Introduction:
A Writer’s Early Development
Mrs. Kennedy’s tenth grade English class was a class that students talked about as being “hard” or “a whole lot of reading.” I went into the class in the fall of 1995 as a short, slightly pudgy sophomore extremely nervous and intimidated. However, I was excited because I knew I would be able to write and writing was something I enjoyed. The course was broken into historical units and students were to choose an author from each of the historical periods on a list, read one of the works, and write a book report or something similar. I read Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving, Ernest Hemingway’s The Nick Adams Stories, and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye for the first time in Mrs. Kennedy’s class. Fondly, I have remembered the company of these authors. Not so fondly have I remembered Mrs. Kennedy.
Students were required to compose reiterative expressions about the books they read by either retelling the plot of the book or providing some biographical angle. The books that I read in Mrs. Kennedy’s class and the authors who wrote these books changed me, but arguably not as a result of her teaching. Her approach to pedagogy and the “taken-for-granted” writing practice of writing book reports may have not been the most effective approach to open me up to writing, but it had me writing. It has been said that any publicity is good publicity. The same can be said for writing.
I have looked back at some of these writing experiences in Mrs. Kennedy’s class and have realized that writing itself was beneficial. I became frustrated with Mrs. Kennedy and writing when the only response I would receive from my book reports was one of five of the first six letters of the alphabet. I usually received the second letter of the alphabet on most of my papers, but never an explanation. I would read the books she assigned to the best of my ability, but in doubt would fumble through the bumble bee colored Cliff’s Notes to make sure I was “getting it right.”
In a section entitled “Inside the Margins,” I have attempted to revisit a “taken-for-granted practice” of writing book reports. In particular I strived to examine a moment in Mrs. Kennedy’s class where it was made clear that I needed to go into a new direction with how I consumed and produced texts. “Outside the Margins,” a second section, aimed to consider where the “new direction” beyond Mrs. Kennedy’s classroom carried me and how the taken-for-granted practice has shaped my development as a writer. I have chosen the particular taken-for-granted practice of book reports to achieve the purpose of exploring how the benefits of book reports have informed my current views and to speculate about the effect that teaching blog-reports, a new literacies book report method, will have in my own English classrooms.
Inside the Margins:
Decoding, Comprehending, and Reading the Words on the Page
“No, you’re wrong!” Mrs. Kennedy said sharply and called on the next student. “Climax of the story is...” Mrs. Kennedy continued, but I was too wrapped around the axel of self-consciousness to hear another word. I thought I knew the climax of “The Devil and Tom Walker.” Is there only one way to read a text? I had come to my English class prepared. I had read the story for the day, read every line, and thought I comprehended it correctly. I guess not.
To say the least, I was crushed. I was upset at Mrs. Kennedy for not only correcting me in a tone that made me feel inadequate, but also for not providing the opportunity to discuss why or how I was “wrong” about the climax in Washington Irving’s short story. The experience in Mrs. Kennedy’s class that day confirmed that I would transfer into The Seminar School (TSS), a school within a school, at my high school. Since my mother was actively involved as a parent helping with TSS, I had no prior interest because I thought it would be “uncool” to be in the same vicinity as my mother and TSS students were the alternative, Goth types. After that day with Mrs. Kennedy, I just wanted out. I was tired of being told I was “wrong.”
The experience with Mrs. Kennedy was not an isolated incident. I turned in several book reports, a taken-for-granted practice in many high schools, where often the only mark the teacher put on a paper was a letter grade. I even received an “F” from her for a completed assignment she simply did not like. Granted, I was a testy sophomore who rebelled with assignments for the sake of rebelling. However, it still hurt to receive failing blows.
So I stuck the semester out, book report after book report, and even though I had grown disdainful toward Mrs. Kennedy I learned from the books and still have some decent writing expressions to show for the class. I transferred out of the “mainstream” track of my high school and began to acquaint myself with teachers like Mr. Thoreau. I learned to “hear a different drummer” and began to imagine within those one-inch margins around a text. I found they could be used for much more than a place to make little doodles of the sun setting over the mountains, birds flying among the stars, and bug-eyed cartoon characters.
Outside the Margins:
Marginalia + Small Group Discussion = Clarity and Understanding
The Seminar School did not require that students read books only to reiterate events with flawless accuracy in a book report. Instead, students were instructed to read chapters from texts and instructed how to underline, highlight, and write questions and comments in the margins. The act of communicating with the text as I read it was a significant departure from the way I had been reading and writing. I realized how I could have a conversation with Plato, a conversation with René Descartes, and conversation with David Hume, a CONVERSATION. No longer was I prescribed to report on what an author wrote, write about that author’s life, or accept what the teacher thought about the work. Now I was finding the space between the page and myself, slowly crawling out from the margins.
Teachers in TSS would check and grade “coaching notes,” a process where students were required to demonstrate that they had read the text closely and generated annotations from the text. At the beginning of a class period the teacher checked our notes. After the teacher said a few contextualizing comments, small groups or “coaching groups” were formed to discuss the text. Coaching groups would read the text together aloud, stopping to discuss questions and concerns with the text, sometimes for several days.
Once all the groups had thoroughly read the text as a group, the entire class would convene for a seminar discussion based on student produced questions. These questions were often turned into thesis statements and then written about in argument form. This was significantly different from reading a book and writing a book report. As a result, I became intimate with the authors I read and understood what I was reading on a more critical level. Book reports taught me to read only for plot, identifying things like setting, characters, the action, the climax, and the resolution. Reading out into the margins shaped my writing and allowed me to develop my thinking in a more critical fashion. I now demanded answers from the text, from my peers, and from my instructors. If I was “wrong” about a central claim, the climax, or a main point, then a civil conversation was conducted and investigations into the nature of an understanding or misunderstanding were explored. I, therefore, understood what I was reading better, developed as a writer, and composed persuasive arguments.
Conclusion:
Blog-reports and the Value of Process Writing
When I began to reflect on the genealogy of book reports and how the “taken-for-granted” practice of writing book reports has influenced my life as a writer I went immediately back to Mrs. Kennedy’s classroom. I may not have been fond of Mrs. Kennedy as a teacher, but I consider the experience to be invaluable. Book reports are an efficient method for teachers to hold students accountable for reading, check for how well they are decoding and comprehending the text, and simply to get them writing. Therefore, I thought about how I would use a similar method in a secondary English classroom.
A major problem I identified with book reports was that ultimately they leave little room for process writing. Students have been asked at times to read a book, write a summary or report, and then be finished. I imagined a new possibility as if I was posting ideas on a blog. First entry: I wrote a poem entitled “The Alhambra Leaves.” I mused about students writing poems attempting to summarize a text. The notion of “blog-reports” then dawned on me. What if students were to write summaries within the blogosphere or within a classroom blog space as they went through a text?
I watched as book reports transformed into blog-reports within the spyglass of my imagination. As I peered through the spyglass, I conjectured about how blog-reports could help students process through reading material more effectively than book reports. In my experience, book reports did not permit process writing. In the current experiment, conducted as a blog-report, I have been afforded multiple opportunities to process across drafts, present peer-editing comments, supply samples of past book reports, and keep a web log that documented the entire process. I have speculated the use of an exactly similar method in a future secondary classroom.
First, students would be asked to read a couple chapters as an assignment. Second, they would be shown how to create their own blog or post entries within a prefabricated blog setting. Third, they would post summary-like reflections of the chapters they were assigned. Students would be told not only to summarize plot details, but also to ask critical questions, fill their margins, and come to their blogs reporting the conversation they had with an author.
I have discussed blog-reports in the present fashion to emphasize value of the process writing. Students would not just be asked to read something and then reiterate what it said. Rather, students would be encouraged to read slower, reflect, have a conversation with the author, a conversation with their instructor, and a conversation with their peers. I have explored the possibility of a blog for blog-reports (See www.blog-reports.blogspot.com) and have theorized how blog-reports might serve as an effective tool in the twenty-first century classroom.
Appendix:
Pantoum Pleasantry
"The Alhambra Leaves"
words by adam mackie
10 february 2010
Arrive at last page close book in hands
Tales of the Alhambra by Irving
Lose track of time in faraway lands
Turn over leaf attempt a writing
Lucid image of Granada sand
Grains of plot pour into eyes to see
Jots go down precise action I can
Only earn the big red letter “B”
Wonder lingers when lessons teach me
The difficulty for me to read
As students rewrite turn force a leaf
Teacher steals chance to sow a dream seed
A smoldering wick and bruised reed
Not put out or broken. Follow space
To new methods that dare. Must heed
Boldly stare into marginal face
Writing, like reading, never quick race
Embrace time while writing a dream and
“The world is everything that’s the case”
And gaze at space with pencil in hand
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