I use poetry and songs every day as a way to build reading fluency in my students. It takes no more than 5 minutes to read a poem or sing a song two or three times.Through poems and songs I also fill their heads with beautiful language; beautiful language that later shows up in their talk and in their writing. Because words also get stuck in their heads, I try to use selections that carry a positive messages, affirmations that can hide in some corner of their brain and raise their voices when most needed. Last Spring, I came across a performance by Andy Grammer and the PS22 choir of his song: "Don't Give Up On Me". I showed the video to my class as an example of feeling the words you sing or recite. I also told them that if a song was going to get stuck in their head, I'd rather it be one that said:
I will fight
I will fight for you
I always do until my heart
Is black and blue . . .
I'm not givin' up
I'm not givin' up, givin' up
No, not me
Even when nobody else believes
I'm not goin' down that easily
So don't give up on me
It was a particularly tough year. I had so many kids that by fourth grade had given up on themselves, and I had spent all year fighting to undo their defeat. The words were just right to get stuck in their heads.
But it's not just songs and poems that can become the voices they will carry. Ours words, those of their teachers and parents, are the strongest ones that stay around for a long time, maybe forever. We can make or break them, with our words. They believe us. When we encourage or disparage their work, they believe us. They even believe our indifference.
So we have to tell them the truth - that they are not done yet, that they can learn, not just to read and write and do math but to restrain their impulses and think before they act; that they are not the labels we give them, that we all grow little by little and day by day, that they are seeds now, trying to squeeze out of their shell, looking damaged and deformed but they are destined to become trees that will give fruits.
A few years ago, my friend and exceptional teacher Andrea had a whole crew of fourth grade boys needing to hear these truths. Every day she would take the time to sit with one or the other of them and talk them through the difficultly they were having at the moment. One day Kevin, another fabulous teacher at our campus, commented: "I hope when they grow up, it's your voice he hears in their head." And I realized we have a lot of competition: themselves, other adults, their peers, the pernicious media, social and otherwise, that only cares about its own bottom line. So we have to be loud! And we have to repeat ourselves over and over again, because they are not always tuned in to our channel.
Here is another favorite poem around my classroom, one that is easily memorized and hopefully played back when needed:
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
-Langston Hughes
I will fight
I will fight for you
I always do until my heart
Is black and blue . . .
I'm not givin' up
I'm not givin' up, givin' up
No, not me
Even when nobody else believes
I'm not goin' down that easily
So don't give up on me
It was a particularly tough year. I had so many kids that by fourth grade had given up on themselves, and I had spent all year fighting to undo their defeat. The words were just right to get stuck in their heads.
But it's not just songs and poems that can become the voices they will carry. Ours words, those of their teachers and parents, are the strongest ones that stay around for a long time, maybe forever. We can make or break them, with our words. They believe us. When we encourage or disparage their work, they believe us. They even believe our indifference.
So we have to tell them the truth - that they are not done yet, that they can learn, not just to read and write and do math but to restrain their impulses and think before they act; that they are not the labels we give them, that we all grow little by little and day by day, that they are seeds now, trying to squeeze out of their shell, looking damaged and deformed but they are destined to become trees that will give fruits.
A few years ago, my friend and exceptional teacher Andrea had a whole crew of fourth grade boys needing to hear these truths. Every day she would take the time to sit with one or the other of them and talk them through the difficultly they were having at the moment. One day Kevin, another fabulous teacher at our campus, commented: "I hope when they grow up, it's your voice he hears in their head." And I realized we have a lot of competition: themselves, other adults, their peers, the pernicious media, social and otherwise, that only cares about its own bottom line. So we have to be loud! And we have to repeat ourselves over and over again, because they are not always tuned in to our channel.
Here is another favorite poem around my classroom, one that is easily memorized and hopefully played back when needed:
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
-Langston Hughes
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