So far, I've written about working with younger students in our school. Today I started working with a group of spirited, intelligent sixth graders who will compete for a spot on the school's spelling bee team. I experienced a moment of contrast as I worked with children in a different developmental phase.
Spelling Practice…
They pour in
Spilling onto tables and chairs
with limbs and tongues
Wriggling, dangling
like misplaced participles craving
their home, and I
am there as witness
to this act.
There is professed comfort
as if they fit well in their skins,
yet I can see places where
they gap or hang—I hear
their nervous giggles
as one knee shifts
and touches another.
We are gathered here to practice spelling words
for the upper grade spelling bee, to sort through
the word lists, finding those syllables
they still don’t know in an air
thick with knowing—to publicly analyze
how letters go together, systematically,
while privately wondering
if anything goes together at all.
They are walking, talking verbs,
actively seeking meaning to everything
with little comprehension of themselves,
and for twenty minutes, I, the
Spelling Bee coach, tell them
the rules of the game:
Repeat the word,
ask for a definition, a sentence, the language of origin,
look for clues in its verbal appearance,
look for anything at all that will help you
confront it, perhaps you’ve met a similar word before,
consider its base word, prefix or suffix,
let yourself be alone in your head with the word,
with yourself, with your own voice massaging its parts,
like shoulders and thighs, then surprise yourself
with what is there in your brain already, vibrating,
like jello on a train.
ask for a definition, a sentence, the language of origin,
look for clues in its verbal appearance,
look for anything at all that will help you
confront it, perhaps you’ve met a similar word before,
consider its base word, prefix or suffix,
let yourself be alone in your head with the word,
with yourself, with your own voice massaging its parts,
like shoulders and thighs, then surprise yourself
with what is there in your brain already, vibrating,
like jello on a train.
You are both young and not young,
Old and not old,
On a quest for knowledge that, on the surface
is comprised of hard-to-spell words, but beneath
is made of a room full of intimate strangers, wondering
who they are in the mix,
where are they going, and with whom,
looking for
definition, clues,
anything to help them make their way,
drowning in the unknown, then
coming again up to the surface, and asking, “Mrs. King,
how do you spell
Old and not old,
On a quest for knowledge that, on the surface
is comprised of hard-to-spell words, but beneath
is made of a room full of intimate strangers, wondering
who they are in the mix,
where are they going, and with whom,
looking for
definition, clues,
anything to help them make their way,
drowning in the unknown, then
coming again up to the surface, and asking, “Mrs. King,
how do you spell
“adolescence?”
2 comments:
This takes me back to fifth and sixth grade, eons ago. I won the fifth grade spelling bee, so I felt certain to win the next year too. Imagine my disappointment when I lost on the word "English". I didn't capitalize it. :(
I love your poems and have your blog in my rss reader.
Carol
;)
Spelling bee champ here, too :) -- eighth grade, parochial school - lots of nuns and family and fellow students to help me practice words.
Moved from the school to the county bee -- then to the state.
Years later, I helped the students at a local school prepare for their bee --but mostly spent time having them come before the microphone, to get over any awkwardness or shyness, which can derail even the best speller.
Then, after the winner was chosen, I would work with them in practice -- possibly my way of having a chance to "formally" teach ?
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