Sketches for Students

In an earlier post (Graphing the Gap, 07 Jan 2010), I wrote about the need for teachers to keep learning.  This means that teachers have a responsibility to periodically put themselves in the student's place. 

Now move your imagination to my walking our dog in the early morning fog.  I often plan classes and exercises while walking Sybil; she's a 35-pound, ten-year-old terrier mix from the Tulsa animal shelter.  When people ask what kind of dog she is, we proudly declare, "She is a Long-Haired North American Gopher Hound."  She has caught one gopher in her lifetime, but that is another story.

On this morning, I was struck by how quiet the streets were.  Haiti was also on my mind.  It was early enough that only some people had turned on their apartment lights.  I began to imagine these people in their homes, while listening to the raindrops left over from the night's rain and while thinking of the Haitian people, whose streets are anything but quiet.

As I began to listen to the drips and watch the lights, I started composing in my head.  In Poetry class this past week, we have been studying early Hebrew and Anglo-Saxon traditions, especially the two-part line structures.  As I composed in my head, I found myself using  principles from these two traditions.  I started using these tools in part because I wanted to show students how they might apply the principles to their own poems.  Incidentally, if you want to learn more about early Hebrew poetic traditions by reading the Psalms, I highly recommend Robert Alter's Introduction to his translation of the Psalms (Norton 2007).

Now, back to the lead idea of this post.  Although I will show my sketch (draft) to the students for  reasons just cited, I also want to post the draft here--as a reminder to me of the situation in which I often put students.  In other words, I am publishing a work that still needs work.  In my experience, it is not uncommon for students to have to produce multiple assignments in multiple classes according to a series of sometimes-rapidly-recurring deadlines.  Ready or not, students, put your work out there.  We teachers must periodically remind ourselves what this feels like.

SO, with a degree of professionally valuable trepidation, I offer this draft:


Quiet Morning (17 Jan 2010; draft)

As I walk the streets in the softness of morning,
I hear only drops of water dripping
From the gutters above and the ghostly trees.

I am struck by the quiet and stilled by the darkness.

My dog and I stroll the neighborhood sidewalks,
Before the morning twilight begins to mold the day.
The cotton swabs of fog lurk in the corners,
And the edges of houses blur on the periphery.

It rained hard in the night.  I can hear the raindrops still
Build to such a size that they spit on the cement.
Distant, alley drops only.  Otherwise quiet.

Back at our apartment, I pick up the blue
Plastic bag with the new day’s newspaper—
And its stories of Haiti’s struggle to survive—
Wrapped safely inside, out of the rain.