Lord, I am tired. I came home beat from Monson, then was awake half the night for no reason in particular, except maybe because I feel like I'm on call for half the population of the world. Later this morning I have a big meeting; in the meantime, I'm immersed in being a support person in multiple Suffering Young Person sagas. O the texts and emails . . . I'm going to start wearing a Hello My Name Is sticker that reads Expert: Young Angst.
Anyway, this good cup of coffee is helping.
And I did have a glorious day with my Monson kids. We spent the entire session prepping for an afternoon staged reading: moving from revising the raw script, to blocking and staging the event, to honing the presentation, to welcoming the audience and staging the performance. I was flying by the seat of my pants as I am not a theater person and don't have that language or skill base. But the kids did a truly magnificent job . . . especially during stage 1: revision. We sat with the script and line by line read it aloud repeatedly, discussing whether or not the voice was consistent, whether the wording was clear and easy to read, whether the descriptions were as vivid as they could be. The student author considered every suggestion, accepted many, rewrote others in her own way; the kids were focused and precise and detailed in the way in which they talked through the language issues. I have never seen such fine workshopping at the high school level. They were in love with the story and were determined to help it become the best it could be.
At the high school level, any lessons in revision really only scratch the surface. Revision is a lifetime challenge. It's more important to let them see that door open than to expect them to get their work into professional shape. I felt like preparing for this staged reading gave them a real-world, commonsense reason to revise: they understood concretely that language must sing in the mouth and resonate for the listener.
8 comments:
Could you be convinced to do that same workshop (condensed) for us at the CPT? I am very intrigued!!
Let me talk to Kerrin and see what she thinks . . . In this case, I used a short story rather than a poem, so we would have to recast the session significantly for a CPT demo.
Maybe a longer Frost narrative poem?
No, we need something in a raw state . . . that's where the honing comes in.
Oooo. Right. =)
I've used choral reading in various ways over the years: one way in the creation of group slam poems (some depend mostly on articulation, but I've had some amazing ones that incorporate movement/staging/voices). An powerful model for this is "Counting Graves" from "Louder Than a Bomb": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGGmJBEiC0Q. Also, I use choral reading as a way for students to find the varied voices within a poem, as in "Night, Death, Mississippi" (https://www.blueridgejournal.com/poems/rh-night.htm). It is fascinating to give this poem to different groups of kids within the same classroom, eavesdrop as they parse it out and struggle with both the context and the narrative voices, and then watch as they figure out how to present it chorally and with movement. Each group invariably comes up with something different, and the ensuing discussion is always enlightening.
Choral reading is a really powerful tool; I agree. I'm so glad you're using it so productively. I was excited to figure out my staged-reading activity because it includes a revision element. In this case, we started with raw student work (not an existing finished piece by someone else), so students could viscerally experience the purposes of revision: clarity, consistent voice, control of repetition, word choice. As they engaged in the activity of honing the script, they were learning that revision has an intrinsic purpose . . . that it's not just an outsider saying "This story is bad/this story is good." I think it might be difficult to replicate with most poems (partly because of length, partly because having a narrative really helped them focus their ear). But who knows? Maybe they'll prove me wrong!
I think that my students often don't take the time to really hear the sounds that we write -- to remember that sound makes meaning, along with the connotation of the words themselves. Poems are short enough to roll the sounds around in our mouths. Revision is so hard for kids -- they all want to write once, perfectly (or, at least, enough for an A). They rarely take the time to experiment, form and re-form.
Post a Comment