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Reflections on "Reflections on a Gift of a Watermelon Pickle" and Our Roles as Literacy Cheerleaders

6/3/2014

3 Comments

 
by Shelbie Witte

One of the first books of poetry I ever read as a child happened to be the first book of poetry I ever taught as a teacher in the classroom.  "Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle", published in the late 1960's, was a ground-breaking compilation of poetry that specifically appealed to the 'modern' adolescent.  Poems by Eve Merriam,  Sy Kahn, Carl Sandburg, Ezra Pound, and dozens of others were representative of the great works of literature that spoke to our hearts as readers.  As teachers, it became a critical reference text for short pieces of literature that would motivate and engage our students to want to read more, write like, and experience literacy through creative voices. My favorite from "Reflections" is by Eve Merriam:

"How to Eat a Poem"
Don't be polite
Bite in.
Pick it up with your
fingers and lick
The juice that may
run down your chin.
It is ready and ripe now,
whenever you are.

As teachers, we often serve in the role of literacy cheerleaders, offering our students multiple avenues and doors into the world of texts.  As our world evolves, so do the texts that motivate and engage.  Indeed, the very meaning of "text" has also changed, making our list of critical reference texts even more diverse.  What texts move your students to devour their words? How do you encourage your students to eat a poem, a novel, a text?
3 Comments
Sergio Yanes link
6/8/2014 06:56:43 am

The greatest challenge is helping our students realize that all texts are worth devouring for one reason or another. The primary goal of education is to produce thoughtful, well-informed citizens, and in order to be well-informed, we must read the entire world as a text. In my classroom, everything is fair game for analysis. EVERYTHING. A poem, song lyrics, a movie, a cereal box...I've even talked about how the modern coffeemaker is designed and what implications it has for a consumer. I want my students to never stop asking questions. Why is this worded this way? Why is that font being used? Why is the TV mounted on the farthest corner from the center of the classroom?

The world is meant to read, examined, devoured with a sense of wonder and a desire to understand more. We educators always have to remember that without curiosity and questions, our careers (and consequently, our lives) would cease to have meaning.

Reply
Kathy
6/9/2014 02:17:46 am

No matter the students' levels (e.g., primary, secondary or post-secondary), it seems that everyone enjoys popular culture texts. Of course popular culture engages most of society because it is literally the texts of all of our lives, but students enjoy learning about popular culture in a new way, an academic way that shows them how the text is constructed to evoke a feeling. In a sense doing exactly what Sergio suggests...showing students how to read and examine their socio-cultural worlds.

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George Boggs
6/14/2014 01:33:32 am

The metaphor of "eating" is powerful. When I think about disciplinary practices that make English/Language Arts special, "eating" texts tops my list. As a way of thinking about reading, "eating" sets up writing/composing because it's so active, so involved. It's powerful, too, because it gets attention away from "right" and "wrong" or "my interpretation" and onto the taste and texture and nutrition that satisfy.

Maybe that's the spirit of the question that the OP and the two responses above capture: satisfaction and enjoyment through intensive, open engagement. It's one thing to amuse kids with _an_ interpretation that raises eyebrows, quite another for kids to experience the gobbling that makes interesting interpretation possible.

On the question of which texts, for years I started with the story of King Solomon and the moms fighting over a baby, paired with Raymond Carver's super short "Popular Mechanics." Those texts are complicated, dark, and sophisticated in ways that pull you toward them like pizza baking.

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  • Home
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