My class

Today I am proud of my students. My kids and I are reading Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. One of my most favorite things to share with them all year long.

I needed to break up our monotony of reading. We'd gotten through chapters 1-3 of the book and the kids are looking at me like, lady you've got to be kidding that this is a good book. I wanted to dig into the issues presented by the descriptions of the Radley house and its inhabitants, Scout's descriptions of the class on her first day of school, her treatment of Walter Cunningham, and Atticus' talk with her that evening about returning to school and the Ewells. I also knew that I wanted to address the issues surrounding poverty. What? I can do this all in 55 minutes right?

Well, no, I know I can't. I decided to hold off on reading the text or trying to discuss it. I instead decided to have the kids take part in a "chalktalk." I don't know who to give original credit to for the "chalktalk" but I got it one year while working with a student teacher and it is an amazing discussion activity. I wrote the word 'poverty' in the middle of the board and reminded the kids of the ground rules for chalktalk (we've done it before for a different topic, but my ground rules are simple-no talking, no more than 4 people at the board at once, thoughtful questions and comments are what we aim for, and we look to fill the whole board. I also try to give them a number of times to come up, so that everyone is participating. I know this is intimidating to some students, but it also keeps me from having the same 5 or 6 kids involved in the whole class spoken discussion. I also set it up as a competition between my classes to see who can offer the most and the most thoughtful in the time that we have together). As they came in today, they got excited about participating. They have to be active and aware of what's being said. They can't just sit back and listen or zone out. Also, they get to get out of thier seats and move-something they don't get to do much during school.

Going into this I thought it would be somewhat difficult to get them up and making quality comments or posing thoughtful questions, but I wanted to take the risk. These are 9th graders and I was worried about what they might know about poverty, which is sort of silly since the whole activity is to get out what they know, what they think they know, deal with broad generalizations or assumptions, and discuss them. But, still I didn't want it to fall flat and resort to plan b.

None of my worries were necessary. They did a great job. They did better than great. They posed questions related to its causes, how to find solutions, how to create social mobility for oneself, who might be to blame, society's acceptance and rejection of the poor, society's responsibility vs. the individual's responsibility, what the government might do to help, what forms of government might be more beneficial to help create a more equitable society, issues of pride on the part of the poor and their ability or willingness to accept handouts, how to define what poverty might mean or what it means to be wealthy.