Drawing Pictures in High School English Class

Tenth grade discussion of After Dark still as energetic as last week (see this link for more). Here are 2 students who read ahead and finished. They pleaded, "Can we please talk together?" Later one volunteered, "Every time we talk, we find we noticed different things, and we combine those things and come up with new insights!" I'm so delighted to see these kids feeling they have the authority to do that with a text set in modern Japan. 

I gravitate to a disagreement in one corner of the room. 

• Student: What kind of needle was Hester Prynne using? Knitting?
• Me: No, sewing. Embroidery. Hari. (I supply the Japanese word and mime using it.)
• Students: OOOOOOOHHHH!!!
• A few minutes later, from the same group: Mrs. Essenburg, when were thimbles invented?
• Japanese student: What’s a fimble? 
• Me: Not an “f”… “th”—thimble. But if you say it in Japanese, it’s going to sound like the metal percussion instruments: shimbaru. 
• A split second of puzzlement over the original question as I venture: My guess is shortly after the first needles, but I’d have to look that up. Then my eye falls on the group poster of the chapter from The Scarlet Letter, “Hester at Her Needle,” that they are working on, which now features not a knitting needle but a sewing needle, soon to be further enhanced with a thimble. And I realize someone must have had the insight to check: we know needles were invented in 1625 because it was mentioned in the book, but there is no mention of thimbles—we’re adding that in ourselves.
• Me (pulling up Google): Excellent question. 

As it turns out, the earliest known thimble was found in a Han Dynasty tomb. So, yes, Hester probably used one. The things we learn when drawing pictures in AP English. 

This is not child’s play, though, when the text we are grappling with and trying to visualize is the difficulty of Nathaniel Hawthorn's old and intentionally antiqued (and sometimes tortured) prose. I learned this 2 years ago, in my second year of teaching it, when students came back after the first reading utterly confused and discouraged (see this link). Now the nightly assignment—the tools for grappling with the difficult text—is to come each day with a sketch of a central image from each chapter read (usually 2). Include 1 significant quote and 1 question. In class we have a brief discussion of both chapters, first in table groups, then each group bringing one question, epiphany, or connection to the whole group. Then each group of 3 or 4 is assigned a chapter for which they select or combine their individual images, quotes, and questions into one poster. We have a 30-second presentation of each poster at the end of the class, and then put the posters up on the wall. 

I have saved the last 2 years’ classes posters and put them into clear files. Some of the students love checking what image, quote, and question previous classes chose. But not, of course, until AFTER this year’s posters are drawn. It is fascinating to see the similarities and differences. It’s also fascinating to see the real brainwork that goes into figuring out exactly what picture the words paint—and sometimes students come up with a very literal image, and sometimes it’s figurative (like an actual pearl wrapped in a baby blanket); sometimes it’s a single thing, like the needle, and sometimes it’s a whole scene; sometimes it’s from one perspective, and sometimes from another (like Hester throwing the letter away—one group put Hester in the foreground and another put the letter in the foreground). (See below for some of these visuals!)

The questions are also great, but maybe that’s a blog for next week.

Such a simple assignment, and such a powerful propulsion to stop and visualize difficult text. Entirely by coincidence, 10th graders are simultaneously in a unit where they draw—character cards with characters on one side and descriptions on the other (see this link). In the previous unit, they drew comic strips of the short story "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I’m thoroughly enjoying seeing in both classes how students visualize text and hearing the questions they ask each other about visualizing text.

How do you challenge students to visualize text, or find out what they are visualizing?

The past 2 classes renditions of The Scarlet Letter...

2 different groups from this year on chapter 18

The past 2 classes' chapter 5

10th graders working on character cards for After Dark

10th grade 3-frame rendition of "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"