Shiloh Quartet Songs
Charo Lemucchi
Since I believe that balance in all aspects of education is crucial, I teach whole-class novels right along with assisting my students in choosing the books they read independently. In fact, my middle school students are always in the process of reading four different books at the same time throughout the school year.
Various short stories, poems, songs, non-fiction articles and texts, artwork, and films related by historical period and/or theme supplement these novels. This way, my students gain experience with many genres, writing styles, and forms of artistic expression. Students use all of these sources in responding to a variety of essay prompts.
In tandem with the two major whole-class novels, I select another in-class novel that has several sequels and that we also read together throughout the year. I usually choose either the heartwarming Shiloh quartet of books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor or the rivetting Hatchet series by Gary Paulsen.
For these novels, the students themselves lead the discussions and use the inquiry process of creating compelling questions to pose to their classmates. My mixture of comprehension, analysis, inference, and response questions referenced above with the major whole-class novels serve as an ongoing model for how my students can compose their own probing questions that move the literary conversation forward or below the surface.
Through the student collaborative process and with my feedback and support, each student refines their ability to interact with rich text on a very perceptive, profound, and personal level. With these books, my role as facilitator becomes one of pointing my students in a (slightly) different direction, filling in gaps, and nudging them towards interpretations they may have missed.
My students are also required to read at least one self-selected book per month for homework (pre-approved by the teacher) and to complete a book report that mirrors the activities used with our various whole-class novels. These activities include work with vocabulary, settings, characters, predictions, figurative language, literary devices, symbols, irony, foreshadowing, themes, point of view, conflict, and critique.
I will not approve books that were made into a movie, however. There are plenty of other amazing books in the genre of their choice without a student being dependent on reading the current box office sensation or a readily downloadable film. This stipulation makes my book report very hard to fake, and I can easily discern when any student has not actually read a book.
An additional, independent novel is kept in class for each student. For this book, my students choose a book from my extensive classroom library, which is organized by genres. I have become an expert at suggesting great books for those students who ask for advice, and students themselves enthusiastically recommend their favorite novels and authors to their classmates. Students may bring in their own books, but these particular books must be kept in class until finished.
If they do their homework, my students read a total of at least twelve books by the end of the school year, with many voraciously reading twenty or more, at least half of which are of their own choosing. In the four ways ways outlined above, I am able to balance the benefits of cohesion and direct instruction with differentiation and student voice and choice.
I have never been a personal fan of literature circles; therefore, I have never used them. Nevertheless, I have many colleagues who swear by them. So if this approach is of interest to you, there are many articles extolling their benefits.
As explained in my companion Edutopia article, I think it is crucial for the entire class to have a wealth of common reference points. My major and minor whole-class novels accomplish this with great results, while providing equal access to challenging, grade-level texts for my developing readers.
Even though there is a movement to progressively limit the ratio between the reading of narrative fiction and non-fiction, I will have none of it. I advocate for a balanced approach to all aspects of teaching, and this area is no different.
Students only study narrative fiction in English class, but they read non-fiction texts in history and science classes all the time. So in order to preserve an overall reading balance, narrative fiction should actually constitute the bulk of ELA reading.
English Language Arts class is the only core subject that has art included in its title. While there is a certain artistry to non-fiction writing (and I have written three of this type of book and scores of articles), there is no comparison to the imagination, originality, and creativity of narrative fiction. If we say we want to cultivate lifelong readers, we must acknowledge that the vast majority of adult reading will be in the form of narrative fiction.
As much as I honor student choice in what they read, I also firmly believe that individual teachers should have autonomy to choose which novels their students read as a class. Due to limited resources and to ensure articulation without undue repetition, I completely understand that English or grade-level departments may need to agree on a menu of novels from which each teacher can choose; but that is about as restrictive as it needs to be.
Written by the Scottish makar Jackie Kay and heavily adapted for this production as part of the Bush's admirable Passing the Baton series, which rediscovers older plays by writers of colour, Chiaroscuro is a highly charged and deeply poetic meditation on what it means to be black and gay. What it isn't, is a very communicative piece of theatre.
Here it's presented with songs, written by Shiloh Coke, who also plays one of the contrasting quartet of women whose stories unfold during its duration. We first meet them in the opening song, in which they reveal how they were named and unveil an object that has significance for them.
Coke is Beth, an apparently confident black woman, out about her sexuality yet cannot face looking at a photograph album that reveals her past boyfriends and her white childhood friends; Aisha (Preeya Kalidas) is a carpenter and temperamentally a conciliator, who presents a cushion she sat on as a child to listen to her mother's stories; Opal (Anoushka Lucas) has been brought up in children's homes and doubts her own worth, which is why she cherishes a broken mirror in which she cannot see her own face; Yomi (Gloria Onitiri) is a single mother of Nigerian origin who brings out a black doll, a symbol of the racist abuse she suffered from other children. All have suffered prejudice in their lives. All struggle to make sense of aspects of their past.
The plot, such as it is, concerns the developing relationship between Beth and Opal and the reaction of the other women to it. But the problem is, although they talk a lot, we don't really learn much more of them than we know in that atmospheric opening scene. This, combined with the fact that the action is so fractured and disjointed, means that although individual moments catch fire, the play as a whole does not.
Each woman sings magnificently and acts with heart and subtlety, bringing out the differences between their characters. But it's not quite enough, and the rousing conclusion doesn't feel earned. Overall, Chiaroscuro feels well-meant but under-powered, not as subtle or as interesting as its title suggests. A missed opportunity.
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