Stories in the Classroom
Being in a classroom again, or, for some, for the first time, was a strange experience for many of the students. Scovia, from Sudan, said she felt like a little girl, though her passion for learning is anything but childish. Nyajany, from Somalia, had never been to school in her native country, which did not allow schooling of its women until they were married. Samuel had lived in a rural part of Sudan where there simply was no school. He focused on the text with an intensity seen most frequently in college seminars.
On this warm May morning, a roomful of people who spoke at least six non-English languages were at Portland Adult Education to talk about a children’s book for the purpose of mastering English, as part of New Books, New Readers, the Maine Humanities Council’s reading and discussion program for adults with limited literacy or English skills. Any adult who has learned a new language has an inkling of the struggle with pronunciation and complex sentence structure experienced by these students. And yet what these students learned and gave to the class went far beyond vocabulary.
The text was Eve Bunting’s The Wall, a book with themes of war and memory, and the group was composed entirely of people from Sudan, Somalia, Cambodia, Iran, Croatia, and Afghanistan. Not one person flinched from talking about war, and there was complete agreement that war is destructive to societies and that memorials serve not only to honor the dead but as a warning against future violence. The presence of a scholar/facilitator in New Books, New Readers makes the humanities quotient high, but the goal is not to wrench memories of heartbreak from people who have experienced some of the most violent world events in recent history. It is simply to promote a love of reading through meaningful conversation.
“Is that a good idea? To have a memorial for soldiers who died?” asked Carolyn Sloan, the scholar/facilitator, during the session about The Wall.
A chorus of “Yes,” in many accents and vocal registers replied.
“It is for the grandchildren,” one student said. “When somebody dies, the mother remembers, but the grandchildren won’t.”
“A memorial can remind people that war is bad,” another student offered. “Fighting is no good.”
A third student thought that a memorial is good to remind people new to the United States of our country’s history and the sadness of war.
“Is it important to know the history of other countries?” Sloan asked.
“Yes.”
“Is it important for me to know what happened in Sudan?”
“Yes,” two people said at once.
This is an example of one of the best kinds of discussions ESOL students have with New Books, New Readers. The program aims to help students find how the stories they read link with their own lives, because that kind of relationship with literature helps students find a continued interest in books. Readers who experience a book on a personal level are likely to continue reading. But what about readers who can’t connect with the text because their English is simply too limited? Can humanities programs go forward with people who simply can’t read?
In 2001, with prompting from Portland Adult Education teacher Alison Perkins, New Books, New Readers began offering programs for ESOL students who were below literacy Level 1. These students often had no education in their own countries, were not literate in their native languages, and perhaps did not know how to hold a pencil or a book. This audience was a difficult one for Portland Adult Education to serve since their lack of literacy skills, ironically, often made it difficult for these students to reach the building for literacy classes: they could not read the bus schedule, maps, or street signs.
Along with their classroom work on practical language skills, these New Books, New Readers groups study one book every three months. Teachers begin by looking at the cover and eliciting comments about the illustrations. The teacher may rewrite the text in even simpler language and place it at the top of each page or make up vocabulary exercises or simple sentence structure practice related to the story. Often the teacher will read the book aloud several times for the students to hear the words.
“One of the beauties of this program is that there are wonderful, wonderful books,” said Joy Ahrens, a teacher at Portland Adult Education who worked with Alison Perkins in 2001. Ahrens is known for her above-and-beyond use of the books. For example, in early classes, she rewrites the text to simplify it so that students can have the feeling of accomplishment of finishing the book. In later classes, students may read the full text. She uses the full text for vocabulary development, grammar, and verb tenses. In this way, books are used as a jumping-off point for a variety of exercises.
At this level of New Books, New Readers, the scholar/facilitator does not enter the picture until the teacher has had several weeks to introduce the student to the text. Lorrayne Carroll is a professor of English at University of Southern Maine who brings a strong humanities background to her role as scholar/facilitator. But she is careful with this audience. “I don’t consider it teaching,” she clarified. “I consider it a discussion. And I am extraordinarily mindful that I am dealing with adults.”
Carroll respects her students’ lives, memories, and experiences. She knows that they bring much to the classroom that may lie hidden beneath the linguistic barrier. Carroll works to help students talk about abstract concepts (friendship and community, for example)—and this is the biggest challenge. Of course, she uses pictures, but she also seeks one word that will create a sense of coherence around each book. “Other—what is the other?”
Carolyn Sloan works with both upper- and lower-level groups. “We read stories to our children before they can read. Why?” She emphasizes that a story is important in ESOL at any level, but especially at Level A and Level B where pronunciation is tricky, and reading and writing difficult or nonexistent.
Sloan is a big believer in the use of stories, acted out, looked at through pictures, or read through words to improve literacy. “No matter how practical it is to teach a person how to say their telephone number, true literacy requires story as a base. Using story is as important as those practical things that allow one to have access to society. It may be history, or fiction, but the humanities starts with story. You can’t leave that piece out if you’re doing literacy. And one of the nicest things is that you can have access to story through pictures, which you can’t do with standard practical things like ’What is your name?’ ’What is your phone number?’ The picture book is a bridge to literacy in another language.”
This point was clear in the May discussion of The Wall. Students talked about how the Vietnam Memorial told more than just one story by its very presence. Things besides books can tell stories, the students agreed. Scovia announced that she likes the idea of telling a story through sharing something from the old country, and said that if she goes back to Sudan she will show where she lived to her children. For a minute or two, Scovia spoke rhapsodically about the trees, the grand rock formations, the lemons, and the mangos. Everyone was quiet, remembering their own homelands and the many stories they had brought with them.
