{"id":3186,"date":"2016-11-03T14:16:10","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T18:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teachersandwritersmagazine.org\/?p=3186"},"modified":"2023-02-22T15:53:39","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T19:53:39","slug":"within-words-making-students-at-home-in-the-language-of-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachersandwritersmagazine.org\/within-words-making-students-at-home-in-the-language-of-literature\/","title":{"rendered":"Within Words"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

2008 winner of the Bechtel Prize, originally published in Teachers & Writers Magazine <\/em>(2008, Vol. 40, No. 2)<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I  teach in a one-hundred-year-old building. Red brick, ivy, hardwood floors. It looks every inch the school. When it was renovated six or seven years ago, a drop-down ceiling appeared in my third-floor classroom to hide the galvanized duct work. The ceiling was uneven, with two different levels, creating an unsightly fault line running the length of my classroom. It was ugly as sin.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In retrospect, I\u2019m grateful. The ugliness needed covering, and that drop-down panel became the \u201cQuote Schism,\u201d as my students and I plastered it with choice words we encountered in our reading. Now, when they daydream or drift, their eyes can alight on words from Samuel Johnson: \u201cWonder is a pause of reason.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The panel has also become a favored tool, a template of our time together. We have D.H. Lawrence coaching us: \u201cNever trust the teller. Trust the tale.\u201d Barbara Everett provides a useful handle for irony\u2014it\u2019s simply \u201chypocrisy with style.\u201d A little Buddhism, via John Lennon, gives us our primary rule regarding attendance and attention: \u201cBe here now.\u201d And from Coleridge, our working definition of poetry: \u201cThe best words in their best order.\u201d The phrases hover near the ceiling, framing the room, embodying the extent to which we live within language.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a cold October rain outside the window, flickering past the dwindling leaves of ivy. A poem awaits the students as they file in. Its 16 words are listed on the board in alphabetical order:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

A, An, Are, But, Can, Emergency, Faith, Fine, Gentlemen,
<\/span>In, Invention, Is, Microscopes, Prudent, See, When<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Clearly, this order is not their best.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI imagine you know all these words,\u201d I announce as a straggler finds her seat.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the class is looking at the board and nodding. They\u2019re juniors, in an A.P. literature seminar, and I can see them already trying to figure out the game, discern the pattern.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOr at least you think you know all these words,\u201d I add, nodding toward the dictionaries on the table. A handful of Ziploc bags are nested there as well, each containing the 16 words, cut into paper rectangles for the visual and tactile learners among us.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are the ingredients of a poem. The exact ingredients. They are \u2018the best words,\u2019 as Coleridge might say it. Put them in \u2018their best order,\u2019 and immortality is yours.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s it?\u201d asks Kat.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s it. Use each word only once. Punctuation and capitalization are up to you.\u201d I hold up the hardcover brick of a Norton Anthology, smiling. \u201cIf you\u2019re successful, you\u2019ll be anthologized.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lifelong dream,\u201d says Will wryly.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI suspected as much,\u201d I say.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan we work in partners?\u201d ask Chloe and Ella, almost simultaneously.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs long as you\u2019re willing to share the enormous cash prize.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The room is suddenly a hive of energy, in spite of the rain outside. I watch over Will\u2019s shoulder as he separates the words, grouping them by parts of speech, approaching the dilemma like a chemistry problem. Lila idly taps her pencil on the top of her head and narrows her gaze, pondering. Martin has simply plunged in, writing phrases and talking to himself. \u201cPrudent. Prudent student. Is that like prudish?\u201d It\u2019s as if he\u2019s waiting to overhear something good. I slide a dictionary toward him.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chloe and Ella have grabbed a baggie and are rearranging the words on the top of a desk. It would be hard to say, exactly, whether they are working or playing. Leo is staring at the board, an empty notebook in his lap, apparently doing nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho wrote it?\u201d asks Kyle, as I circle the room.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I tell you, then I\u2019d have to kill you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThanks,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy pleasure.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 15 minutes, Kat\u2019s looping script has already filled a page, and she and Natalie are laughing as I approach. \u201cListen to this,\u201d says Natalie, and reads,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

In microscopes
fine gentlemen can see faith
but when an invention is prudent…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

She pauses portentously.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s promising,\u201d I say.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then Kat announces, \u201cThe last line\u2019s not so good, though.\u201d And she reads,<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Are emergency a.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The two girls look at one another and burst into laughter.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t exactly sing,\u201d I say. \u201cBut I like the notion that microscopes could see faith. Maybe you can play with that?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next door, Chloe and Ella have a line strung across the desk like train cars.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

When a fine gentlemen is prudent\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t work,\u201d says Chloe, frowning. \u201cIt\u2019s gentlemen, with an e.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow about this\u2014\u201d says Ella, shifting words around so that it reads:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

When fine gentlemen are prudent\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s good,\u201d says Chloe. She looks up at me with a smile. \u201cThis is hard.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d I say, and then I point to Orson Welles\u2019 addition to the Schism, \u201cThe absence of limitations is the enemy of all art.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chloe nods, still smiling. She gets it.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ostensibly, these students are learning to read literature with subtlety and write with cogency. They\u2019re learning to encapsulate and analyze. They\u2019ll be filling in hollow ovals to that effect in May, with a No. 2 pencil. It might be safer to simply read Dickinson\u2019s poem, unpack the images, see if they could tune their ears to its sly irony. I could talk about attention to detail, point out that one of the multiple meanings of \u201cinvention\u201d is fabrication or falsehood. I could nudge them toward discussing the relationship between form and content, or other abstractions adults introduce so readily into high school classrooms. But the kids are inhabiting that dialogue now, instead of simply mouthing the words.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow\u2019s it going,Will?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have a few questions,\u201d he says, pushing his notebook toward me. And there they are, in his impossibly neat handwriting.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Can microscopes see faith in an invention?
<\/span>Are prudent gentlemen fine?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s good,\u201d I say, pushing the notebook back toward him. \u201cHow would you answer those questions?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will shrugs and takes the notebook up again.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 30 minutes, Leo says in his unassuming way, \u201cGot it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d says Martin, turning to face him.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI got it. I used all 16 words.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cReally?\u201d says Will.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd it makes sense?\u201d says Lila.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t you read it for us, Leo?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan I just write it on the board?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll write it for you, while you read,\u201d I say.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Leo quietly intones the words, I copy out the following:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

When gentlemen are prudent,
Faith can see.
But in an emergency,
\u201cMicroscopes is a fine invention.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Leo shrugs, \u201cYou have to say the last line like Popeye.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The class laughs. Leo soaks it in. But they\u2019re also impressed. He\u2019s begun to make sense of the ingredients. In fact, he\u2019s glimpsed the soul of the poem. A snippet of it, at least. I have the Dickinson poem ready to hand out, but then I check myself, not wanting to step on the moment. Instead, we examine the possibilities of Leo\u2019s poem for the last few minutes of class, and when he walks out of the classroom that afternoon, he seems a little taller.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day the sun is out. It\u2019s a golden autumn afternoon, crisp as an apple. The same 16 words are on the board as the students enter, this time in \u201ctheir best order.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cFaith\u201d is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see,
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The students sit and read it silently. Natalie opens her notebook to copy it down. A few others follow suit. You can almost feel the sense of completion, the collective sigh. Discussing the poem not only feels natural now, but necessary. On a certain level, it\u2019s a poem they\u2019ve all been trying to write\u2014discovering it here, complete, is as much an act of wonder as it is recognition.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe in teaching students how to get inside poetry, how to write it. Even among high school English teachers, it\u2019s not such a common notion. I could be pedantic and point out that poetry is the original pulse of language, how its rhythms are based on the heartbeat we heard in the womb. I could assert that as mere fingerlings, we lived within the drumbeat of language, and as long as our blood is pumping, that beat continues within us, but\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, there are the buts: poetry is obscure, freighted, difficult, cryptic. It\u2019s boring, stultifying, leaden. It reeks of officialdom. It\u2019s over the top. It\u2019s rarefied, antiquated, not particularly useful. Students fear it, shut down when they see it. But it\u2019s also wonderful.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when you teach students the elements of writing poetry, you teach them how to read. You teach them how to pay attention to detail, how to get inside words and own them. You help them say things that they didn\u2019t even know they knew. It\u2019s late November and the leaves are gone. The students are confronted with apparent tragedy as they walk into the room. There are two phrases on the board:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The boy with one leg<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The girl with one eye<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Beside them is the ominous heading:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Interesting things happen when you break the spine<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s going on here?\u201d I ask.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The students look at one another nervously.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t look good,\u201d ventures Will.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, it doesn\u2019t,\u201d I agree. \u201cAny ideas on how to turn things around?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCall an ambulance,\u201d says Martin.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat if we do this?\u201d I ask, turning to add the following, on a new line, beneath each of the phrases.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The boy with one leg
over the fence\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The girl with one eye
on the clock\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interesting things happen when you break the spine
of a sentence.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re working on enjambment, that element of verse where the line breaks but the flow of the sentence persists. The students felt it for that first uncomfortable moment. They spent a little time inside the pause between the two lines, artificially lengthened. First the line resonated one way. Once completed, it resonated another.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now they\u2019re smiling, shaking their heads at the cornball theatrics, playing around with the concept, another tool in their poet\u2019s belt. After a few minutes, I invite them to share the results.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

From Leo:
I\u2019ve always been good at having money
problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Natalie:
There is only one person in the world
who knows the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Will:
Yesterday, at practice, I kicked him
the ball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Ella:
It\u2019s also been a dream of mine to kill
time for a living.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In a few minutes, when we read Wislawa Szymborska\u2019s poem, \u201cThe Experiment,\u201d I won\u2019t need to point out how the enjambment creates a meaning of its own, how something as simple as a line break can generate tension and ambiguity.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With any luck, I won\u2019t have to speak much at all.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the teacher is the expert in the room, poetry can quickly become a cryptic, complicated package that needs unpacking or dissecting. Much of the fear and difficulty associated with reading poetry stems quite naturally, I think, from this commonplace approach.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Billy Collins skewers its effects in his \u201cIntroduction to Poetry,\u201d where a teacher invites a group of students to \u201cwalk inside the poem\u2019s room \/ and feel the walls for a light switch.\u201d But all they\u2019re interested in doing is tying the poem to a chair and torturing a confession out of it, and \u201cthey begin beating it with a hose \/ to find out what it really means.\u201d Putting meaning in a box is why they have the No. 2 pencils. It\u2019s what they\u2019ve been trained to do.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zbigniew Herbert illuminates this dynamic as well, in the opening lines of his prose poem, \u201cEpisode in a Library\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

A blond girl is bent over a poem. With a pencil sharp as a lance she
transfers words onto a white sheet of paper and translates them into
lines, accents, caesuras. The fallen poet\u2019s lament now looks like a sala-
mander gnawed by ants.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We might hope the words of the fallen poet would live on. That\u2019s one of the timeless functions of poetry, after all. But a living, breathing thing can\u2019t be dissected, so we\u2019re left with tortured confessions and deceased amphibians. Is it any wonder that English teachers are so often accused of beating dead horses?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

February. Icicles rim the eaves in this longest, shortest month of the year. We\u2019re in the midst of Hamlet. Something\u2019s rotten, but there\u2019s no discussion today. Instead, we\u2019ve cleared the desks and students are crossing the room in buoyant strides, alternately stepping on the five Xs taped to the floor, chanting phrases as they go.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI went downtown today and bought a car,\u201d says Will.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood,\u201d I nod. \u201cThat scans perfectly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a pause, and then Ella gives it a try: \u201cAnd yesterday I went and bought some cheese.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone laughs at her stress on the word cheese.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re doing the \u201cPentameter Walk,\u201d improvising iambic lines to try to get inside the metrics of Shakespeare\u2019s blank verse.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a pause before Lila steps out: \u201cI think this class is really, really strange.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I watch Martin counting in his head before he says: \u201cIt\u2019s really, really, really, really strange.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s more Seuss than Shakespeare, but it works.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then it\u2019s Chloe\u2019s turn: \u201cBut repetition\u2019s just a way to cheat.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s an appreciative pause, and I\u2019m tempted to mention, \u201cTomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,\u201d but I let it pass.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019re starting to feel the pattern, learning Shakespeare with their legs.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d I say, \u201cnow let\u2019s try some lines from the play and see what happens.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kyle steps up, and of course, there is only one line that comes to mind.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo be or not to be, that is the quest\u2014Hey!\u201d He stops, befuddled. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t fit.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I nod and smile.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an extra bump,\u201d says Kyle. \u201cHe broke the rules.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell,\u201d I shrug. \u201cIs it stressed or unstressed?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnstressed,\u201d says Ella. \u201cYou don\u2019t say ques\u2013TION.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnless you have a bad French accent,\u201d quips Martin.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s called a feminine ending,\u201d I explain after the chuckling dies down.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen a line ends with an unstressed, eleventh syllable.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s not breaking the rules?\u201d asks Kyle.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy do it?\u201d asks Will.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood question,\u201d I say, writing Hamlet\u2019s line on the board. \u201cWhat are the stressed syllables in the line?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The class calls them out and I underline them.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chloe\u2019s eyes light up. \u201cThat\u2019s so cool,\u201d she says, almost to herself.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s so cool?\u201d asks Kat.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook,\u201d she points. \u201cIt\u2019s like a hidden message. Be, Not Be, Is Quest. There\u2019s a quest inside the question.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a quiet moment as the class takes it in: Chloe\u2019s gem, unearthed by the drumbeat of the pentameter. The thought of the young prince being on a quest opens up a new window into the play\u2014thus far, his inaction had seemed just the opposite.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBe, Not Be, Is Quest,\u201d repeats Martin admiringly. \u201cSounds like Yoda.\u201d From Martin, there is no higher praise.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we encourage students to approach literature as writers as well as readers, we give them the gift of hearing themselves in the words they read. They connect more readily to the actual diction of the piece, not merely the impression it makes upon them. They become more capable of appreciating the choices the author made, the words that mean two things at once, the fact that even syntax can be dramatic. We allow them to see poems and novels as active things, constructed to achieve a certain effect. Things that do something to you. If students can consider what a work of literature is doing to them, and how, then they\u2019ve begun to read on a very thoughtful level. The writing and the reading dance with one another. The poetry strengthens the prose.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the end of May. Exams have come and gone. The school is draped in the tender green of new ivy. Another year has turned on its hinge.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m sitting in my classroom, reviewing end-of-year assessments and considering changes for next year, but I keep pausing to stare out the window, lulled by two of the loveliest words in the English language:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost summer.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll be turning to my own reading and writing soon. In the meantime, I have the words of Martin and Kat, Natalie and Will, Leo and Chloe, and all the others to keep me company. My thoughts turn expansive as they often do at the end of May. I smile and wonder at the notion of encouraging future engineers and managers, and butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers, to aspire to poetry.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe the best reason is up there, on the Schism. It\u2019s a remnant from grad school, a quote from Wittgenstein:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe limits of my language mean the limits of my world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I turn and look out the window again, to the green treetops and the horizon beyond. It is not just in a third-floor classroom that we live within words. They house our thoughts and ourselves. If we deepen our relationship with them, if we engage their poetry\u2014then we step through the door of the classroom into a larger world.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Sources<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Familiar Quotations, John <\/span>Barlett, ed. Little, Brown, 2002.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collins, Billy. \u201cIntroduction to Poetry,\u201d The Apple That <\/span>Astonished Paris. University of Arkansas Press, 1988.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dickinson, Emily. \u201cFaith is a Fine Invention,\u201d The <\/span>Collected Poems, Thomas Johnson, ed. Back Bay Books, <\/span>1976.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everett, Barbara. Looking for Richard. Fox Searchlight <\/span>Pictures, 1996.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herbert, Zbigniew. \u201cEpisode in a Library,\u201d Collected Poems, <\/span>1956\u20131998. Ecco, 2007.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawrence, D.H. Studies in Classic American Literature. <\/span>Viking, 1966.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. <\/span>Routledge Classics, 2001.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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