Mushrooms, or Spying on My Homework #3

There are a few reasons, some better than others, why after a blazing beginning it's now been ten days since my last post. Partly I believed that I had to work through and finish my most recent (from which the preceding was a tangential excerpt) before allowing myself to write anything else. But I cannot seem to finish it, nothing I write seems to be right, our grammar cannot accomodate the syntax of heartbreak. So I keep winding up with a bunch of words and phrases on a page, a list of wounds, a web of (dis)connected, communal failures.

So I've decided to move on for now, keep going, because life does and has and there's always so much more I want to tell you. Julia Kristeva describes depression as being stuck at a moment in time beyond which one cannot move, and this being-stuck is also a being-silent. So it is meaningful that I have chosen to simply continue past my own silence.

The other reason, of course, is that I have just been terribly, horribly busy. Here are the facts: I'm in school five days a week, 8-3. I'm sure so many hours spent in class is itself physically exhausting (good! to know how my students will feel), and to spend that time always thinking, thinking and talking, about difficult things for which there are no answers, only guiding voices that have become already cacophonous and rich. Multifaceted and often contradictory, although there are so many commonalities too that you find yourself remembering an idea without being able to say which book or essay or speaker it came from. Of course, the context is very different, and quite new to me.

Because I am learning about something I will soon be doing, there is a materiality to this learning that I have never had before. Do not underestimate this fact. It means every part of me is tied up in this learning, that those 6 hours of class do not feel like hours at all that when I leave and come home I never stop thinking that even though I hate to wake up and 8 a.m. is killing me I still stay up late into the night, quite still, working, thinking, writing. Of course I have known long academic nights. I couldn't have managed my master's from the University of Chicago without knowing how to read until 4 in the morning only to be somehow articulate and engaged in discussion a few hours later. But this is completely different, a completely different form of engagement. I have said that teaching needs YOU, and I am learning that this means ALL of you, body and mind. You never really stop *becoming*, when you are becoming a teacher. bell hooks talks about education as the practice of freedom demanding a kind of self-actualization, a *wholeness*, of teachers. So that they may make their classrooms a space of possibility, of helping their students attain that wholeness themselves. The kind of saturating reflection required of action meant to truly transform the world. (She learns this from Paulo Freire and Thich Nhat Hanh.)

More materiality: we are managing a full master's and certification coarseload into one summer plus one day and one evening a week during the rest of the year, and seven of our classes begin during the same summer, with some finishing and some continuing on, this madness is called a "spiral curriculum," and I'll have to let you know later how well it works. But it does mean that though I have only finished my third week of school one class is already beginning to wrap up and I will be writing my final paper this weekend. Still, even I forget that it has only been three weeks. I have seen worlds in those weeks. I have listened to, and become, many people, always heading towards this teacher, this person I am becoming, who by some strange magic is both new and familiar. I recognize her.

This was meant to be a brief introduction to a possibly unexciting post, so let me try to get there. I wrote my first real lesson plan this week. Soon I'll have to complete the entire unit it would fit into. I don't know how many of you will find it interesting, but I wanted to offer it to you anyway and will welcome your thoughts as always. The text my students would study for this lesson begins, followed by the lesson itself.
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Mushrooms
Sylvia Plath, 1959

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air
Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies.
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow.
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible.

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.
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Course: Junior English (“Communities & Utopias”)
Unit: “Community Poem: Identities in Reading and Writing” (American poetry unit with introduction to Reader Response literary theory)
Topic: “Mushrooms” by Sylvia Plath. Introduce community poem unit, review and practice poetic analysis, springboard Reader Response unit.

Rationale: This is the introductory lesson to a unit on the poetic expression of identity and community, as well as the way in which one’s identity affects one’s reading. The structure and focus of the lesson provide students the opportunity to gain experience in poetic analysis; articulate diverse and multiple conceptions of identity and community through discussion, collaboration, and creative self-expression; and develop a beginning awareness of the way the identity of the reader affects the meaning s/he constructs from the text (this concept will be expanded upon in the course of the unit). Students exercise these skills—vital to their development as critical thinkers, readers, and community members—in an engaging, relevant, and comfortable environment.

Specific Goals/Objectives for Today’s Lesson: Students will be able to...
• Develop strategies for reading, annotating, and constructing meaning from a poem or other literary work.
• Make thematic connections between literary works to expand understanding, including relating biographical/historical background across works.
• Gain experience reading poetry aloud, and acquire an understanding of the way a poem’s meaning can be variously constructed and transformed in oral performance.
• Analyze poetic language and imagery to construct and defend an interpretation, both independently and collaboratively.
• Gain experience in poetic/creative expression of identity and community.
• Begin to understand how the identity of the reader affects a poem’s constructed meaning. (This last topic will be taken up more fully in the lessons to follow this one.)

Activities to Cover Goals/Objectives:
PRE-READING:
1. Entry slips: “Who (what identities and communities) do you mean when you say/use the words ‘we’ and ‘us’?” You may choose to represent these any way you choose (e.g. list, drawing, mindmap).

2. Do Now: Review your entry slips and choose one “we” to share. (2 min.)

3. Introduce poem/lesson by beginning with students sharing their “Do Now” responses. Discuss the variety of “we’s” to which we belong. Encourage students to keep this idea in mind as we look at our poem for today. (3 min.)

4. Distribute poetry reading strategies worksheet (see attachment). Have students take turns reading each instruction aloud, pausing to check understanding. Reiterate the need to read actively, with pen in hand. (3 min.)

READING:
5. Distribute poem (without author or title). Read poem aloud to class while they underline, note, etc. (see strategies worksheet). Students then re-read the poem independently, focusing on the worksheet questions. While students are working, the instructor moves around the room to observe and engage with students one-on-one. (Read aloud: 2 min.; independent read: 12 min.)

POST-READING:
6. Begin with an initial discussion about the last question on their reading strategies worksheets. Students volunteer guesses at the approximate date, along with their evidence. After a few (educated) guesses, the instructor gives class the date. One student adds this poem to our evolving literary timeline, posted across the classroom walls. (3 min.)

7. Guided discussion of students’ initial impressions of the poem, what they think it’s about, who they think the “we” is, etc. Students include some initial “word clues” (textual evidence) for their claims. During this discussion, the instructor writes possible topics/interpretations from the class brainstorm on the board (with a few textual examples) in an informal class mindmap (see attached list of past/possible analyses for instructor reference in guiding students). (5 min.)

8. Give them the author (name is added to the timeline). Review what we already know about Sylvia Plath, based on our reading of the Bell Jar earlier in the course. Quick blackboard revision of students’ topical mindmap – if they choose to – based on how this authorial information changes their initial impressions. (3 min.)

9. Select 5-6 main topics/interpretations from the board and assign one to each student group (somewhat random; students need not be in the group with their own idea, however one “expert” as a kind of team leader in each group would be good). Each group works together to look for textual evidence of their assigned topic/interpretation. Sample textual examples from the initial group brainstorm have already been included on the board to help get students started. Give students the following instructions: In these groups, try to come up with at least 5 examples in the text of your assigned interpretation. Then work together to prepare a dramatic reading of the poem according to the tone and concept of your assigned interpretation. (12 min.)

10. Groups report back to the class about the outcomes of their investigation, then perform their readings of the poem. Students then “vote physically” on which seems like the likeliest interpretation. (10 minutes)

11. Poem’s actual title is revealed. Wrap-up discussion. (2 min.)

12. Discuss homework assignment. (3 min.)

13. Exit slips: Write one question you have for Sylvia Plath. (Instructor to use this input to evaluate student engagement and generate follow-up material and/or focus for the following day’s lesson, which introduces Reader Response theory through an extended/deepened exploration of the same poem.) (2 min.)
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Poetry Reading Strategies

1. Listen and follow along as I read this poem aloud. Be thinking about what or whom this poem may be describing. What makes you think so? While you are listening, underline or highlight lines and words that strike you, places about which you have questions, and unfamiliar words or confusing phrases.

2. Now carefully read through the poem again independently, keeping the following questions in mind. If you found any unfamiliar words, look them up now. If you have questions, write them in the margins. Keep looking back into the text of the poem for specific evidence to support your impressions. Your answers will form the basis of our next activity, so be prepared to share your analysis.
a. What is the mood of the poem? In other words, how does this poem make you/readers feel? How does/do the speaker(s) of the poem feel? How can you tell?
b. Who is speaking? How can you tell? What kinds of images do the words call to mind? What kinds of settings and characters do these images evoke?
c. Comparing it to other poems we have read this year, when do you think this poem was written? How can you tell?

3. If you still have time remaining before we begin discussion, you can start thinking about today’s exit slip: What questions do you have for the author of this poem?
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“We” Ideas: Past/Possible “Mushrooms” Interpretations
(for teacher's reference)
drawn from a variety of sources, including both student and scholarly interpretations

depression; suicidal thoughts
conformity & individuality
women; female writers; feminists
nature; seeds; trees; vegetation; mold; fungus; snow
carpenter ants; woodland mice; insects; cockroaches
the meek—Biblical allusion
a dream
making a place for yourself in the world
birth; pregnancy/unborn babies
the younger generation
underdogs; the working class; the communist atmosphere
slaves; decolonization/the oppressed
souls
mushrooms
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Homework Assignment: “Our Imagined Futures”

Choose from the following:

a. One could argue that Sylvia Plath’s “Mushrooms” describes some kind of transformation or event. (“We shall by morning / Inherit the earth.”) Imagine the next scene, the moment following the event or transformation predicted in the poem. What does it look like? Describe this imagined, follow-up scene using whatever method you choose: a poem, story, drawing, comic, or collage. Be sure to use the text of the poem to inform the scene you imagine. Be prepared to discuss your work and share the textual “clues” that inspired it.

b. Write your own imagined prediction for future transformation, using “we” to represent the voice of anything or anyone you choose. This can be a poem, essay, letter, or story, but it must be written. You will have the opportunity to share these pieces with your classmates.