“I thought, well since she’s not here anymore, why should I?”

I do not think my sophomore+ students will be totally satisfied until there is a public leak in my tear ducts. Really! “I know it would’ve shown my humanity, but I refuse [to cry]!” That was my response moments ago after a student’s Beautiful Black Faces collage presentation.

The assignment was simple. Turn the classroom into a museum of beautiful Black faces. Create a collage. On the board, affix cut-outs from newspapers/magazines or print-outs from the internet. Be intentional in your approach, whatever and however that might look for you. Be prepared to either write about or discuss your collage.

 

A few Beautiful Black Faces collages

One student, Sahmir (pseudonym) portrayed Black people who, in recent memory, lost or took their own lives. He explained that many of the people on his collage chose to end their lives as the result of cyber bulling, bullying in general, or just decided that life was no longer worth living. He then chose to share with the class that upon the death of his own mother some years ago, he, too, contemplated suicide. He admitted that he was too scared to actually cut himself or make any other attempts but that he struggled with the thoughts. “I thought, well since she’s not here anymore, why should I?”

He credits his overcoming these thoughts to the support and love of his grandmother who conveyed that he would be a coward; that after surviving many other adversities since birth he’d take the easy way out and kill himself. This, he says, woke him up, and caused him to realize that he did have people for whom and reasons to live.

Sahmir's collage

After several spell-bounding seconds…

“Wow! That. Was. Powerful!” was all I could muster. As we all sat and took in the moment, one of my other students raised his hand to comment on Sahmir's presentation. He remarked that he also lost a parent some years ago, his father. He admitted to struggling to come to grips with this new reality, that his rock, his dad was no longer here. Like Sahmir, he also had his grandmother, along with his mother and brother to live for and concluded that suicide was not an option. With that, he shared some words of advice and encouragement from the perspective of one who experienced similar thoughts and feelings.

At this point, the class sat in silent, reflective contemplation. Something was happening in the room. Something organic. Healing? Release? A renewed desire to hold loved ones closer? The raised hand of another classmate temporarily interrupted our thoughts. At this point I was really struggling to keep it together.

This third student shared with the presenter and with the rest of us how she lost her mom five years ago. Cancer. She didn’t know if she’d be with her father, in foster care, or wherever. She expressed how she struggled with what and how to feel; what it would now mean to live in a world where her mom was no longer present. She could relate with her peers in their quest to try and make sense of loss and the uncertainty of what would come next.

As they each shared their experiences, their courage was on full display for all of us to observe and it was a sight to behold. I wrote down as much of this as fast as I could once class was over so that I wouldn’t forget some of the exact words and feelings of the moment. Revisiting this more than a week later, the memory and feelings of that class period are just as palpable and raw now as they were then.

“I just want to say that your strength, each of you, is AMAZING! I admire your courage and your willingness to share some of the most intimate details of your life with us, because you definitely did not have to!” Those were my exact words to them. Later I would reflect on how much I got to know some of them, their lives and their loss, through this art assignment. I would also reflect on how comfortable they felt sharing such very personal, unobservable details of their lives with me, with us. After several more silent seconds, we continued with the rest of class. How? I don’t remember.

Authentic Teacher-Annotated Texts

"You writin' in the book really helped me a lot!"

One of my approximately 16-year-old Black male students said this to me today as we were beginning class. He borrowed a book from our class library last week. Apparently, it was a book in which I annotated quite frequently. I didn't realize that I placed my annotated edition out for them to borrow. When Sean (pseudonym) said this to me, however, he gave me insight into how best he and others may learn.

As English teachers, we show our students how to annotate including how to organize their annotations. Of course, we provide examples on the screen or may even distribute examples we've prepared. But this wasn't that. I wrote in the book for my own personal reasons.

Actual personal annotations from The Soloist by Steve Lopez

Sean got me to thinking. Annotations on a cold read where a student is reading a text independently and not in preparation for our traditional interrogation of the text? I think he may have given me, because I know you've already been illuminated, some insight into literary practices that could be helpful for struggling teenage readers.

1. Create authentic teacher-annotated versions of short texts (i.e. newspaper clippings or poems) in addition to making non-annotated versions available. Note: this would NOT be for the purpose of showing students how to annotate text, per se, as this was not my purpose in the example above.

2.  Make teacher-annotated books available in the class libraries and indicate that they are annotated. I'm going to have to figure that one out because I love my books and the notes I've taken in them. {insert Black thinking emoji and a hmmmmm thought cloud...no lightbulbs yet}

3.  Create an atmosphere where students, and in this case a Black male student, feel comfortable:
a--borrowing the books that are for them, as books, in my opinion, should be 'please touch and take'
     Note: He saw, he asked, he took...no problem
b--letting you know that they are reading and enjoying the book, and
     Note: He approached me, unsolicited
c--letting you know how they are thriving with the book
     Note: He approached me, unsolicited

Just how do you a, b, and c?
1.  Allow them to borrow the books. If you don't want to lend them, don't display them.
2.  Allow them to approach you. Let's stop with the feigned, "I feel threatened" stuff. Sean wants to tell you about the book he's reading.
3.  If you really care about them, they'll know it and neither a, b, nor c, will be an issue. If you don't care about them, they'll know that too. Thing is, students, especially today, have this funny little way of showing you how they feel about you. Just sayin...

I'm not perfect, I'm striving. I'm also still learning everyday that teaching is not a simple algorithm!