Responding to Feedback

In recent weeks, I've been asking the tutors for feedback regarding training sessions. Our tutors have reported that training sessions can be a little boring, so I've been experimenting with some different formats to engage and excite our high school students. Today, after a brief vocabulary activity, I introduced A Wreath for Emmett Till by Marilyn Nelson. My goal was to model comprehension-building strategies using this crown of sonnets. What developed was much more exciting.

...If trees could speak, it could describe, in words beyond words, make us see the strange fruit that still ghosts the reverie, misty companion of its solitude...

The tutors, using context clues, learned the meaning of "strange fruit." Their eyes moved to me; you could almost feel them engage. They heard about Billie Holliday ("I thought that was a dude!") and began to think about the horrific reality of men hanging from trees.

...my heartwood has been scarred for fifty years by what I heard, with hundreds of green ears...Two hundred years of deaths I understood. Then slaughter axed one quiet summer night, shivering the deep silence of the stars...

Can we tell, I asked, from whose perspective this particular sonnet is written? Romello answered quickly, "the trees." And when asked for evidence, a number of tutors cited the green ears and the two hundred year lifespan. A lesson in perspective hidden in a much larger lesson.

...Surely you didn't know you would devote the rest of your changed life to dignified public remembrance of how Emmett Died, innocence slaughtered by the hands of hate...would you say no to your destiny, mother of a boy martyr, if you could?

DaQuan pulled out the real question: Knowing that her son's death became a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement, would Mrs. Till change history? Opinions were shared with each tutor offering solid reasoning.

...For the lynchers feared the lynchee, what he might do, being of another race, a great unknown...

Asked to explain what was really feared, the tutors explained that it was the unknown. So, knowledge is fear's enemy. As teachers, I told the tutors assembled, you give your students the ultimate freedom. As tutors, I told them, I expect you to lead conversations about literature - conversations like the one we had today. Can you do that? They nodded.

As the tutors gathered their belongings, I asked for feedback. With one being boring and three being great, they held up fingers to tell me how they thought today's session went. One student extended a single finger; one put up two. The rest of them extended three fingers into the air. Today, kids got excited about what they read. Today, tutors saw a connection between their own lives and the words on the pages. Today, we brought a book to life.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mark