From Second Grade to Eleventh, from Drafting to Performing

I had the pleasure of visiting two very different classrooms back-to-back, for two very different lessons. On October 27, I saw Carla Kinney’s first graders draft a “1-2-3 story.” On October 28, I saw Andy Mercurio’s eleventh graders perform interpretations of scenes they had written to complement Death of a Salesman. As a sixth grade teacher, I get to see Greenhill students right in the middle of these two extremes (first and eleventh grades). During the observations, I was reminded of how steep students’ learning curves are in their short time here at school and how radically they change from first to sixth to eleventh grades.

I visited Carla’s classroom at the end of the school day. As a culminating activity which tied in holiday themes as well as their morning work, the students were to write a “1-2-3 story.” Carla gathered the students on the carpet to explain the assignment, which was also written out on the flipchart. That morning, they had reviewed the important parts of a story. They were now to write a story with the following elements: 1) Characters and setting (who and where), 2) Action (what happened), 3) Conclusion (how did it end?). Carla assigned the character: their pumpkin. (These pumpkins were individually decorated and on display on the windowsill; students had previously told stories about them and were encouraged to call upon those ideas.) Carla took suggestions from students and gave them options of four settings to choose from: inside a house, a swimming pool, downtown, or a pumpkin patch. The students were to come up with their own action and ending. Students eagerly moved to their tables to begin writing. Carla circulated, offering help and suggestions. She reminded the students of several strategies already under their belts, including sounding out the spellings of words, using proofreading marks, and using problem/solution to tell the story. Students used Carla as a resource, but they also used the rich environment of the classroom to help them with their writing. Around the room, I saw a word wall, a list of weekly spelling words, the five stages of the writing process, and many more helpful items. When one student ran into a spelling problem, he had the following conversation with Carla: “I don’t know how to spell the word pumpkin.” When Carla asked what he could do, the student said, “Look over there,” and then walked to the spot in the room where he could find the correct spelling. At the end of the lesson, Carla shared some student examples. One girl wrote about her pumpkin, Fufu, who was hurt in a pumpkin patch. Fortunately, a nice person took Fufu home and made her all better. Carla and the students identified the 1-2-3 parts of the story which made it a success.

In Andy’s classroom, I saw three groups of students perform interpretations of scenes from Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. The students had written the scenes in groups and were performing them in front of their classmates as a culmination of their exploration of Miller’s work. After each group’s presentation, the group was to offer a verbal analysis of the scene. The first group performed “missing scene” – a scene at Willy’s funeral, featuring a long soliloquy by the deceased Willy. Willy’s soliloquy, according to the students, offered their group analysis through the medium of the character. In the following discussion, Andy noted how Willy had no moment of realization in the play, nor did he in the scene. The second group portrayed the scene between Willy and Howard where Willy is eventually fired. The group played a PowerPoint of the students’ voices, played in conjunction with a series of animations featuring expressive and humorous thought bubbles. In their analysis the students explained that the choices they made in the presentation illustrated Willy’s distorted perception of Dave Singleman. The third group featured a DVD of still photographs of students acting, timed with voice-overs of the dialogue the group had written. The scene was of an argument between Willy and his son Biff. In the analysis, the students explained that, since the scene was based on emotions, the still camera shots emphasized these moments. The students also deliberately modernized the scene to make it easier to relate to. At the end of the presentations, Andy reflected with the class on how pleased he was with the performances. This was a new assignment, Andy explained, with wide parameters and few guidelines. The assignment replaced a “big quiz” that used to culminate the study of Miller’s play. Students were in agreement that they enjoyed creating and analyzing their own scenes; they felt they got more out of this process than they would have gotten from a quiz.

Seeing a first grade class and an eleventh grade class back-to-back gave me a broad view of how students engage in writing at Greenhill. I saw students reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and performing. I saw engaging teachers leading students in these processes in age-appropriate ways. Students were encouraged to be creative, and each assignment incorporated the class reading or other class activities. As a sixth grade teacher, this process gave me much to think about. What role do I play as a teacher who sees them in the middle of these two snapshots? In what ways am I filling that role, and in what ways can I improve?