I Teach for Moments Like These

It's risky business giving learners time to let their brains work and make connections. It is not the kind of work to which practice sheets, workbook pages, or clicker quizzes lend themselves. It can be a lot like walking on a suspension bridge -- you've got to keep the big picture in front of you while you keep your balance, keep moving, trust the tools (bridge), and trust yourself and those who may be crossing with you. In the end, as happy/relieved as you may be just to get to the other side, it's the process of getting there, the journey, that can be most rewarding.

During a reading lesson this past week, I asked my students to use their inference skills along with the lesson's focus strategy of questioning, as they reviewed the story entitled "Grandma's Records". I love this Eric Valasquez story most especially because the Latino culture -- the culture of many of my students -- is front and center. I also love the story because Salsa music is something of a main character in the story and I LOVE listening to and dancing Salsa. To intro the lesson I played a Salsa tune and had the class move around the room in time to the music as I gave a synopsis of the story. Following this kinesthetic engagement, I had the class before they sit down to listen to the story for the first time following along in the reading anthology.

After the audio review, students were to write 2-3 questions they had about the story based on what they heard from the listening-station CD, their own reading, and/or their repeat of a picture walk.

As I circulated around the room asking students to share their questions, I stopped at "A's" desk. "A", one of my ESOL students who really struggles with reading and writing, but he is always eager and so appreciative of any positive feedback he receives. "A" explained his first question: "In page 207 is Grandma still live?" I congratulated him on using a detail like the page number to pinpoint the source of his questions. (I recognized, of course, that he was using the graphics and his stronger listening comprehension skills quite heavily in preparing his questions.) I asked him to turn to page 207 and immediately caught his train of thought. The page featured a picture of the main character, Eric, as a grown man. Also, unlike the other pages in the story, there was only a photo of Grandma on a desk- she was not present physically. What was it, I asked him, that made him ask if Grandma was still alive? His reply: "I looked at the picture and Eric is grown up now. I can infer (yes, he used that word) that he's not little like before. So now, if he's older, grandma maybe got older. Is she still alive now?"

Whenever students do a good job of thinking I tell them to "Give that brain a kiss!" I asked "A" to kiss his brain twice!

It's not always easy and decidedly risky 'let go and let learn'. I must still fight the urge to be in control of my students' learning. My mission is to focus on getting the learners in my class to become good thinkers instead of just "right answerers". Slowly, but surely, they are catching on and the delight I see in their eyes as they build their understanding and their confidence as learners, tells me it is worth the risk.