During the four months since
my last post, I have been thinking about the format of this blog. A colleague commented that he didn’t
have time to read the last posting when he received the e-mail notification. He didn’t bother clicking on the link,
knowing the essay would require a chunk of time he did not have available to
read and ponder. I guess blog
entries should be succinct – people are generally too busy for lengthy musings. Therefore, I shall shorten my
postings. Hopefully, individuals
will have more time to read and then engage in meaningful dialogue via the
comments section of each post.
A recurring theme this past
school year was how to move students from literal thinking to metaphorical or
figurative thinking. This year,
Tom and I collaborated on a poetry workshop project with second graders. After three months of weekly
mini-lessons and writing, the students had not made significant progress. Initially, Tom and I attributed the
problem to a lack of rich and varied vocabulary, so Tom charged us with
becoming “detectives of words” as a way of building more interesting word
choices. We took them outside to
develop sensory perception; we created sound pieces using musical instruments
to enhance poems and develop aesthetic awareness; we had them look
imaginatively at things using “a different lens.” Still they struggled.
In February, we gleaned a
bit of insight into the children’s thinking. On the overhead projector, Tom put the following poem by Zoe
Ryder White:
Pencil Sharpener
I think there are a
hundred bees
inside the pencil
sharpener
and they buzz
and buzz
and buzz
until my point
is sharp!
Tom: What did the author do to make a
picture in your mind?
Jessica: Mr. Nolan, are there real bees in
that? I don’t get it.
Tom: Remember, we’re looking at things in
different ways, with different lenses. [he took electric pencil sharpener and
sharpened two pencils]
Arisa: It sounds like the buzzing of a bee.
Tom: Close your eyes and listen. Can you imagine it sounds like that?
Addison: It doesn’t make sense.
Tom: It’s poetry.
Jessica’s and Addison’s
comments are quite telling here, illustrating the key to our frustration and
the students’ confusion. Jessica
and Addison are looking at things literally rather than figuratively; they seem to be having
difficulty activating imagination, unable to open themselves to a more playful
way of looking at things.
Likewise, I encountered the
same literal thinking with my West African drumming/dancing ensemble. In past years at Flynn, I always gave
the students poems to interpret for improvising movement and rhythms. The students created beautiful original
dances. This first year at Veazie, the students struggled to interpret
the poems figuratively. On reflection, I believe I never encountered
this problem at Flynn because I always had one or two students who
"naturally" were able to create improvised movements without
interpreting the text so literally (I say "naturally" because they
must have had prior experiences on which they could draw, unknown to me).
Those students taught the others through demonstration – I never had to explicitly teach the skill. Therefore, the students and I
struggled this year.
Through numerous
conversations, Tom and I have realized the problem is not confined to the music
room or poetry workshop. We began
to see a pervasiveness of literal thinking (and lack of figurative thinking)
throughout the curriculum. Students haven’t had opportunities to think
metaphorically; to look imaginatively with “a different lens”; to engage
“playfully” with language; to interpret poetry. With an emphasis on test scores, our students have
only experienced teacher-directed instruction and “right answers.” Further, I suggest our students
have grown to rely on authority figures for thinking itself, preferring to be
told what to think.
So the question remains: how
do we move students from literal interpretation to metaphorical or figurative
thinking?
