As You Like It: Cause and Effect

I’ve been teaching writing structures coupled with graphic organizers for the past week. Do those phrases mean anything to you at all? Though it all sounds rather esoteric, it’s really pretty basic stuff that helps students to comprehend what they’re reading. Our students insist that they read just fine, but ask them a question about what they’ve just read and they come up blank. Imagine yourself tackling a scientific abstract, decoding the words but not having a clue as to what you’ve just read. That’s the experience that many adult readers have when they read anything outside of their comfort zone, like a soap-opera reality novel or tabloid. I also have students who insist that they “can read the Bible just fine, so why can’t [they] understand the class assignments?”

That’s when I try to explain that they’ve read the Bible so many times, they’ve practically memorized it. It’s familiar and so poses no challenge, whereas the novel that I’ve just plunked in their laps is alien territory. I’ve heard students mutter under their breath that the book I’ve just given them is garbage — “This crap makes no sense whatever!” The only way that I can get them to continue is to tell them that this is the crap that they are going to see on the GED exam, so they are going to have to learn to understand it somehow. That’s when the panic sets in. They can’t understand how this language that they’ve been speaking all their lives could betray them so completely.

That’s where the comprehension tools come into the picture. I explain to them that it’s easier to learn something new when they already know something about the topic, but when they know nothing about the topic it’s harder. I introduce them to strategies like questioning, summarizing, scanning, text marking — a veritable fount of organizing tools. I tell them that in the beginning it’s clumsy and awkward, but if they practice enough, they’ll eventually do it automatically with any text that they encounter. That’s when I get the, this-woman-is-out-of-her-mind look.

We spent weeks on summarizing — recognizing the main thesis and important points, paragraph by paragraph, then graphing it on an organizer that was divided into columns with appropriate headings. We summarized movie plots, television shows, our days, even our lives, trying to come up with the bare bones of any story. We talked about details and where they belong or don’t belong, we read paragraphs about hypnosis, stunt people, diamonds and fashion. At one point I thought that if I drew one more “About/Point” (summarizing) or “K-W-L” chart (I already know, I want to know, I learned) I would spit up.

But then we read a Langston Hughes story and amazingly, when I asked questions at the end, they knew the answers. I was in shock.

“You did it!” I yelled. “You understood exactly what he wanted you to understand! I’m so proud of you!”

Luckily, class was over, because to teach anything after that would have been anticlimactic. I didn’t even want to analyze for myself why this time had been successful: If the story level was easier, if they had had a good night’s sleep, if the moon was in the seventh house and Mercury aligned with Mars; I just wanted to enjoy the moment.

Then we began to practice writing GED essays. I began with the usual — thesis statement, supporting details, concluding paragraph using yet another organizer — when Jamie called out, “Oh, you mean the hamburger!” Even for Jamie that was an unusual statement to throw out in the middle of class.

“Okay, you’re going to have to explain that,” I told her.

“You know, you draw a hamburger with the top bun, the middle stuff, then the bottom bun, and you name them: introduction, conclusion, stuff like that.”

I loved it. So I drew the top introduction bun, then moved on to the lettuce, tomato, and cheese supporting statements, and finished off with the conclusion bottom bun. They kept telling me that I was leaving out the pickles, ketchup, mayo and mustard. I answered that I was now officially starving, and in the end we had our own graphic organizer.

And then one of those once-in-a-blue-moon teaching moments happened when they realized that all the summaries that they had practiced, all the stories they had read, all the organizers that they had drawn were helping them create their own burgers.

“So it’s kind of like what we’ve been reading, only we’re writing it now,” Ani said. “So it’s connected.”

“Yes, God yes!” I told her.

I wanted to take that moment and store it gently in a jar to take down on the days when it all goes wrong and I’m ready to give up. Usually I’m the one connecting the dots for them, trying to make them see how it’s all of a piece. But now, for the first time, they did it themselves.

On Friday they went off to take a practice GED test sponsored by Roxbury Junior College. The stakes were high, because if they did well they would receive a scholarship for a free GED test. If they did well it meant they had a chance at passing this pernicious test and getting on and up with their lives. If they did well it meant that, for the first time, they really were making those connections. I’m saying a little prayer.

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Posted by Joan Florek Schottenfeld on Apr 28 2011. Filed under As You Like It, Featured Content, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.