesson on
fiction or narrative writing, I introduce cumulative
sentences that stretch students’ descriptive skills
as well as their ability to handle parallel sentence
structure:
This afternoon I remember Xavier playing
“You be the little girl and I’ll be the kitty”;
digging for “squirmy wormies” in the back-
yard with Scoop, his yellow digger; refusing
to get into his car seat until he’s taken us for
a 15-minute pretend drive to the zoo. Xavier
gives me joy.
These are not one-time lessons. In order for
students to habitually use these sentence patterns,
they need to return to them again and again, so I
often make one or more of these sentences part of
the criteria for an essay or narrative.
Too often, students associate revision with
cleaning up spelling and sentence errors; instead,
I want students to view revision as a recrafting of
their piece. These lessons move students from er-
ror-driven revisions to revising as an art.
Patterns of Errors/Patterns of Growth:
Individual Feedback
By the time I receive student papers, they have
been responded to and revised multiple times:
during read-arounds where their classmates tell
them what’s working in their paper, during our
short classwork sharing of elements of fiction or
essay writing, during genre-based and sentence
revision lessons. When the student paper lands on
my desk—either a hard copy or a digital copy—it
should be thick with drafts, color highlighted for
CHAPTER 7: RESPONDING TO STUDENT WORK
the kinds of changes students made in their revi-
sions from draft to draft.
At this point, I am looking for growth: What
do they understand now that they didn’t understand
in the first draft about genre, content, and usage?
But I am also looking for their individual patterns
of errors: What don’t they understand about the
essay writing that they need to learn? What don’t
they understand about grammar, punctuation, and
spelling?
When I was a young teacher, Mina Shaugh-
nessy’s book, Errors & Expectations, changed my
teaching. She wrote:
The teacher must try to decipher the indi-
vidual student’s code, examining samples of
his writing as a scientist might, searching for
patterns or explanations, listening to what the
student says about punctuation, and creating
situations in the classroom that encourage all
students to talk openly about what they don’t
understand.
She also wrote that students make many errors,
but if teachers look for patterns, they can eliminate
the errors one at a time:
The discovery by a student that he can do
something he thought he couldn’t releases the
energy to do it. Students who make many er-
rors feel helpless about correcting them. Error
has them in its power, forcing them to hide or
bluff or feign indifference but never to attack.
The teacher must encourage an aggressive at-
titude toward error and then provide a strat-
egy for its defeat, one that allows the student
to count his victories as he goes and thereby
grow in confidence. This means letting the
student in on what’s happening—setting a
reasonable limit to what he needs to accom-
plish, helping him classify the kinds of errors
he makes most often, and then planning in-
struction so that success is built into each les-
son and the student can see that he is finally
beginning to cope with errors.
Using Shaughnessy’s approach, I catalogue
each student’s errors and prioritize which ones I will
287
ask them to tackle first. For Josh, I chose introducto-
ry clauses because he used them frequently. On his
individual check sheet (p. 296), I wrote:
Comma in an introductory clause: When
you have an introductory clause (signal words
are: when, before, during, after, because, al-
though …), a comma separates the introduc-
tion from the main sentence.
You wrote: “When she was a young girl she
was forced to be a laborer in her father’s fields
so that she would not be sold.” When is your
signal word.
You need a comma after girl: “When she was a
young girl, she was …”
You wrote: “Shortly after he finished these
words he gave Lalu’s father two bags of seed
as payment for her to be his property.” After is
your signal word in this sentence.
But I also noted several places where he need-
ed to fix his essay and return to the play to bring
more energy and insight to his opening and to build
stronger analysis after he cites evidence:
You have good evidence on Troy asking to
drive the garbage truck. You do a good job
summarizing the problem with Cory and foot-
ball, but you could add quotes from the text.
The paragraph about Troy and Rose
doesn’t seem to fit into your thesis about
changing to fit the times. Maybe you could
add a new piece about how Troy didn’t realize
the opportunities that a college scholarship
could open for Cory instead of insisting on
him keeping the job at the A&P.
Bridgette, an excellent writer, lugged her sen-
tences around, filling them with a passive voice that
left the perpetrators of injustice unnamed. Because
Bridgette displayed an eagerness to revise multiple
times and carried her learning forward from draft
to draft, I responded to her patterns of errors inside
the text of her essay or narrative instead of creating
an individual check sheet.
288 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
The Siletz people were taken from their land
to make room for white settlers, and while
some resisted, eventually the Siletz, and 27
other tribes, were forced out of their homes.
Excellent. Think about: You use passive
voice here—who moved them, who forced
them out of homes? How can you change
that sentence to make it active?
Typically, I located one or two places where she
needed to revise, and she revised the rest of the pa-
per on her own.
These final revisions reveal a key aspect of
holding students accountable. For example, when a
student whom I will call Jeremy turned in a half-done
essay after he wasted class time, he had to redo his
essay again and again. Over his years of schooling,
Jeremy learned that he could turn in scrappy work
and get a D, maybe a C, so his habits became a prac-
tice that kept him from learning to write. Because I
do not give students grades on half-assed work, he
had to revise until he had a full draft, with all of the
elements of an essay. His essay didn’t have to be per-
fect, but it had to be complete, and it had to demon-
strate what he learned in revision strategies.
During the first quarter, some students, like
Jeremy, attempt to play games that have kept them
afloat during their academic careers—just doing
enough to get by. By the end of first quarter, most
students understand I don’t play that game and class
becomes easier because they use their class time
more effectively. Of course, this doesn’t always work,
and some students continue to play games past sec-
ond quarter.
Responding to student work is time consum-
ing, but it is also rewarding. I love sitting down with
a stack of student essays and witnessing the kinds of
changes they have made: a taut sentence alive with
poetry or an insight about a piece of literature that
didn’t exist before our class. I get all goose bumpy
when a student reads a narrative during our class
read-around, and the entire class erupts in laugh-
ter or applause because they know that Taneisha or
Bree or Tivon nailed it. These are not happy acci-
dents: This is the art of teaching. Z
u HANDOUT

Essay Craft Lesson

Read and annotate the sample text from Joe Robertson’s essay on Black characters in cartoons.

Introduction:
Do you remember that cartoon with a mighty Black
prince who looked like Denzel Washington? Re-
member? He rescued the lovely Black princess who This is Joe’s thesis.
looked like Halle Berry? Remember how the evil
white wizard, an Arnold Schwarzenegger lookalike,
got chased by an angry mob of bees? Me neither.
Perhaps that’s because African Americans and other Note the transition sentences that
people of color aren’t cast as heroes in cartoons. links back to the thesis statement.

Evidence Paragraph:
Even when cartoons try to hide African Americans, Joe names the cartoon and the
we’re still ridiculed. In the Tom and Jerry cartoon, character.
for example, they often have a woman, Mammy Two
Shoes, with striped stockings on. The way the car-
toonists portray her voice and accent show that she To go along with his transition,
is Black. They even manage to put in a little criticism he discusses how although the
on the way she struts around the house. To top it off, audience doesn’t see her face, we
she sounds so ignorant. Children see this cartoon know she is Black.
flick and get the idea that Black women are these
mean maids who walk around in slippers 24 hours a He ends with an analysis/
day, mispronouncing words and being cruel to ani- reflection about what children
mals. Where is their dignity? learn given this depiction.

Task: Annotate the evidence paragraph below in

the same way I annotated the paragraphs above:

Black people are totally hidden in most Disney pro-

ductions, but don’t think for one second that we are
the only race that is hidden or abused. What about
Popeye, who is an all-American white sailor who is
the hero of heroes? In Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali
Baba and the 40 Thieves we watch Popeye defeat an-
gry Arabs who stole everything in sight. They stole
teeth out of people’s mouths, the fish bowl without
the fish; they even stole Olive Oyl. Each and every
Arab in the episode was a man. This stereotypes Ar-
abs as evil and rotten thieves.

Your turn: Go back to your evidence paragraphs. Have you named the cartoon? The characters? Showed
specific evidence of the problem? Have you reflected on the cartoon?

CHAPTER 7: RESPONDING TO STUDENT WORK 289

u HANDOUT

Scene and Summary

A summary gives the reader a quick sketch of what is happening or what has happened. Often these are plac-
es that you need to go back and fill out with more details. Scenes, on the other hand, create a mental movie
for your readers. They can see, hear, sometimes even smell what you’re writing about. A scene includes: dia-
logue, setting description, sensory details (smells, sounds). A scene makes a photograph into a movie.

Note the differences between the two below:

Summary

I was excited about the game against Benson. It was an important game, and I was nervous about the
outcome. Sarah Green was an obstacle our team would have to overcome. Benson had a clear height
advantage, but that’s never stopped me. I beat both Imé and Kenny at the hoop. Steph and I have our
outside shots down, and …

Scene

A wave of must and heat hit me when I ran through the doors to Benson’s gym. The crowd rose to
their feet, shouting, “Tiger power!” as we made our entrance.
“It’s on,” Steph said as we took off our huge, yellow warm-up shirts. “We can do it.”
Steph’s the talker. I get clear and focused. When I’m playing, the band, the cheerleaders, even
the yelling between the “boys’” teams melts into the walls. It’s just me, the ball, my team—and in this
game, Sarah Cooper.

Your turn: Highlight and write notes in the margins about dialogue, setting description, sensory details, and
character details. What differences do you note between the summary and the scene?

290 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

Task: In the following scene, highlight and write notes in the margins about dialogue, setting description,
sensory details, and character details.

Hide and Go Seek

by Michelle Lee

“I’m fisher!” I yelled as me and all my friends gath-

ered around a big, leafy tree for a neighborhood
game of hide and go seek.
“Everyone put one foot in!” I insisted.
“No, put two feet in. Please! Please!” Sarah
pleaded. “I always end up being it when we put one
foot in,” she moaned.
“OK, quit your whinin’. We’ll put two feet in.
‘Engine, Engine, number nine. Going down Chicago
line. If the train should jump the track, do you want
your money back? Yes? No? Maybe so?’” I looked
down to see that my nubby little index finger was
resting on top of Adam’s Voltron reflector Velcro
shoe.
“Yes!” he shouted.
“Y-E-S spells yes, and you are not it for the rest
of your entire life,” I sang. Looking down again, I
saw that now my trusty finger was on my very own
purple tennis shoe.
“Yes! That’s out for me.” I had figured out how
to rig it every time so that I didn’t have to be it. I
always called fisher, stood next to the same person,
went in counterclockwise order, and did the same
rhyme first, every time we played. At first I thought
that I was a genius, but then I realized that the other
kids were just too scared to tell me I was cheating.
“How come you’re always out first,” complained
Justin. He was one of the smarter ones.
“Shut up Justin!” I sassed. “That’s just the way it
happened!” He got his nerve, I thought to myself.

Your turn: Find two or three places in your narrative where you have a flat summary and you need to add details
to make it a scene. Highlight the original places in your narrative. Write your revision. Make sure you include:

___ Dialogue and blocking

___ Setting description
___ Sensory details (smells, sounds, touch, visuals)

CHAPTER 7: RESPONDING TO STUDENT WORK 291

u HANDOUT

Sentence Revision: What’s Next?

During this revision session, you will shake up your sentences. Make them sizzle.

1. Add a list. Remember, lists work in any piece: fiction, essay, or poetry. Use them to quicken the pace by
listing one-syllable, quick words: run, jump, shoot.

Notice Sinnamon’s list:

I peer over the broadened neighborhood of Albina and Killingsworth, where everyone wears their
courage like battle armor. In a world full of gun-totin’ fools, dime sack sellers, and dimly lit street lights,
I had no choice but to bravely maneuver through silent chaos to get home that night.

Notice Scott Russell Sanders’ list in his essay “The Men We Carry in Our Minds”:
When I was a boy, the men I knew labored with their bodies. They were marginal farmers, just scrap-
ing by, or welders, steelworkers, carpenters; they swept floors, dug ditches, mined coal, or drove trucks,
their forearms ropy with muscle; they trained horses, stoked furnaces, built tires, stood on assembly lines
wrestling parts onto cars and refrigerators.

Your turn: Find one sentence in your piece. Add a list to the sentence. Write it below:

2. Find strong verbs. Make the verb the workhorse of your sentence.

Notice Judith Ortiz Cofer’s verbs:

I do remember the way the water pipes banged and rattled, startling all of us out of sleep until we got
so used to the sound that we automatically shut it out or raised our voices above the racket. The hiss
from the valve punctuated my sleep like a ... dragon sleeping at the entrance of my childhood.

Get active! Active verbs make your writing sparkle.

Here’s an example from a student essay:

Original: Logan’s decision to buy two mules was a shock to Janie.
Revision: Logan’s decision to buy two mules shocked Janie.

Your turn: Highlight every is, was, and were you find in your piece, then go back and determine if you can
rearrange the line or sentence. Find two sentences to rewrite.

292 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

3. Get rid of the excess. Good writing is lean. Cut out fat—those little words that don’t say anything. What
did Desiree´ take out? Why?

Notice how Desiree´ tightened up her sentence:

We were walking walked around the big play structure when something weird happened. All of a sudden,
every girl in our 3rd-grade class seemed to have assembled around Dominique and I me. None of the faces
around me us wore smiles.

Remember:
• In essays there is no need for the phrases, “I think,” “I believe,” or “In my opinion.”
• Cut unnecessary words like really, always, and very.
• Get rid of adverbs, like slowly or quickly. Make your verbs do the work.

Your turn: Find two sentences to rewrite by striking unnecessary words.

CHAPTER 7: RESPONDING TO STUDENT WORK 293

 Responding to Student Papers

Note to teachers: The way I respond to student papers changes based on the goal of assignments, time of year,
number of drafts, and ability of the student. Here are some questions I ask myself:

1. What was the goal of the assignment?

a. If the goal was to work on essays, then respond first to essay criteria.
i. I make comments about those places in the student’s writing that work—evidence, introduction, use
of quotes, etc.
ii. If some of the essay elements are missing, I ask questions to help students include missing elements.
For example, “I like your thesis about sustainability, but I don’t see any evidence arguing for why
plastic bottles are bad. Can you explain why?”
iii. In all cases, I want students to own their writing.
b. In first drafts, I work on focus, clarification, additions.
c. In writing-to-learn/expressive writing, I mostly comment on content.

2. What time of year is it?

a. Early in the year, I focus more on getting the student to want to write, to care about their writing. I’m the
cheerleader.
b. Later in the year, I focus more on fine-tuning their writing. I am both cheerleader and I am critical
friend.

3. What draft is it?

a. If it’s a first draft, I respond in ways that push the student to write more, to include more. I think:
What does the student need to learn to write a better narrative, essay, or poem?
b. If it’s a later draft, I respond to big pieces, then I respond to specific convention errors—see “Patterns of
error student sheet” below.

4. How do I keep the writing in their court?

a. Read-around: I ask students to read their papers out loud to the class. This provides them an audience; it
also offers students an opportunity to hear how others approached the writing, and it allows me to give
them “feedback” without reading and writing on every paper.
b. Color marking: Students mark their draft for essay or narrative elements. This gives them an
opportunity to add in the missing elements or expand on their first draft. This can be a whole class
activity that includes a pop-up share.
c. Questions/comments: I respond to the student paper with questions that push them to the next draft
based on narrative/essay criteria. What’s missing? (See #1 above.)
d. Patterns of error student sheet: I select one error at a time to eradicate and make the student responsible
for correcting that error in the paper.

294 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 Embedded Feedback

Note to teachers: In this feedback style, I embed my comments directly into the student’s essay or narrative.
This is my conversation with the student while they write—about what’s working in their draft and also what
needs work. I find it more effective than comments because the student must actively engage with the comment
before their next draft.

Stealing for Profit

Throughout America’s history, people of color have continually been forced out of their homes by
people in power to generate profit. This pattern of discrimination first occurred long before the Unit-
ed States was even a country; it started with the theft of Native American territory, and it continues
today with various methods of compulsion including: exclusion laws, physical barriers, violence, and
segregation. [Well done. I like the historic overview as well as the list of ways this has happened.
Think about this: Your “home disrupted” story would also make a strong opening. Not the whole
thing, but a section of it.]
Multiple events over the last five centuries have shaped America into a country of economic and
social classes heavily influenced by ethnicity. With profit in mind, people in power have captured the
homes and lives of people of color, all to make room for more profit-making centers like shopping
malls, sports arenas, plantations, and factories. [Strong verb: capture. Good list.] According to The
Pew Research Center, the median wealth of white households in 2009 was 20 times that of Black
households and 18 times that of Hispanic households. These disparities in wealth can be traced back
to the first steps we took as a country, where the people in power have been making a profit off of
what was once the land of people of color. [Great! You land the thesis. But think about the use of
“we.” Were “we” all a part of the power structure? Weren’t some of “us” the people who have been
oppressed? Is there a way to reword this?]
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 provides one of the opening acts of land theft in the United
States. [Good transition.] When the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, they gave the gov-
ernment $500,000, equivalent to $10,000,000 today, to pay for the process of moving all Indians east
of the Mississippi River to Oklahoma. The main tribes affected by the Indian Removal Act were the
Cherokees, Seminole, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and the Creeks. In the winter of 1838, 15,000 Cherokees
were forced to leave their homes for Oklahoma. Charles Hicks, a Cherokee Vice Chief recalled leaving
his home: “We are now about to take our leave and kind farewell to our native land, the country that
the Great Spirit gave our Fathers, we are on the eve of leaving that country that gave us birth … it is
with sorrow we are forced by the white man to quit the scenes of our childhood … we bid farewell to
it and all we hold dear.” [Good quote because it ties to the theme of losing home.] The Cherokees
walked the 1,200-mile “Trail of Tears”, where 4,000 Natives died along the way. The Indian Removal
Act opened up approximately 25,000,000 acres of land for white settlement in the South. [You end
with facts here. What do you want to say about this? How do you make sense of what happened?
How does it tie back to your thesis?]

CHAPTER 7: RESPONDING TO STUDENT WORK 295

 Student Feedback Chart

Student Name: Josh

Assignment: Fences essay

Introduction Utilitarian, but it doesn’t reel me in. You are a funny, insightful guy. How are you going to use
those traits to make me want to read your writing?
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Thesis Good, clear thesis.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Transitions Work on tying your transitions back to your thesis to pull the paper forward, and use key
words to remind you. For example, in the paragraph about Troy driving the truck, your last
sentence would be a great transition into the paragraph: Many of the men that Troy worked with
at the garbage company didn’t understand that the world had changed enough so that a Black
man could hold the same job as a white man.

In the paragraph about Cory, you might lead into the evidence: Troy took a risk when he asked
for a job driving the garbage truck, but he held onto the past when his son, Cory, wanted to play
football.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Evidence You have good evidence on Troy asking to drive the garbage truck. You do a good job summa-
rizing the problem with Cory and football, but you could add quotes. (See below.)

The paragraph about Troy and Rose doesn’t seem to fit into this thesis about changing to fit the
times. Maybe you could add a new piece about how Troy didn’t realize the opportunities that a
college scholarship could open for Cory instead of insisting on him keeping the job at the A&P.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Use of Quotes Good choice of quotes to support your thesis. You embed quotes into paragraph, but you need
more.

You need to add evidence from the play to the paragraph about Cory and football. At one
point, Bono discusses how good Troy was. You might want to go back and use that as evidence.
Again, later you state the Cory was good, but you could add a quote there for further proof
from the book.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Analysis This is the area that we can all work on more. Essay writing is thinking made manifest. This is
where the thinking work really happens
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Conclusion OK, I agree with your mom. This just repeats the opening without giving us more information.
Come back to Troy struggling to live in a new era—and ruining his life by getting stuck in the
past …

296 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

_________________________________________________________________________________________
Punctuation Comma in an introductory clause
and Conventions When you have an introductory clause (signal words are: when, before, during, after,
because, although …), a comma separates the introduction from the main sentence.

You wrote: “When she was a young girl she was forced to be a laborer in her father’s fields
so that she would not be sold.”

You need a comma after girl: “When she was a young girl, she was …”

You wrote: “Shortly after he finished these words he gave Lalu’s father two bags of seed as
payment for her to be his property.”

You need a comma after words: “Shortly after he finished these words, he gave …”

Spelling
Consider using spell check. Many of your errors are errors of haste. Example: scince
instead of since.

_________________________________________________________________________________________
Other Because you are a good thinker, your essay moves along. Also, as I’ve witnessed in class,
Observations you love to argue. You find convincing pieces for arguments, but you don’t follow through
with the analysis. Use your strength in your essay.

CHAPTER 7: RESPONDING TO STUDENT WORK 297

 Portfolios and Basketball
I
t was 5:30 p.m. on finals day. Most students
had left the building at noon, giving teachers
a chance to work on their grades before the
weekend or prepare for the new semester starting
on Monday. Teachers had three hours without stu-
dents: The possible uses for our time were endless.
I sat in the library’s prehistoric computer lab with a
roomful of students who were still writing, revising,
and polishing work for their portfolios.
Lloyd walked out of the lab and into the adjoin-
ing library. At 5:30 p.m., college basketball aired on
TV. Lloyd slid onto the flat top of the library table,
obviously through with portfolios for the day. “Hey
Ms. C., why do we have to write these evaluations
298 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
PAUL STAFFORD FOR TRAVELMAG.COM
anyway? You’ve got all my work in there. You’re the
teacher. Just read my work and give it a grade. Why
do I have to evaluate it?”
His eyes moved back to the TV, where Arizona
was playing UCLA. I looked over at him. This year
he’d moved from his one- or two-line paper with-
out punctuation to scrappy essays that, although not
quite full enough to be called “done,” were a big im-
provement over last year’s meager output.
“Do you watch videos after your basketball
games?” I asked, knowing that the coach always
scheduled mandatory post-game reviews.
“Yeah, every day after our game we got to go
watch those videos,” he answered without taking
his eyes off his favorite player. back from their work and assessing it. The routine
“Why do you think Coach Harris makes has been write it, turn it in, the teacher grades it, get
you watch your game after you already played it? it back. End of cycle. When I evaluate a piece, I take
Couldn’t he just tell you what you did?” an essential part of the learning experience away
“Because then we can see our mistakes—and from the student and give myself the act of judg-
what plays we’re running that work. We look at vid- ment and power. Ultimately, students learn a great
eos of teams we’re going to play, too, so we can see deal more about their writing if they learn to “watch
what kind of offense and defense they’ve got. We the post-game video” and critique their “play.”
can see who to match our players up with. We learn I use portfolios to shape my instruction for in-
their plays so we can outwit them at the basket.” He dividual students, but I also see portfolios as a tool
shifted on the table, still not seeing how his writing to move students from object to subject in their
portfolio had anything to do with post-game videos. education. For a critical teacher, portfolios are an
I turned off the TV, and we sat and I diagrammed evaluation method that pushes students to partici-
the comparisons between basketball videos and pate with me in their assessment rather than being
writing portfolios. judged by me as outside authority.
With Lloyd it was basketball, with Harold it Some of my colleagues believe the portfolio be-
was wrestling, with Tawni and Aaron it was dance. longs to the student; therefore, the student should
The connection between teaching, practicing, per- be allowed complete freedom to select and control
forming, reviewing, and critiquing is a common the content. I disagree. There are places and times
thread between disciplines. These talks grant me a when students have control; for example, at the end
way to connect the students’ passion with learning of my class, students make a book of their writing
to evaluate their own writing. where they can choose the pieces. Jessica, a terrif-
ic poet, put poetry and pictures in her book; Aaron
Portfolios: Grading, Evaluation, made his a collection of fiction writing. With port-
Assessment folios, I try to establish and negotiate higher expec-
I’ve had students make portfolios for years. When tations. I’m setting the standards. Each grading pe-
I first started keeping these folders, they were real- riod in each class, I determine the kinds of writing
ly glorified work folders where students stored ev- that students must include in their portfolios; some
erything from false starts quarters we focus on essay
and ugly “I didn’t want writing; other quarters we
to write that poem any- Ultimately, students learn a focus on fiction; and some
way” fragments alongside great deal more about their quarters we work on mul-
polished pieces. Now I’ve tiple genres. Students must
writing if they learn to “watch
come to see portfolios meet the criteria for each
as places where students the post-game video” and piece of writing, which
keep the journey of their critique their “play.” means many revise multi-
writing, but also as an ar- ple times. They do not earn
chive where they analyze credit until they have suc-
both their work and their process so they can take cessfully completed all of the written pieces.
what they know and apply it to the next piece that One term in Literature and U.S. History
comes along—just as my basketball players view class, students needed a literary analysis, a histor-
their videos to improve their next game. ical fiction piece, and a research paper on either a
While most students enjoy rummaging through resistance movement or a person who worked for
their folders and don’t mind tossing their work from change. Students also included poetry, interior
one folder to another, they are sometimes resistant monologues, and film critiques that we worked on,
to reflection. Lloyd’s comment that I’m the teacher, but unless they completed satisfactory drafts of the
therefore I should just do the evaluation, is com- requirements, they didn’t pass. I provided lots of
mon. Most students aren’t accustomed to standing work time, models, and demonstrations; these tasks

CHAPTER 7: RESPONDING TO STUDENT WORK 299

were not assigned, they were taught. I spent two to off target. Although I’m still struggling with the
three afternoons a week in the computer lab after evaluation process—as well as the teaching process
school working with students who either needed ex- that precedes it—I’ve learned some lessons along
tra help or who wanted more work time. the way.
Partly, my insistence on variety and standards
comes from real-world concerns: I’m at the high- Time Is Important
stakes end of education; I work mostly with juniors Students need enough time between their entry
and seniors. Tyrone, a thoughtful spoken word poet, into the class and the analysis of their writing to
would like to write every assignment—from literary see change or growth. Often, the portfolio evalua-
analysis to museum critique to tion written after the first nine
historical fiction—as a poem, weeks of class is weak. Stu-
but if I allowed that, I wouldn’t My students walk out dents are just “finding the bas-
ket,” learning to dribble. I’m
be providing him a rigorous
the school door into a still working at moving them
education. He already knows
how to write poetry. He need- social emergency. They from perfunctory “for-the-
ed to learn how to write essays. are in the center of it. teacher writing” to committed
I push students to think more writing, from aimless diatribes
deeply about the world, to make to essays with support. But af-
connections in their essays between literature and ter nine weeks, the pathway has not been traveled
life in their neighborhood. I don’t just want pretty often enough to see it clearly. Still, it’s important to
words and adept dialogue; I want searing analysis. begin the process of reflecting on their work. They
My students walk out the school door into a social also need to begin noting how they work, what they
emergency. They are in the center of it. I believe that do to move out of a block, how they get a first draft
writing is a basic skill that will help them both un- finished, what revision strategies work for them. In
derstand that emergency and work to change it. short, they need to build awareness of their writing
The portfolio in my classroom fulfills sever- and learning.
al duties. It showcases students’ work in a variety I used to jump into the writing evaluation at
of genres; it demonstrates their journey as a writ- the end of the quarter without giving students time
er—from early to polished drafts, from stumbling to re-read their pieces. Now I devote a 90-minute
first attempts at poetry, fiction, and essays to later, class period for students to transfer papers from
more accomplished pieces. But it also provides a their work folder to their writing portfolio. This is
space and time for students to reflect on the change a noisy 90 minutes, as students read and talk about
and growth in their writing and thinking as well as their writing (mostly but not always on task). It’s
pointing out a trajectory for future work. Student when I hear students say, “I didn’t realize how much
portfolios are also a reflection of my work: What work I completed.” Or “Look, I didn’t even know
did students learn or accomplish? What didn’t they how to line my poetry out.” And sometimes “I wrote
learn? What do I need to reteach? better pieces last year.”
Over the years, I’ve made some discoveries I learned that if I expect a thorough analysis
and fine-tuned my approach to portfolios. Some of student writing, then I need to give that signal by
terms I’d end up with amazing evaluations—where weighting the evaluation as heavily as I do a major
students had obviously internalized discussions writing assignment. Over the years, I located mod-
on craft and content. Other terms, the analy- els, built criteria with students, set standards, and
sis was thin—even when I could see remarkable gave them adequate time to complete the task.
changes in students’ writing. Sometimes I knew I also need to practice patience. It takes as
I’d crammed too much work in at the end of the much time to teach students how to think about and
term; other times, it was obvious that the portfo- write a reflection on their writing as it takes to teach
lio prompts were too meticulous or too broad, and them how to write a literary or historical analysis.
still other times it was clear that my teaching was Older students with more experience tend to write

300 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

better analyses than younger, less experienced writ-
ers. I have to praise the effort and push them to the
next level.
Models and Prompts for
Portfolio Reflection
When I first started asking students to critique or
examine their own writing, I underestimated their
need for models of self-reflection. I expected them
to “do it” without knowing what they were doing.
Bobby Harris, Jefferson High School’s basketball
coach, wouldn’t spend two hours watching a game
video without telling his players what to look for—
or developing the criteria together with them.
“What is self-reflection?” Johnny asked, “What
do you mean, ‘What did I learn from my writing?’”
Amber didn’t understand how to use examples from
her work for support. Students need to see what I
want. They need models of past portfolio evaluations
so they can gain a sense of
how to look at their writ-
ing just as they needed ex- She wrote her evaluation as
amples of former students’
essays to see what embed-
an advice
ded and block quotes look and typed it in newspaper
like in text. Now I distrib- format—including her picture
ute former students’ evalu-
and examples from her
ations so they can see how
students embedded quotes writing
from their work as evi-
dence of their growth.
Jim Jackson, for example, discussed how when
he entered class, he hated revising his pieces and
didn’t do it. But then he changed. In this section, he
discusses how he made three attempts on his open-
ing to a literary essay before he found one he liked:
In an essay I wrote on the novel Kindred by
Octavia Butler, I wrote three drafts each with
separate introductions. My first introduction
was: “I was unpleasantly surprised at the end
of …” This was a dull beginning to a shell of a
report. My second attempt was a lot better at
shocking the reader into reading my piece, but
I had trouble telling how I felt about the novel.
I began with: “Who the hell wrote this?” I fi-
nally went to type my essay, and I really didn’t
like my opening sentence, so I came up with
the greatest idea I had ever gotten. I would use
a quote from the book as my introduction to
the essay. I was finally satisfied with my begin-
ning: “Alice stopped hating me, I wonder how
long it will take you.”
Jim used evidence from his essays—his three
introductions—to make the point. In the rest of his
portfolio, he discusses revising fiction and poetry.
I discovered that students took their own writ-
ing more seriously after they listened to conversa-
tions by writers about writing. For this reason, I read
selections from William Stafford, Tess Gallagher,
Donald Murray, and Toni Morrison writing about
their writing. Students are fascinated, for example,
to discover that the idea for Toni Morrison’s novel
Beloved came from an old news article explaining
how a woman killed her children because she didn’t
want them to grow up in slavery.
Some students like
more specific prompts,
while others find them
stifling—so I vary them
column for writers, and allow them choice.
When a student says they
can’t get excited about
this (or any) assignment, I
say, “Find your passion.”
to prove her point. They know they have
to write an evaluation
of their work. Renesa, for
example, couldn’t put pen to paper until I showed
her an article by a local columnist on writing. She
wrote her evaluation as an advice column for writ-
ers, and typed it in newspaper format—including
her picture and examples from her writing to prove
her point. Frank wrote his as a letter to my future
students telling them what they could expect to
learn about writing and giving examples from his
own writing.
Some terms, I ask my class to focus their eval-
uation on one genre—essays or fiction, perhaps.
Using colored pencils or highlighters, they identi-
fy types of evidence, introduction styles, block and
embedded quotes, and they analyze their content
and conclusion in essays. In fiction, they have to
point out dialogue, blocking, imagery, flashback, in-
terior monologues. Aaron discovered that he rare-
CHAPTER 7: RESPONDING TO STUDENT WORK 301
ly used dialogue. Shameica realized that she didn’t
use blocking and wondered if that was why people
got confused about who was speaking in her story.
Tony saw that he didn’t use evidence from Andrew
Jackson’s speech on the Cherokee removal; in his
critique, he had no quotes to support his position
that Jackson was a “racist pig.”
Sometimes I ask students to draw pictures or
write poems that describe themselves as writers, and
then write a paragraph explaining the image for me.
Gabriella drew a sculptor with a block of clay. She
wrote, “I am the potter with clay, molding, shaping,
by taking off pieces and discarding pieces until I
have a piece of art.” Jim wrote that he was a chef and
his writing is dough that he pinches and pulls into
just the right shape. Licy drew a jar full of candy to
describe herself as a contributor to the class:
I “measure” not only the students’ success and
growth, but my own as well. I can lay the founda-
tion of expectations at the beginning of the grad-
ing period and help students meet those criteria.
The compiled work and the evaluation of it allows
students—and me—to reflect on what worked, on
our mistakes, what we can do better next time. Per-
haps because evaluations give us time to pause and
look back, they also rehearse us for our next perfor-
mance—whether it’s writing an essay or making a
three-point outside shot in the state tournament. Z

My writings and contributions are like the

taste of candy itself—some sweet, some sour.
Like melting bits of chocolate, I melt cultur-
al information to teach the class something
about Mexicans. Like the wrinkled wrapper, I
make a sound so everyone knows I am aware.
I am here.

At the beginning of the new term, students

showed their metaphors and drawings. These be-
came conversation starters about the craft of writ-
ing. As students talked about their drawings or
poems, they also shared their roadblocks and their
detours. Johanna was a planner who ran into diffi-
culty because her drafts never went as she predicted.
The information didn’t lay itself out as neatly as she
initially hoped it would. Lisa needed to doodle to
get started. Anthony said that seeing all of my drafts
freed him to get started because he knew he didn’t
have to get it right the first time. Peter taught some
classmates his method of outlining, which was flexi-
ble enough to allow for surprises, but gave his piece
“river banks” to contain the flow. The point of our
class discussion wasn’t to make students all work the
same way through a piece of writing, but rather to
encourage them to find alternative strategies, so if
they weren’t successful they could try someone else’s
for a spell to see if it helped.
Portfolios are one small part of the total class-
room, but an important part, because it’s where

302 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

u HANDOUT

Portfolio: Essay Writing

Task: Your assignment today is to write an essay examining your growth in essay writing this term. It is worth
a full essay assignment.

1. Write a list telling what you know about essay writing.

• Check three items on your list.
• Use the backside of this paper to collect your evidence of how you have incorporated this knowledge into
your essays. Think about what these pieces demonstrate about both your understanding/skill in writing
essays.
• Write about what these pieces, especially the revisions, demonstrate about your growth as a writer. What
do you know now that you didn’t know before? Think big: evidence, thesis, embedding quotes in essays.
• Also, discuss the sentence and word-level changes you made in your work.

2. Write a letter/essay to the teacher of this course discussing your ability to write essays using the
following criteria:

Introduction

Evidence about writing: BE SPECIFIC

• For each item you listed above, select specific evidence from your essays this quarter. Include these
passages in your portfolio essay.
• Introduce each passage.
• Tell how the passage demonstrates specific knowledge about essay writing.
• Talk about revision. Tell what you know and use examples from your writing—point out places in
your drafts where you made changes and tell why you made those changes.
• Tell what this piece demonstrates about your ability to write—strong introduction, use of quotes
and text evidence, analysis, conclusions.

Other factors to include:

• Discuss problems you face as writer.
• How do you overcome your problems?
• Write about how you overcome the barrier of a blank sheet of paper. Give examples. Do you doodle?
Daydream? Read a favorite writer? Listen to music?

What helped? What didn’t help?

• We worked on essay writing and revision strategies. What helped you? What didn’t help? What do
you need that we failed to give you this term?

CHAPTER 7: RESPONDING TO STUDENT WORK 303

Portfolio Preparation

Task: Before you begin writing your portfolio evaluation, locate copies of your essays from this semester. Make
sure you have all your different drafts—you will want to compare your early drafts to your later drafts.

1. Using a highlighter, mark any additions you made to your essay on your most recent draft.

2. Using a different color, highlight anything you eliminated from your first draft.

3. Think about these changes: Why did you make them? What did you learn about essay writing or about the
topic?

4. What were some obstacles you faced or overcame in writing this piece?

5.  What advice do you have for yourself before you write your next essay? What do feel you need to work on
in your next essay?

304 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

u HANDOUT

Writing Portfolio

Writing can be a process of discovery. When asked about all of his failed experiments, Einstein responded,
“Those weren’t failures. I learned what didn’t work each time.” Sometimes our writing “works,” other times it
doesn’t. One of the purposes of a portfolio is to give you time to reflect on what you’ve learned about writing
—either through your mistakes or your successes. When you figure out what makes you a successful writer
and articulate that on paper or in dialogue, you are more likely to transfer that knowledge to your next writing
project. Find your passion in this assignment. Find a way to make it meaningful to you.

Procedure:

1. Look back through your folders. I want you to begin this portfolio by just reading through your papers. As
you read, look at the kind of growth you’ve made over the year. Take notes on the changes you’ve witnessed
in your writing. You may write about one or more aspects of writing. For example, you may write about
your revision strategies across genres. You may write about your word choice in each genre.

2. Find pieces that you want to put in your portfolio. Remember to find examples for each genre: narrative,
expository, persuasive, fiction, and poetry. Think about what these pieces will show an audience about your
writing talent.

3. Choose your own style—a letter to yourself or me, an essay about writing, or a newspaper column. Please
note that you will use essay criteria in all styles.

Criteria: This must be thorough and use specific examples from your work.

Introduction
• Question
• Anecdote
• Quote
• Slap in the face
• Statistics

Evidence
• I MPORTANT: Specific evidence/quotes/citations from your work
(This section will vary depending on your topic choice)
• Explanations of how to write a specific genre
• Discussion about revision or getting started
• Discussion of your writing strategy

Conclusion
• What did you learn?
• What do you need to work on?

CHAPTER 7: RESPONDING TO STUDENT WORK 305

u SAMPLE PORTFOLIO EXCERPTS
First Semester Portfolio
by Gina Sander
Writing a paper is a lot like fishing. The fish—your
audience—want something full of flavor to catch
their eye. Openings like “Once upon a time” and
“This story is about” are old tricks the fish will ig-
nore. Essays want close-to-home facts or surprising
experiences. Narratives are something you went
through, so to reel in the catch, bring them straight
to the story.
Recently I had to write an essay about a gift
I received—a sentimental gift, not money or toys.
When I chose to write about dance, I knew my
opening had to be strong, so I brought my readers
straight to my dancing space:
I felt the cold floor of the Jefferson “dungeon”
under my calloused feet. My arms swung in
the thick, hot air. “Smack!” my hands slap the
studio floor, corner to corner in my danc-
ing space. My head swung up, down, and up
again spelling out “Gina.” As I danced, my cof-
fee-bean brown hair swished.
With this opening, the reader is seeing my
heart. I am opening up for them to see it all. Using
details from you own life can also be used in essays.
Using personal experiences shows the reader you
know what you’re writing about.
In my “essay with an attitude,” I open with a
scene I star in:
“Don’t get shot!” Laughter echoes down the hall
as I walk to the center doors. It’s 1:15 and I have
to catch my bus to Jefferson High School. Af-
ter a morning of academics at Grant, remarks
like “Why is Jeff an arts school?” and “Isn’t it
scary?” blurt out of people’s mouths when they
hear I’m dancing at Jeff. But they have no idea
what it’s like. Jefferson suffers because the pub-
lic is too ignorant to see the truth.
My introduction shows the reader that I know
firsthand about my thesis. Note I also opened with
dialogue. This is great bait because the reader jumps
right into the paper.
306 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
First Semester Portfolio
by Jim Jackson
When writing, my basic purpose was to get it done
so I could go do something more constructive like
watching TV. Writing was never a fun thing or
something I would choose to do because I never got
the chance to write from where I felt. I guess that
when I realized that writing could in fact be some-
thing I might be fairly OK at, my writing began to
be less of a chore and little more like a way to heal
myself, but I still hated to revise my work. Revision
was the big chore that I dreaded more than I once
dreaded writing.
I never had to write a real revision on an essay
before this class. Wait, that’s not true. Every time I’ve
had to revise an essay, I either found another thing
to do to make up for it, made an excuse to myself
and forgot the assignment, or I just fixed the spelling
errors.
This year is different. I’m learning new things
about revising, editing, and introductions that I nev-
er really put to use until now. In an essay I wrote on
the novel Kindred by Octavia Butler, I wrote three
drafts, each with separate introductions. My first in-
troduction was: “I was unpleasantly surprised at the
end of …” This was a dull beginning to a shell of a
report. My second attempt was a lot better at shock-
ing the reader into reading my piece, but I had trou-
ble telling how I felt about the novel. I began with:
“Who the hell wrote this?” I finally went to type my
essay, and I really didn’t like my opening sentence so
I came up with the greatest idea I had ever gotten. I
used a quote from the book as my introduction to
the essay. I was finally satisfied with my beginning:
“Alice stopped hating me, I wonder how long it will
take you.”
 About the Author

Linda Christensen has taught high school language arts and worked as a language arts curriculum specialist for
more than 40 years. She is currently the director of the Oregon Writing Project at Lewis & Clark College. She is
the author of Teaching for Joy & Justice: Re-Imagining the Language Arts Classroom, and co-editor of Rethinking
School Reform: Views from the Classroom; The New Teacher Book: Finding Purpose, Balance, and Hope During
Your First Years in the Classroom; Rethinking Elementary Education; and Rhythm and Resistance: Teaching Poetry
for Social Justice. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband, Bill Bigelow.

307
 Index

Page references in italics indicate illustrations. Barksdale, Desi, 75–76 cartoon essays, x, 58–67
Barr, Curtina: “What the Mirror Said,” 82, 84 conclusions, 63–64
A Barry, Deidre: “Two Young Women,” 88, 91 criteria sheet, 62, 67, 286
“Basement Stories” (Crittenden), 161, evidence collection/analysis, 59
Abrams, Charles, 160 166–167 evidence paragraphs, 62–63
“Abuelita” (Vidales), 29–30 “Battle to Change the Color Lines” goals, 58
“Accents” (Frohman), 248–251 (Ritcherson), 128–129 in-the-midst writing/revising, 59–60, 63
“Achievement of Desire” (R. Rodriguez), Beaty, Daniel, 72 introductions, 62
237, 238 Beauty and the Beast, 52, 53, 54 raising the bones (models), 61
Adair, Kronda: “Coming Out,” 186, 188–190 “Becoming American” (Joseph), 211–212, sample essays, 65–66
Adichie, Chimamanda, 182 214 student reflections, 64
“The Danger of a Single Story,” x, 72, 73 Beloved (Morrison), 301 topic/evidence selection, 60–61
Adkison, Jim, 142 Beyond Words: Images from America’s cartoons, activism provoked by, 68–70
African American Vernacular English Concentration Camps, 170 cartoons, movies, and literature for children,
(Black English; Ebonics), 81, 236, Bielefeld, Lois, 185 49–57
237–238, 239 Bigelow, Bill, 7–8, 17, 35, 103, 112 charting cartoons, 56–57
Aladdin, 53 Billy (French), 41 exposing the myths in cartoons, 50–54
“Albina Gets Torn Down” (Niece), 161, 167 “The Bird” (Rose), 186, 195 hypermasculinity of men, 51–52
Alexander, Michelle: The New Jim Crow, 31, “Black English/Ebonics: What It Be Like?” improvements to, 53–54, 55
35, 71 (Smitherman), 237–238 indoctrination by, 49–50, 55, 59
Alexie, Sherman, 181 Blake, Lealonni: “I Am from Soul Food and people of color, portrayal of, 54
Smoke Signals, 5, 116 Harriet Tubman,” 26 Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba and the
Allende, Isabel, 160 Blalock, Mary, 125, 131 40 Thieves, 50–51, 52, 53, 54, 59, 61
Anzaldúa, Gloria: “How to Tame a Wild “A Hand-Me-Down Name,” 11, 13 servants’ portrayal, 54
Tongue,” 237 Blau, Sheridan, 220 stereotypes, 50–51, 55
Arnold, Juanita Burnett, 136 “Bleeding Albina: A History of Community student reflections, 54–55
Arze Torres Goitia, Camila: “Gender Disinvestment, 1940–2000” (Gibson), 158 women’s/girls’ portrayal, 53–54, 69
Narrative,” 186, 191–192 blocking (in fiction), 40 “The Case for Reparations” (Coates), 31, 35
“Athletes of God” (Boyd), 265–266 Booker, Kenny, 138 Causey, Jayme, x, 51–52
attitude, essays with, 122–133 Booker, Thelma, 143 “Light Bright,” 186, 194–195
criteria sheet, 133 Bowden, Bobby: “Super Soaker War,” 34, “Celie” (L. Johnson), 216, 218
deadlines, 125–127 38–39 “Celie” (Pendelton), 217, 218
evidence, coloring for (raising the bones), Boyd, Uriah cell phones in class, 3–4
125 “Athletes of God,” 265–266 character description (in fiction), 41
evidence, finding, 123–124 “Fetching Ghosts,” 162–163 character silhouettes, 207
introductions, 124–125, 131–132 “Hair,” 79–80 Charting Cartoons (handout), 56–57
lists/models, 123 “Smoke Signals: A Broken Story,” 219, Chavanu, Bakari: “Bakari Chavanu’s Story,”
overview, 122–123 223–224, 225–226 10, 13
publication, 127 “The Bracelet” (Patel), 40 “Children of the Sea” (Danticat), 176
revisions, 126–127 Brave, 50, 53 “The Children’s Prayer Group” (Patel),
samples, 128–130 Brigham, Carl Campbell, 111, 114 274–276, 278
Austin, Johanna, 250 Brothers and Sisters (Campbell), 237, 238 Chinese Exclusion Act, 171
Avery, Ruth, 138 Bulosan, Carlos, 7 Christensen, Linda
“Linda Mae,” 12
B C “Poem for My Mentor Teacher,” xii
“Why I Like Making Trouble,” 95
“Bakari Chavanu’s Story” (Chavanu), 10, 13 Cabral, Amilcar, xi Cisneros, Sandra, 236
“Baking” (Luster), 262, 266 Caldwell, Keith, 15 “My Name,” 10–11
Baldwin, James Campbell, Bebe Moore: Brothers and Sisters, Clark, Otis G., 147
“Talk to Teachers,” ix, x 237, 238 Cleage, Pearl: What Looks Like Crazy on an
Bambara, Toni Cade, 236 Carr, Pat: If We Must Die, 137, 203 Ordinary Day, 41
“Raymond’s Run,” 230 Cartoon Essay Criteria Sheet (handout), 67 Clegg, Pamela: “My Nerves Wasn’t All She

INDEX 309
 Got On,” 40, 236 dialogue (in fiction), 40 “Fetching Ghosts” (Boyd), 162–163
Clifton, Lucille, dialogue journals, 205–206 fiction elements, 40–41
“forgiving my father,” 5, 117, 119 None of the Above Dialogue Journal, 114 “Finding the Inside” (Shimabukuro),
“homage to my hips,” 82 discipline, 43–46 241–242
“what the mirror said,” 81–83 Disney, 54, 60–61. See also cartoons, movies, “finding your heart” essays, 273–279
The Writing Life interview, 82 and literature for children overview, 273–274
coaches as allies, 46 disrespect, 45 sample essays, 277–279
Coates, Ta-Nehisi, 45 diversity, 235 topic selection, 274
“The Case for Reparations,” 31, 35 Dixson, Alyss: “Granny’s House,” 268, writing, 274–276
Coffee Will Make You Black (Sinclair), 40 270–271 flashback (in fiction), 41
Coleman, David, 31 Doersch, Sam, 170 Flint, Roland, 82
collective text, 17, 28, 184, 186, 187, 245 Dorfman, Ariel, 49, 55, 59 “Forgiveness” (anon.), 121
college essays, x–xi Douglass, Frederick, 8, 102 forgiveness poems, 5–6, 115–121
“finding your heart” essays, 273–279 DuBoise, Desireé, 138, 184 “forgiving my father” (Clifton), 5, 117, 119
“I love” essays, 257–263 “I Love Slam Poetry,” 260, 264–265 “Forgiving My Father” (Morris), 117, 120
“significant person” essays, 267–272 “The Night the World Caught Fire,” “Forgiving My Mother” (Park), 117, 120
The Color Purple (A. Walker), 104, 184, 186, 154–155 “Forgiving Our Fathers” (Lourie), 116
207, 211, 215, 217 Duck Tales, 68–69 Foster, Stephen: “Old Black Joe,” 243–244
“Coming Out” (Adair), 186, 188–190 Dyson, Michael Eric, 74 Fox, Rachel: “Mr. Ruffle,” 88, 91
community building, 31–42 Franklin, B. C., 141
children victimized in class, 6 E Franklin, John Hope, 145
empathy’s role, 7–8 Frederick, Rowyn: “Praise Poem,” 254
via guided visualization, 34–35 Eason, Rochelle: “Tired of Chicken,” Freire, Paulo, 50, 235
handout on childhood-narrative criteria, 231–232 French, Albert: Billy, 41
42, 285 Ebonics, 81, 236, 237–238, 239 Frohman, Denice, 248
handout on fiction elements, 40–41 “Echoes of Pearl Harbor” (Sone), 170 “Accents,” 248–251
importance of narrative, 31–32 Educational Testing Service (ETS), 111 Frozen, 50
via mapping neighborhoods, 33–34 Elements of Fiction (handout), 40–41
out of chaos, 3–8 Ellsworth, Scott, 136 G
via personal stories, 5–7 Emanuel Displaced Person’s Association,
politeness, 5 161, 199 Gabe, C. F., 142
via read-arounds, 35 (see also empathy, 7–8, 210 Gardner, Nakeisha, 260
read-arounds) End of Unit Project: Cartoons (handout), 70 Garfield, Lulu: “Stand Up,” 82, 85
via reading models of narrative, 34 Erdrich, Louise, 182 Gender Collective Text (handout), 187
via social imagination, 7–8 Erhardt, Mary Jo, 146 gender narrative, 185–195
students as intellectual activists, 8 Errors & Expectations (Shaughnessy), 287 collective text, 186, 187
Crawford, Sekou: “My Name Means Espada, Martín, xi, 211 overview, 185–186
Something,” 11, 13 “Federico’s Ghost,” 87–88, 90 sample narratives, 188–195
Crittenden, Chanelle: “Basement Stories,” “Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits,” teaching strategy, 186
161, 166–167 87, 88, 89 “Gender Narrative” (Arze), 186, 191–192
letter to Nike, 86–87, 88 gentrification, x, 156–167
D on Neruda, 86 archives used to construct knowledge, 159
Essay Craft Lesson (handout), 289 eminent domain, 158–159
“Dad, I Forgive You” (anon.), 121 Essay Criteria Sheet (handout), 133 importance of studying, 156–157, 161
“The Danger of a Single Story” (Adichie), ETS (Educational Testing Service), 111 as an intentional process of displacement,
x, 72, 73 evidence/theme walls, 202, 202–204 157
Dante and Aristotle Discover the Secrets of the Ewing, Rhea, 115 mixer to promote interest, 158–159, 198
Universe (Saenz), 212 Executive Order 9066 (Japanese incarceration), persona poems, 162–163
Danticat, Edwidge, 182 170 racism as underpinning, 158–159
“Children of the Sea,” 176 redlining, 158, 159
Krik? Krak! 173 F researching, 157–158
Dao, Cang, 176–177, 183 as segregation, 158–160
“Language Poem,” 253 Farewell to Manzanar (J. W. and J. D. and the Tulsa Race Massacre, 134–135
Deary, Hasina Houston), 211 urban renewal, 160
“Help Me Syndrome,” 62–64, 66, 69 “Federico’s Ghost” (Espada), 87–88, 90 writing historical fiction, 160–161,
“Janie’s Garden,” 218 feedback. See “student work, responding to” 164–167
“Death Toll from Tulsa Race Riots Estimated Fences (Wilson), 184, 212, 221 Gentrification Historical Fiction (handout),
Between 300 and 3,000” (K. Johnson), 153 Ferguson, Melissa, 76 165

310 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

Gibbs, Ernestine Alpha, 136 “I am from a village I’ve never seen” Jefferson High School (Portland, Ore.), 5
Gibson, Karen: “Bleeding Albina: A (Lamzy), 20 field trips, 92–93
History of Community Disinvestment, “I Am from Pink Tights and Speak Your gentrified neighborhood of, x, 134–135,
1940–2000,” 158 Mind” (Moore), 25 156–157
Giovanni, Nikki: “Nikki-Rosa,” 33–34 “I Am from Soul Food and Harriet Tubman” negative perceptions of, 72, 75–76
Glover, Thelma, 159, 198 (Blake), 26 in the press, 8
Gordly, Avel, 157 “I Am from Swingsets and Jungle Gyms” students’ life circumstances, 257
Gordon, Debby: “I Am from Swingsets and (Gordon), 25 Jim Crow, 200
Jungle Gyms,” 25 “If I had been called Sabrina or Ann, she Jitney (Wilson), 160
“Grandma’s Kitchen” (Moreland), 238, said” (Piercy), 10–11 Johnson, Hannibal B., 135, 136
240–241 If We Must Die (Carr), 137, 203 Johnson, Katharine
“Granny’s House” (Dixson), 268, 270–271 “I Love Animation” (Wooten), 261–262, 264 “Death Toll from Tulsa Race Riots
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck), 184, 222 “I love” essays, 257–266 Estimated Between 300 and 3,000,” 153
Gross, Terry, 45 finding your passion, 258–259 Johnson, Lila
“The Ground on Which I Stand” (Wilson), overview, 257–258 “Celie,” 216, 218
20 the poetry of lists, 259–261 “Looking Pretty, Waiting for the Prince,”
Guice, Deion: “A Single Story,” 74, 75, 78 raising the bones (models), 261–262 61, 63, 65, 69, 223
Gurley, O. W., 143 sample essays, 263–266 Johnston, Peter, 210
“I Love Slam Poetry” (DuBoise), 260, “Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits”
H 264–265 (Espada), 87, 88, 89
“I Love Theater” (Kafoury), 258–259, 261, Joseph, Khalilah
“Hair” (Boyd), 79–80 262, 263 “Becoming American,” 211–212, 214
“A Hand-Me-Down Name” (Blalock), 11, 13 “I’m Here!” (Leone), 82, 85 “Tar Baby,” 129
Hansberry, Lorraine, 182 immigration, 7–8, 168–178 justice and change, reading for, 182, 199
A Raisin in the Sun, 157 Asian immigrants’ experience, 169, justice and literacy, writing for, ix, 109–114.
Hanson, Omar: “Harvesting Wheat,” 213 170–171, 173, 175–176 See also social justice teaching
Harer, Katharine: “Why I Like Graffiti,” Ellis Island vs. Angel Island, 169, 171 activism about tests, 112–113
92–94 evaluation, 177–178 collecting stories, 111
“Harvesting Wheat” (Hanson), 213 history vs. personal stories, 174 standardized tests and testing experts,
Harvey, Komar, 176, 177 importance of teaching about, 169 111–113
Hearts and Minds, 174 and loyalty oaths, 171 taking power out of pain, 109–110
“Help Me Syndrome” (Deary), 62–64, 66, 69 Mexican immigrants’ experience, 177 “Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders
Henrichs, Chelsea: “A Lesson in Passion,” overview, 168–170 His Power to Alter Public Space”
274–275, 276, 279 preparing for research and teaching, (Staples), x, 72–73, 75, 77
“Hey! Go Boy!” (Nguyen), 247 170–171
“Hide and Go Seek” (M. Lee), 291 presentation, 174–177 K
“Hiroshima” (Kyle), 162–163 research, 171–174
Holden, DeShawn, 110 silencing of immigrant students, 177–178 Kafka, Franz, 118
“My Name Is Not Kunta Kinte,” 32–33, Statue of Liberty’s promise, 168–169 Kafoury, Andrew: “I Love Theater,” 258–259,
34, 35, 37–38 improvisations, 208–209 261, 262, 263
“homage to my hips” (Clifton), 82 Inada, Lawson, 244 Kane, Joe: Savages, 102
home brought into the classroom, 19–26 “Legends from Camp,” 170, 243 The Killing Fields, 175
making students feel significant, 20 “Rayford’s Song,” 243–246 Kindred, Chris, 122, 156, 183, 273
and sweet learning, 28–30 “In My Father’s Kitchen” (Tourtillott), 29 Kinney, Jillana, 131
teaching strategy, 21–22 interior monologue (in fiction), 40, 209 Krik? Krak! (Danticat), 173
honors classes. See tracking Islip, Jordin, 71 Kulak, Andy, 249–250
hope, 199 Kyle, Kamaria
Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki and James D.: J “Hiroshima,” 162–163
Farewell to Manzanar, 211 “Losing Childhood,” 186, 190–191
“How to Tame a Wild Tongue” (Anzaldúa), Jackson, Jesse, 230
237 Jackson, Jim, 301, 306 L
Hurston, Zora Neale, 182, 231 Jackson, Mrs., 145
Their Eyes Were Watching God, 132, 197–198, Jaffe, Rose, 215, 234 Lady and the Tramp, 52, 54
200–201, 209, 213, 216, 267 “Janie’s Garden” (Deary), 218 Lamzy, Hend Abu: “I am from a village I’ve
Japanese American incarceration, 170–171, never seen,” 20
I 173, 211–212 Lange, Dorothea, 168
“Japanese Prisoners” (Truong), 170–171 language
“I Am From” (Storey), 26 Jefferson Dancers, 97 accents and identity, 248–252

INDEX 311
 appreciating students’ home languages, M The New Jim Crow (Alexander), 31, 35, 71
235–237, 239 Nguyen, Thieson: “Hey! Go Boy!” 247
celebrating students’ voices, 243–247 Maciag, Mike, 157 Niece, Xavier: “Albina Gets Torn Down,”
Ebonics, 81, 236, 237–238, 239 “Madre” (Vargas), 254 161, 167
linguistic diversity, 235 Malcolm X, 102 Niemi, Meg: “Vietnam: No Scissors to the
Pidgin, 236, 237 Marks, Neena: “Brenda Bufalino,” 268–269, Truth,” 214
politics (power relationships) of, ix–x, 271–272 Nike, 86–87
235, 238 Martin, Trayvon, x “Nikki-Rosa” (Giovanni), 33–34
sample essays on, 240–242 Mashia, Erika, 41 Nisei Daughter (Sone), 211–212
SAT scores as dependent on, 235 “Matzo Balls” (LePage), 176 None of the Above: The Truth Behind the
smugness about, 234–235 “Maurice” (Morris), 186, 192–194 SATs (D. Owen), 112, 114
and society, 234–242 McCullough, Willard, 142 “The Nuclear Headache” (Patel), 132
Spanish-speaking banned in classrooms, melting pot, 229–230 the “N-word,” 74
234 Memorial Day flood (Portland, Ore., 1948),
Standard English, 229–233, 235, 237–238, 159 O
239 Mendez, Aurora: “Victims,” 253
and talking back, 237–238, 248–249 metaphor poems, 215–218 O’Brien, Heather: “Self-Inflicted Sexism,”
“Language Poem” (Dao), 253 metaphors and similes, 41 129–130, 132
“Last One Standing” (Christina, a student), Miller, Erika, 132 O’Brien, Tim: The Things They Carried, 184
137, 153 Miner, Barbara, 9, 19, 43 “Ode to Spanish” (Scofield), 247
Leahy, Dianne, xi, 3–6, 134–135, 220, 221 mixers/tea parties (role playing) to “Old Black Joe” (Foster), 243–244
Lee, Enid: “Taking Multicultural, Anti-Racist encourage reading, 196–201 Oliphant, Judge, 144
Education Seriously,” 103 Monroe, George, 136 “Opened Eyes” (Wilmot), 213
Lee, Michelle: “Hide and Go Seek,” 291 Moore, Djamila: “I Am from Pink Tights Oregon Writing Project, 20, 33, 77, 221–222,
“Legends from Camp” (Inada), 170, 243 and Speak Your Mind,” 25 261
Leone, Christine: “I’m Here!” 82, 85 Morales Gutierrez, Maria, 146 Owen, David: None of the Above: The Truth
LePage, Sarah: “Matzo Balls,” 176 Moreland, Alisha: “Grandma’s Kitchen,” 238, Behind the SATs, 112, 114
Lesley, Craig: River Song, 206 240–241 Owen, Wilfred, 182
“A Lesson in Passion” (Henrichs), Morris, Justin
274–275, 276, 279 “Forgiving My Father,” 117, 120 P
“A Lesson in Tolerance” (Patel), 100 “Maurice,” 186, 192–194
Levins Morales, Ricardo, 181, 219 Morrison, Toni, 182 Page, Sarah, 136, 141. See also Tulsa Race
Lewis & Clark College, 113 Beloved, 301 Massacre
“Light Bright” (Causey), 186, 194–195 “Mr. Ruffle” (Fox), 88, 91 parents as allies, 45–46
Lincoln, Stephenie: “Neighborhood Hassle,” Mugo, Micere, 6 Park, Tanya: “Forgiving My Mother,” 117,
32, 34, 36–37 Mulan, 50, 54 120
“Linda Mae” (Christensen), 12 Mullany, James, 174 Parrish, Mary, 143
The Lion King, 51, 52, 54, 61 “My Name” (Cisneros), 10–11 Patel, Chetan, 101–102, 105
literary analysis essays, 219–226 “My Name Is Not Kunta Kinte” (Holden), “The Bracelet,” 40
launching, 224 32–33, 34, 35, 37–38 “The Children’s Prayer Group,” 274–276,
overview, 219–220 “My Name Means Something” (Crawford), 278
raising the bones (models), 223–224 11, 13 “A Lesson in Tolerance,” 100
sample essay, 225–226 “My Nerves Wasn’t All She Got On” (Clegg), “The Nuclear Headache,” 132
selecting topics/gathering evidence, 221 40, 236 “Tiger Eyes,” 82, 84
student reflection, 224 “My Teacher Taught Me to Protest” (Webb), Patillo Beals, Melba: Warriors Don’t Cry,
thesis statements, 221–222 xi 183, 197, 200, 207
topic choice and rehearsal, 220–221 Pavlich, Walter, 284
literary interpretation, 181–182 N A Pedagogy for Liberation (Shor), 104
The Little Mermaid, 52, 53, 54, 61 Pendelton, Don: “Celie,” 217, 218
Locks, Damon, 31, 81, 210 Name Poem Organizer (handout), 14 persona poems, 162–163, 210–214
“Looking Pretty, Waiting for the Prince” name poems, 10–13 personification (in fiction), 41
(L. Johnson), 61, 63, 65, 69, 223 naming rituals/exercises, 9–10, 14 Peter Pan, 52, 53, 54
López, Rafael, 3, 15, 97, 205, 283 Narrative Criteria Sheet (handout), 42 Phelps, Ruth, 146, 199
“Losing Childhood” (Kyle), 186, 190–191 narrative writing to connect students’ lives to Phillips, Patrick, 223
Lourie, Dick: “Forgiving Our Fathers,” 116 the classroom, 183–184 The Piano Lesson (Wilson), 201
Luster, Melanie: “Baking,” 262, 266 “Neighborhood Hassle” (Lincoln), 32, 34, Piercy, Marge: “If I had been called Sabrina
Lyon, George Ella: “Where I’m From,” 20, 36–37 or Ann, she said,” 10–11
21, 23 Neruda, Pablo, 86 Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste

312 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP

 (PCUN), 174–175 rising up, overview of, ix exploring vignettes, 72–73
Pitch, 53–54 Ritcherson, Mahala: “Battle to Change the making lists and telling stories, 73–75
“Poem for My Mentor Teacher” Color Lines,” 128–129 raising the bones (models), 75
(Christensen), xii River Song (Lesley), 206 revising, 76–77
policing, 44 Robertson, Joe, 63, 285, 289 samples, 78–80
politeness, 5 “Who Framed Rasheed Rabbit?” 124, 131 sharing, 75–76
Popeye (show), 69 Rodriguez, Favianna, 243 and unwieldy inheritances of stereotypes,
Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba and the 40 Rodriguez, Richard: “Achievement of 72–73, 77
Thieves, 50–51, 52, 53, 54, 59, 61 Desire,” 237, 238 value of, 77
Portfolio: Essay Writing (handout), 303–304 Roma, 28 “A Single Story” (Guice), 74, 75, 78
portfolios, 298–306 Rooney, Colonel, 144 Sleeping Beauty, 52, 53, 54
essay writing (handout), 303–304 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 170 Sloan, Kathy, 267
grading/evaluating/assessing, 299–300 Rose, Donald: “The Bird,” 186, 195 Smith, Beulah, 138
models/prompts for reflection, 301–302 Ross, Don, 147 Smith, Green E., 144
overview, 298–299 Rougier, Michael, 175 Smith, Patricia, 162, 210–211
purposes of, 300 Rowland, Dick, 136, 137, 141. See also Tulsa Smitherman, Geneva, 230
sample excerpts, 306 Race Massacre “Black English/Ebonics: What It Be Like?”
timing, 300–301 rudeness, 43–44 237–238
writing portfolio (handout), 305 Rutherford, Verdell, 158 Talkin and Testifyin, 237
Portland Real Estate Covenant, 159 Smoke Signals (Alexie), 5, 116
Powers, Robert, 136 S “Smoke Signals: A Broken Story” (Boyd),
“Praise Poem” (Frederick), 254 219, 223–224, 225–226
praise poems, 248–254 Sander, Gina, 306 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 52, 53, 54
Proposition 187 (California), 169, 176 Sanders, Scott Russell, 286–287 social imagination, 7–8
protest poetry, 86–91 SAT tests, 112–113, 235, 257 social justice teaching. See also justice and
PSAT tests, 111 Savages (Kane), 102 literacy, writing for
push-out zones, 3 “Saxophone” (D. Watson), 274–275, 277 benefits of, 201
Pygmalion (Shaw), 103, 183, 208, 212, 237, Scene and Summary (handout), 290–291 college essays, 257–263
238, 239 scene and summary (in fiction), 41 and community, 5 (see also community
Scofield, Sarah: “Ode to Spanish,” 247 building)
Q Seidl, Alaura, 12, 23, 208, 229, 257 cultural sensitivity, 87
“Self-Inflicted Sexism” (H. O’Brien), engaging students in dialogue, 64
“The Question of Loyalty” (Yamada), 170 129–130, 132 and historical exclusions, 169
Sentence Revision: What’s Next? (handout), on language, 235 (see also language)
R 292–293 narrative writing as core of, 31
setting description (in fiction), 40 read-arounds’ role in, 35 (see also
race massacre (1919), 135. See also Tulsa Seymour, Dorothy, 68 read-arounds)
Race Massacre Shagoury, Ruth, 113 social roots of feeling alienated/
“Raised by Women” poems, 17 Shaughnessy, Mina: Errors & Expectations, inadequate, 111
A Raisin in the Sun (Hansberry), 157 287 students’ lives at the heart of, 183, 239
Rawlins, Jessica: “Shug Avery,” 218 Shaw, George Bernard: Pygmalion, 103, 183, Sone, Monica
“Rayford’s Song” (Inada), 243–246 208, 212, 237, 238, 239 “Echoes of Pearl Harbor,” 170
“Raymond’s Run” (Bambara), 230 Shimabukuro, Mira: “Finding the Inside,” Nisei Daughter, 211–212
read-arounds 241–242 Stafford, Kim, 33
and collective text, 17, 28, 35, 184, 186 Shor, Ira: A Pedagogy for Liberation, 104 Stafford, Paul, 298
and community building, 22 Shrek, 53 Stafford, William, 21, 126, 216
essay revisions stimulated by, 126 “Shug Avery” (Rawlins), 218 Standard English, 229–233, 235, 237–238,
for forgiveness poems, 118 Shuldman, Eddy, 27 239
negative comments, 18 “significant person” essays, 267–272 “Stand Up” (Garfield), 82, 85
overcoming reluctance, 17, 18 silencing of students, 177–178, 231 Staples, Brent: “Just Walk on By: A Black
overview, 15 similes and metaphors, 41 Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public
positive comments, 15–16, 18 Simone Shin, 31 Space,” x, 72–73, 75, 77
safe space for sharing, 17–18 Sinclair, April: Coffee Will Make You Black, Steinbeck, John, 182
as writing text, 16–17 40 The Grapes of Wrath, 184, 222
red summer (race riots; 1919), 135 Singer, Vincent: “Why I Like Stealing,” 96 stereotypes, 50–51, 55. See also single stories
respect, 43, 45, 87 single stories (about our lives), x, 71–80 Stern, Meredith, 109
Rethinking Our Classrooms, 20, 87, 112, 201 and discrimination against Black males, Storey, Oretha, 20
Rethinking Schools, 237–238 71–72 “I Am From,” 26

INDEX 313
The Story of English: Black on White, 238
Strangers from a Different Shore (Takaki), 7
student work, responding to, 283–297
crafting an essay (handout), 289
embedded feedback, 295
feedback chart, 296–297
individual feedback, 287–288
overview, 283–284
the poetry of the sentence, 286–287
responding to student papers, 294
revision, 285–286
scene and summary (handout), 290–291
sentence revision (handout), 292–293
teaching during writing, 284–285
Super Smash Bros., 54
“Super Soaker War” (Bowden), 34, 38–39
Swampy Cree Indians, 9
sweet learning, 27–30
T Jitney, 160
Takaki, Ronald, 169
Strangers from a Different Shore, 7
“Taking Multicultural, Anti-Racist untracking English. See tracking
Education Seriously” (E. Lee), 103
Talkin and Testifyin (Smitherman), 237
talking-back poetry, 81–85
“Talk to Teachers” (Baldwin), ix, x
“Tar Baby” (Joseph), 129
Tatum, Beverly, 49–50
Teaching About Haiti, 173
tea parties/mixers (role playing) to Vidales, Alejandro, 236–237
encourage reading, 196–201
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 69
tests, standardized, 111–113, 235, 257
Tews, Nyki, 202, 207
text rendering, 244
Their Eyes Were Watching God (Hurston), visualization, guided, 34–35
132, 197–198, 200–201, 209, 213, 216, 267
theme/evidence walls, 202–204
The Things They Carried (T. O’Brien), 184
This Side of Home (R. Watson), 160–161,
219
“Tiger Eyes” (Patel), 82, 84
“Tired of Chicken” (Eason), 231–232
To Kill a Mockingbird, 53
Tourtillott, Laura: “In My Father’s Kitchen,” Warren, Mrs. Leo, 161, 199
29
tracking, 97–105
changing reading strategies, 103–104
changing the curriculum, 102–103
difficulties of ending, 104–105
injustice of, 98, 104
misperceptions about ending, 100–102
and the potential of each student, 98–100
students’ perceptions of, 97–98
and students teaching each other, 101
Troung, Thu: “Japanese Prisoners,” 170–171
314 READING, WRITING, AND RISING UP
Tulsa Race Massacre (1921), x, 134, 134–155, What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day
139–140 (Cleage), 41
commission to study, 139, 149 “What the Mirror Said” (Barr), 82, 84
in the context of 1919 race massacre, 135 “what the mirror said” (Clifton), 81–83
goals for teaching/writing about, 134–135, “Where I’m From” (Lyon), 20, 21, 23
140 “Where I’m From” (R. Watson), 24
importance of remembering, 140 White, Walter, 145
mixer to build background knowledge/ “Who Framed Rasheed Rabbit?”
interest, 135–136, 141–148, 199 (Robertson), 124, 131
reading/writing historical fiction, “Why I Like Graffiti” (Harer), 92–94
137–139, 154–155 “Why I Like Making Trouble” (Christensen),
reparations persona writing, 152 95
reparations role play, 139–140, 149–151 “Why I Like Stealing” (Singer), 96
survivors, 136, 138 Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers
videos about, 136–137 (Yamanaka), 237
violence by whites against African Wilmot, Adiana: “Opened Eyes,” 213
Americans, 135–136 Wilson, August, 182
writing poems about, 137, 153 Fences, 184, 212, 221
“Two Young Women” (Barry), 88, 91 “The Ground on Which I Stand,” 20
U The Piano Lesson, 201
Wixon, Vince and Patty, 33
Unthank, Denorval, 158–159, 199 Wooten, James: “I Love Animation,”
261–262, 264
Urbannavage, Sharvon, 248 workers, poems about, 88
Wright, Shannon, 27
V Writing Historical Fiction (handout), 164
Writing Introductions (handout), 131–132
Valdez, Luis, 182 Writing Portfolio (handout), 305
Vargas, Monica: “Madre,” 254
“Victims” (Mendez), 253 X
“Abuelita,” 29–30 X, Malcolm, 102
“Vietnam: No Scissors to the Truth” (Niemi),
214 Y
Vietnam War, 174
vignettes. See single stories Yamada, Mitsuye: “The Question of Loyalty,”
170
Vy, Thao, 124–125 Yamanaka, Lois-Ann, 235, 236
Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, 237
W Yarbrough, Kaanan, 132, 239
Walker, Alice Z
The Color Purple, 104, 184, 186, 207, 211,
215, 217 Zinn Education Project, 173
Walker, Margaret, 6
Warriors Don’t Cry (Patillo Beals), 183, 197,
200, 207
Watson, Dyan
“Saxophone,” 274–275, 277
Watson, Renée
This Side of Home, 160–161, 219
“Where I’m From,” 24
wealth inequality, 135, 139. See also Tulsa
Race Massacre (1921)
Webb, Jalean, 160
“My Teacher Taught Me to Protest,” xi
 Resources from RETHINKING SCHOOLS

The New Teacher Book THIRD EDITION

Finding purpose, balance, and hope during THI
R
EDIT D
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FU
LY

L
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Education / Language Arts
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Reading, Writing,

LINDA CHRISTENSEN
Reading, Writing, and Rising Up
2ND EDITION BY LINDA CHRISTENSEN
and Rising Up
For almost two decades, teachers have looked to Reading, Writing, and Rising Up as a trusted Teaching About Social Justice
text to integrate social justice teaching in language arts classrooms. Now, Linda Christensen is
and the Power of the Written Word

Reading, Writing, and Rising Up

back with a fully revised, updated version. Offering essays, teaching models, and a remarkable
collection of student writing, Christensen builds on her catalog of social justice scholarship with
a breathtaking set of tools and wisdom for teachers in the new millennium.

Reading, Writing, and Rising Up is
a profound work of emancipatory
pedagogy that brings together
theory, classroom practice,
personal narrative, and student
work. This is not simply a “second
edition” of Christensen’s earlier
work. There is a wealth of new, rich,
and timely material that shows and
tells how to reach “unreachable”
students and teach them to
think and write critically. Linda
Christensen is a talented, brilliant
teacher who has distilled her four
decades of work with students
“If you are not outraged, you are
not paying attention.” The second
edition of Reading, Writing, and
Rising Up provides us, as teachers,
with ways to share our outrage,
our critical consciousness, our
passion for justice, and our
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power with our students, making
it part of our curriculum and a
way of being in the world. At
the same time, Reading, Writing,
and Rising Up insists that joy,
creativity, community, and love
accompany our outrage, reading,
LINDA CHRISTENSEN
It’s difficult to imagine a
more valuable addition to
an English teacher’s library.
Linda Christensen provides a
rich collection of instructional
activities that absorb students
in problems of social justice
and ethical responsibility while
engaging them intensely in
authentic uses of literacy skills.
The rich collection of lessons
in this newly revised edition of
Reading, Writing, and Rising Up
ensures that students develop
in academic literacy at the same

in a rainbow classroom into a
masterpiece that is a must-read for
teachers in this Black Lives Matter
historical moment.
GENEVA SMITHERMAN
University Distinguished Professor
Emerita, Michigan State University;
author of Talkin That Talk: Language,
Culture, and Education in African
America.
and writing.
DAVID BLOOME
EHE Distinguished Professor of
Teaching and Learning, The Ohio
State University; Founding Director
of Columbus Area Writing Project;
Past President, National Council
of Teachers of English
2ND EDITION
time they grow in racial, ethical,
and humane literacy.
SHERIDAN BLAU
Professor of Practice in the Teaching
of English Teachers College,
Columbia University; Professor
Emeritus in English and Education,
University of California, Santa
Barbara; Past President, National
Council of Teachers of English
RETHINKING SCHOOLS

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A RETHINKING SCHOOLS PUBLICATION I SECOND EDITION

COVER DESIGN Zucker Design | COVER ILLUSTRATION Jane Murray Lewis