Commencement

by Lawrence Cherry

Tamiko glanced over her lesson one more time. She had spent extra time making sure that she had all of her materials in an accessible place for the next lesson. She had even rehearsed the exact words that she would say to the students during the ten-minute mini-lesson. There were notes from the last observation referred to in the lesson plan. Tamiko made sure the lesson was differentiated and there were different activities for children at different skill levels. In short, Tamiko had done just about all she could do to make sure that today’s Shared Reading and Literacy Centers period went smoothly. However it did nothing to abate the nervous tension inside her. She had to have been observed over ten times by now, and yet every time seemed like the first time, especially since her fiasco of an assessment meeting last week. Today would be her second observation since that day. To make matters worse, now her debriefing sessions were like being put in front of the firing squad.

  Tamiko knew that, as with any other observation, there would be a period afterward where the literacy coach, the assistant principal, and the hated Steele woman, and herself would get together to help her see what worked or what didn’t. The last time there was very little talk about what worked and a lot of talk about what needed improving. Tamiko was open to learning more and had tried to revise her thinking about the centers as well as the lessons. She just hoped that today, everyone would see just how much work she was putting into the lessons and the children’s learning environment.

  Then as she looked over at the clock above her morning meeting board, she realized that second period was drawing to a close. Tamiko grabbed her tambourine and shook it in the air. As she shook it, all of the students stopped what they were doing and raised their hands in the air. Everyone stopped except James, an especially mischievous student who always gave Tamiko trouble.

  “James, everyone knows what the tambourine means and by now you should, too! Go move your clip down to orange!” scolded Tamiko.

  “But I ain’t even do nothin’!” the boy pleaded.

  “I don’t want to hear it! Everyday it’s the same thing. You stop when it’s time to stop, not when you want to”, she reprimanded.

  The little boy stomped over to the color chart and moved his name clip from “good-day green” down to “okay orange”, which was not a bad color, but not a good color either. Tamiko had to send a clear message to him that she was not going to tolerate any silliness from him today. Then she began to address the rest of the class.

  “When I give you the signal, everyone except Jinelle and Eric will put away their writing and their writing folders and come to the rug. Today I am going to sing our good morning song. Remember you have to be at the rug by the time I finish my song”, Tamiko warned.

  As Tamiko began to sing the song, 24 six and not a few seven year olds raced to different areas of the room to put away their writing folders and their writing tools. Tamiko had to stop her song at one point to remind the children to move quickly, but not to run. Sometimes by ones, or by twos, or by threes they came to the rug and took their places sitting “criss-cross-applesauce” on their rug spot with their hands folded in their laps. It wasn’t long before some of the children started to talk, and get silly.

  “Our friends Eric and Jinelle want to share what they worked on in their writing today, but they can’t because there are too many people who are talking and this makes me very sad”, said Tamiko hoping that this would be enough to get their attention, but it wasn’t.

  “I don’t know, but if I keep hearing so much talking, I’m going to have certain students pull their name clips down, and then they won’t get to have snack today during reading workshop this afternoon”, Tamiko admonished the class.

  Silence.

  “Remember this morning when we were working on adding details to our writing, well Eric and Jinelle want to share with you how they added details in their writing. First, Eric was just going to write that he went to the park, but then we had a conference and we talked about all the things he did at the park and so he was able to add many more details to his writing. Read what you wrote Eric”, she continued wrapping up the lesson.

  Eric held his paper in front of his face and quickly mumbled, “I went to the park first I got on the swing my sister pushed me and I went high then I put my legs out so I could go higher and my legs went over the gate.”

  “Wow, Eric! That was fabulous!” Tamiko praised. “All those details gave me a really good picture of what happened to you and it makes your story so exciting. Good work! C’mon everybody, let’s give Eric a roller coaster cheer!”

  All at once the children made the motion of a roller coaster going up the slope and going down with a “Woo!Woo!” at the end for a cheer.

  Then Jinelle shared her piece about her mom taking her to the dentist. Jinelle, who was not as shy as Eric, made sure all the children saw the accompanying pictures of her story that she drew as well. When she was done she also received the roller coaster cheer. Then both students put their writing away and joined the rest of the class on the rug.

  “So today and everyday, when you are writing, you need to make sure that you add lots of details to your writing so that your story will be more exciting to your audience. In fact, let’s put that on our “What Good Writers Do” chart. Tamiko was gritting her teeth as she recited the scripted language verbatim. She hated using someone else’s words to talk to her students. But they had all this “data” that suggested such scripts made the lessons clearer for student to learn. So Tamiko didn’t argue. She just memorized her script.

  Tamiko flipped over a chart on the teaching easel and hastily, but neatly added, “Do I have details” onto a short list.

  “Now let’s go over some of the things we are going to look for in our writing the next time we write…” said Tamiko concluding the lesson.

  And the whole class chimed in to “Are my sight words spelled right? Are my copy-right words spelled right? Do I have a lot of details?”

  As the lesson ended, Tamiko looked up to see Booker, Nettlenerves, and Steele all skulking in to see her Shared Reading/Literacy Centers lesson. It was time for act II. Tamiko put her timer on for the lesson. She had 15 minutes for the mini-lesson. Only 15 minutes.

  “Alright everyone, today we are going to be reading our Big Book “The Little Yellow Chicken”. Today as we are reading, we are going to practice something that good readers do. Good readers get their mouth ready when they get to a tricky word by making the sound of the first letter of the word. Then at the same time, they think about what’s going on in the picture to help them figure out what the word is. But before we get to our strategy let’s look at some of the pictures and get a sense of what this story is going to be about.”

  Tamiko went through the book with the children and talked about what was going on in each page, taking suggestions from the children at times. After they all went through the book, Tamiko took extra pains to remind the students of the strategy they were using and then they all began to read the book together. There were post-its on certain words on different pages with just the first letter revealed so that students would get a chance to try the strategy. First, Tamiko modeled the strategy herself with a “think aloud”. In a think aloud, a teacher verbalizes her ideas out loud as a way to demonstrate to children how they need to be thinking in order to solve problems they may encounter in a given book. Then for the next few pages, Tamiko had the students join in to help her solve the tricky word. It seemed that the lesson was going well, until Tamiko glanced over at the clock and noticed that she only had 1 minute left to her lesson but several pages of book left. So she basically allowed the students to help her solve two more words, then read the rest of the book with the children while removing the post-its. When they were all finished reading the book, she talked about the lesson of the story with the students briefly before the beep of the timer interrupted them. Tamiko quickly stopped the distracting timer, and told the children that they were going to the reading centers and reminded them to use t
he strategy during their reading activities. Meanwhile, the women in the back were furiously scribbling onto their pads. Tamiko tried to shut them out as she directed the children to the centers.

  “Remember to check the chart to see where you belong. Table monitors bring out the centers to the tables. Tigers you are coming to me first at the banana table.”

  After the signal, a flurry of activity ensued and the children got busy at their centers. The Tigers (her lowest group) met her at the big crescent shaped yellow table and Tamiko got right into her guided reading lesson with them. They were all level A’s, which meant that technically they were not able to read. All five of them were English language learners of various backgrounds including Puerto Rican, Dominican, African, and Indian. Tamiko had to feed them most of the language of the text in order for them to manage it. One little girl had trouble pointing under each word as she read. The others had trouble with some of the concepts in the book. For example, one boy had trouble identifying the objects he saw in the pictures. Instead of reading, “I can see the truck” on one page, he read “I can see the car.” Tamiko just pointed out that it was a truck and not a car. The scribbling of the women continued. Finally, she had gotten around to all of them and then it was time for the children to switch centers. Tamiko’s group practiced their books while she ran over to get her tambourine. She shook it in the air. This time James was the first one to stop.

  “All right, everyone! It’s time to clean up and switch to your next center. Remember to check the chart.” Remembering James’s wonderful turn-around she also hastily added. “Oh, and James, nice work stopping when I gave the signal. You can move your clip back to green.”

  Tamiko stood in the middle of the room for a while to watch the children during the transition period. She found out the hard way that the transition periods were the times when any trouble that could start, usually did. And since she was watching, she could see that Jerome was being too bossy during clean up and didn’t want anyone to help him causing a lot of trouble with his group. Tamiko was able to avert the crisis by saying a few words to the students. She also saw how Nicole was about to start a tickle war with her friend Anastasia. Tamiko warned both girls that they were in danger of having their clips pulled down and found her way out of another potential nightmare. As she returned to the banana table to begin the next round of guided reading, Tamiko noticed Nettlenerves looking at her lesson plan and Booker interrogating some of the children. Tamiko took a deep breath and began to attend to the four children in her second group. They were her second lowest group they were level 3 (or a low level C according to Guided Reading gods Fountas and Pinell) and their book was a little book called “The Lazy Pig”. Before she knew it the women were circling her yet again and scribbling in their pads. After the mini-lesson, Tamiko began to listen to the children read one by one. In the process, she found that one of her students, a little girl named Arnetia, was actually trying the strategy and having some success with it. Tamiko praised Arnetia for using the strategy. “I hope someone’s scribbling that down.” Tamiko thought to herself.

  Finally, the bell heralding the end of third period sounded and Tamiko summoned her tambourine once again. Then the women hastily scribbled their final entries onto their pads and left with as much stealth as they came. Tamiko had the children clean up and get themselves ready for the art teacher who was coming the following period. By the time the art teacher came, the children were waiting patiently for her on the rug and Tamiko grabbed her lesson book and her notebook and went upstairs for a meeting with her implacable superiors.