{"id":16887,"date":"2024-03-14T09:44:08","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T13:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teachersandwritersmagazine.org\/?p=16887"},"modified":"2024-04-11T15:28:10","modified_gmt":"2024-04-11T19:28:10","slug":"my-english-is-a-skeleton-key","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachersandwritersmagazine.org\/my-english-is-a-skeleton-key\/","title":{"rendered":"My English Is a Skeleton Key"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I began class my usual way. \u201cGet out your pens or your phone or whatever you want to write on,\u201d I said. \u201cWe\u2019re doing a freewrite.\u201d  I like starting class with a freewrite for many reasons\u2014it buys me time to take attendance, for one\u2014but, most importantly, it creates the structure that I aim for in every class: to go from the personal to the general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did not come up with this structure, but I first remember hearing it articulated by the writer, storyteller, and cultural geographer Dr. Carolyn Finney, who told a group of us at a lecture at Middlebury College that if we wanted to get someone to care about trees, we should start by asking them about a tree that matters to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This made sense to me. In creative writing, we strive for specificity: we tell a specific love story to learn about love. We tell a specific war story to learn about grief and resilience. We create a specific fantasy to learn about good and evil. So why not do the same in our class structure?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In creative writing, we strive for specificity: we tell a specific love story to learn about love. We tell a specific war story to learn about grief and resilience. <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On this particular fall day, I was in a windowless room in Harlem teaching a class that was made up half of high school students in CUNY\u2019s Early College Program and half of college freshmen. I projected their freewriting prompt, and the students readied their thumbs over their phones (I\u2019ve given up trying to convince them to write longhand, and since the department can\u2019t buy notebooks, I\u2019ve embraced writing on the phone). Here was the prompt: \u201cWhat is your personal relationship to English or any other language you speak?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I set my stopwatch for four minutes, and they began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the time was up, I did not ask for volunteers to share as was my usual pattern. Instead, I immediately transitioned to a Button Poetry Youtube video<\/a> of poet Melissa Lozada-Oliva reading her poem, \u201cMy Spanish.\u201d The students sat and watched the performance, but once it was finished, I went back and replayed the video, this time projecting the text of the poem while she read in the background. I try to present each poem we read in class at least twice: once when students are just listening, and once when they can see the words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the opening stanzas of \u201cMy Spanish\u201d by Melissa Lozada-Oliva:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

If you ask me if I am fluent in Spanish I will tell you
My Spanish is an itchy phantom limb:\u00a0reaching for a word and only\u00a0finding air\u00a0
My Spanish is my third birthday party: half of it is memory, and the other half is a photograph on the fridge is what my family has told me\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Spanish is puzzle left in the rain
Too soggy to make its parts\u00a0fit so that\u00a0it can look just like the picture on the\u00a0box<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

After re-reading it together, I asked the students if anyone knew what a metaphor was. Two students were able to give the definition in relation to a simile\u2014which I\u2019m sure was drilled into their head by some previous English teacher\u2014while one of the high school students, an outspoken sophomore who liked to write romance stories, said, \u201cA weird comparison.\u201d I told her that was as good a definition as any, and I changed my slide to display the definition of a metaphor: \u201ca figure of speech wherein two unlikely objects are linked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, I clicked to the next slide and projected the following: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which of the following are metaphors? Why or why not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cMy English is sharp\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy blue English\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy English is a way of communicating\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy English is as strong as an ox\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy English is a strong ox\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We then went through the sentences with different students raising their hands and explaining why something was or wasn\u2019t a metaphor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I felt confident that they understood the definition, I returned to the opening stanzas of Lozada-Oliva\u2019s poem. I asked the students if they could list the metaphors within these stanzas. While they called out their answers, I recorded the following on the whiteboard:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“itchy phantom limb”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“my third birthday party”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“puzzle left in the rain”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Then, once we had generated these three, I asked them: \u201cWhat effect do you think Lozada-Oliva is trying to conjure in the reader\/hearer?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same student who had defined \u201cmetaphor\u201d raised her hand. \u201cYou can\u2019t really remember your third birthday party,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, it\u2019s maybe you\u2019re kind of sad that you missed it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, we went on a slight tangent to talk about phantom limbs, which some of the students hadn\u2019t heard of and were slightly blown away by the seeming supernatural-ness of the phenomenon. But we talked about trauma, severing, violence, and missing a part of you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were less excited about the puzzle metaphor, and one student noted that \u201cnobody does puzzles anymore,\u201d which started a small argument with those students who did, in fact, enjoy puzzles because they\u2019re \u201creally good when you\u2019re watching TV.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point, I refocused the class and made a note about the efficiency of metaphors. They are so potent that, in a few words, they can conjure an incredible number of feelings and associations in the reader. \u201cThe key,\u201d I said, \u201cis evocation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I turned to the next slide, which laid out the following assignment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

STEP 1<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For 3-ish minutes, review your opening freewrite and then distill your writing into a single metaphor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n