This section focuses on students learning to "hear" the voice from the page, the voice of the characters and the voice of the writer. When I'm teaching the unit, the first two sections don't happen quite so separately, but for the sake of organization, I'm separating them into two sections. I will first teach students to read for voice using their favorite pieces of writing. We have a brief discussion about how music can move us, or books, or movies, etc. I always share and model using the Garth Brooks song "Sometimes I Thank God for Unanswered Prayers." Often the discussion will show us that songs and pieces can help us remember entire periods of our lives - middle school perhaps. I'll then assign students the task of bringing in a piece of writing that really "speaks" to them whether it be song lyrics, or an essay they've written, or a section of a novel, short story, or poem. Students need to bring a copy of the piece and highlight the 1-2 minutes-worth of the parts they feel are the parts that most represent that which they love about the piece - the part that speaks to them the most. Throughout the next couple of weeks, one to two students will begin class by sharing their piece: they read the part they highlighted and then explain why the piece speaks to them and what it is saying. Students listen with a pen since what is discussed here is fodder for essay topics. Once students finish their presentation and hand in the piece of writing, I'll hang in on the bulletin board made for each class entitled "We are English 9 Per. X" helping students create a group identity, a concept needed to help them overcome their deficits - the beginnings of creating a "class voice." At least every week for the first month or so I'll give students a Quiz Rehearsal (see Appendix) to see how well they are learning about their peers, how well they are listening to the voices in the room.
We will then transfer and build upon the discussion of voice using
Bottled Up
. The novel is a great one to use for struggling readers for multiple reasons. First, the content is something they are very interested in: a student and addict, Pip, has to go to counseling and all of his classes or the principal will call his father, an abusive alcoholic, to expel Pip. Afraid of his father, Pip begins a journey of self-discovery trying to figure out who he is and what he wants. Meanwhile, his little brother Mikey, whom Pip is mostly responsible for, changes from an innocent child to someone who loses his innocence in a family full of addicts.
The writing in the book is very good and very layered so students can really learn to recognize and appreciate author's craft. Pip and his little brother, Mikey, have strong voices - easily analyzable. We'll read some of the book in class together, aloud, and students will read some of the book at home. This is one book they don't mind reading at home, so it works well. What sections of the book get discussed will mostly be up to students as they share their pre-recorded thoughts. I will have certain passages I want to read closely for voice. The kinds of passages we mostly focus on are called "Philosophical Passages," as stated in our curriculum, or those passages that show what a character is feeling or show how a character is thinking about something. These passages help us determine characters' perspectives and help us "get at" an author's truth. They focus our attention on the voices that leap from the page into us. They are the passages with which our own voices dialogue. They are the passages that help us see how the writer constructed the text.
Pip had a very unique and strong voice. One way Murray creates his voice is her use of hyphens. In the beginning of the book as he gets sent down to the principal's office, Pip explains: "I grabbed my never-been-used-before seven-month-old note-book, good for carrying into any class, and started walking. In the front row Jenna was looking at me. She's one of the good girls - the high-honor-roll, never-get-into-trouble untouchables" (6-7). He clearly describes himself as a non-student and Jenna as his opposite. Similarly, after getting in a fight at a party while being driven home by a police officer, Pip retells conversation, starting with: "'You seem like a smart kid,' Officer Wanna-Be-Your-Pal was saying" (41). We can hear Pip's voice in his descriptions, as if he's talking to us - we hear his tone of voice, his subtext.
Pip's sarcasm, what Elbow would call his performance or what he shows to the world, is deeply contrasted with his inner-voice, his true-self. This voice is set apart from the rest with extra space between paragraphs and is italicized. These passages show us Pip's pain, his wants and needs. In fact, Murray begins the book with Pip's intimate thoughts: "
I remember when all I wanted was a ten-speed and a six-pack of Hershey bars. Now all I want is to be left alone"
(5). Immediately we see how unhappy Pip is even as we then see the tough exterior he shows the world. Towards the end of the book, he's babysitting Mikey, so he takes him to his counseling session. They are in the waiting room and Pip is the narrator:
He wasn't talking. He wasn't goofing around. No knock-knock jokes. No
questions. Not a word about M&M's. Something was up with the kid. I was
hoping some pizza would set it right.
We ate the slices while we walked, but he still had nothing to say. After a few
minutes I stopped thinking about it. It was a kind of break for me not having to listen to him yap for a change.
I want all the questions to stop.
I want more answers. (157-8)
Murray is not only showing the change in Mikey as he loses his innocence, we hear Pip's relief in this on two levels. First, he's relieved that his annoying little brother, annoying to Pip, finally stopped bugging him. But more importantly, we see that he really just wants more answers. This passage is great because kids can also listen to their own voices as they connect to Pip. Who doesn't have unanswered questions?
Mikey certainly does. He asks Pip questions all the time, and his M&M questions represent his innocence: "Why do they call them M&M's? Why don't they call them G&G's or B&B's?" (36). Pip's annoyance is evident as he recommends to Mikey, "So go on www.whogivesacrapaboutm&s's.com" (36). Of course this doesn't stop Mikey: "If you put M&M's in a bowl and put milk on it like cereal, what will happen?" (62). We can literally hear a young child who asks ten questions in a row. Pip keeps blowing off Mikey's questions, but Mikey's questions really represent his own. Pip tells us, "
I want to go to the M&M's factory so I can get the answers to all the really important questions"
(175). Again, Pip's public and private voices are on display and are contrasted about many things. The M&M example is just one of them. The idea of our public and private voices can lead students to not only analyze Pip's, but to also look closely at their own. What voice to they present to the world, through body language, through their words and tone? What voice is their inner voice - what does it sound like? What does it look like?
Simultaneously, I will have students responding in writing (typing actually) to journal prompts that we will also share during discussion. Two examples of the prompts are: 1. On the outside, people think I'm. . . On the inside I'm really. . . Explain. 2. One of the hardest things to do is to be honest with ourselves, to deal with our own demons and issues. Really think about who you are. Are you pretty self-aware and reflective about what your problems are and how you deal with them? Do you not think about that kind of stuff often? Why? How is that strategy of self-awareness/reflection working out for you so far? The rest of the prompts for the book are in the appendix. As we share, I will loop back to their ideas, helping them become more aware that their ability to share in class is a representation of their ability to have their voice heard - by themselves and by others. If I find students are not doing the prompts at home, I make them do them in class. The one thing struggling readers and writers do is AVOID work, and they are
very
good at this. In fact, they've been very good at this their whole lives, which is how they ended up in high school not having a lot of academic skills. I do not allow them to avoid their work or they'll never learn how to do their work.
Students will also be reading some poetry that complements or contradicts
Bottled Up
. One poem I use is "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke. This is a great poem because of its ambiguity. The poem describes a small boy's "dance" with his father, on the one hand innocent, and on the other hand violent as the father has "whiskey on [his] breath" (1) and his hand "Was battered on one knuckle" (10). The speaker further alludes to violence as Roethke writes, "At every step you missed/ My right ear scraped a buckle" (11-12) and "You beat time on my head/With a palm caked hard by dirt" (13-14). The students love to debate whether or not the dance is just a dance with a father who happens to be drunk or if the dance is a metaphor for abuse. It is a great exercise in close reading and can be used to see the benefits and cons of being ambiguous with our voice. We can also see that in life and in poetry, things can have more than one meaning.
Another poem we'll read is "Where I'm From" by George Ella Lyon. Lyon uses anaphora as many of the lines begin with "I am from. . ." What follows the phrase are many metaphors that represent the speaker's life: "I am from clothespins,/From Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride" (1-2), "I'm from the know-it-alls/ and the pass-it-ons" (12-13), "I am from Artemus and Billie's Branch,/fired corn and strong coffee" (18-19). Lyon ends with a culminating statement, "I am from those moments - /snapped before I budded - /leaf-fall from the family tree." Students will study this poem and then write one for Pip or Mikey, using some of the symbols and metaphors in the book: M&M's, questions, photo albums, garages, bottle caps, the site. They will then write one for themselves, learning how to express their voice, their past and present, in verse. We will then share and post on the wall.
Once students have begun the pre-writing phases of their essay/project as explained in "Finding Our Voice as Creators/Writers," we will look at models of essays (see Lesson Plan 2) not only so students can see the different ways one gets one's voice heard in writing, but also to continue to learn how to hear the voices of a writer. Since in order to "hear" what "they" are saying has a lot of layers, the concepts I'm going to focus on for the beginning of the year are audience, purpose, and tone. In the 9th grade curriculum, the first finished piece of writing the students must do is an issue paper that focuses heavily on writing for audience and purpose and varying one's language accordingly. Consequently, we will analyze models for these concepts, just as we will analyze our own voices.