A Circle of Learning:
Children Write Poetry and Teach Us about Themselves

Elsa L. Statzner and Leah D. Miller
National-Louis University

I was surprised about how much my six-year-old students, who still have so much to learn and develop …, were able to teach me about a subject as complex as culture…[they] were really interested in this activity because it was such a personal one … I was most interested in how the students’ biculturalness was reflected in their poems. The majority of the poems showed how the students are a part of their native culture as well as that of the United States … Because the activity was so closely tied to their identity, they … took pride in their work …[and] did their best work.

--Margie Anderson¹ (A first-grade teacher)--

This practitioner’s² words exemplify the thoughts of our university students after completing the literacy project. Conversely, practitioners often share frustration for having to "teach to the test." They fear that their students are turning into skill repositories rather than active learners. Even in the 1960s Freire (1994) derided traditional instruction as "banking education" in which one "deposits" learning in children like coins into a piggy bank. Freire proposed an education that conscientizices (distances, objectivizes) oppressed students’ experiences and challenges them to jointly act on their own behalf. Later, Igoa (1995); Ladson-Billings (1994); Lipka (1991); Philips (1983); Statzner (1994); and Trueba (1989) among others have demonstrated that meaningful instruction is grounded in the students’ experiences. The operant culture continues to be middle-class Anglo-American³, and thus excludes the culture of immigrant children. This paper is an attempt to illustrate how poetry, buttressed in children’s experiences, can enhance literacy; a literacy "in which teachers and students know together and in which the teacher teaches, but while teaching does not domesticate the student who, upon learning, will end up also teaching the teacher" (Freire; cited in Torres & Freire, 1994, p. 106).

We reasoned that if practitioners could learn more about their students’ lives such knowledge would enrich their pedagogy (in spite of oppressive directives) and support their children’s academic success.

Data were gathered from September 1997 to November 1998 as part of a project in eight graduate university classes. University classes are designed to meet Illinois requirements for ESL and/or Bilingual approvals. Almost 100% of our students are practitioners in urban and suburban schools. Their Latino-immigrant students are from working-poor and working-class backgrounds. They are Spanish speakers attending bilingual, ESL, or English mainstream classrooms. The children’s narratives are in Spanish and English with some code-switching between the two languages. Only students’ "readable" narratives were analyzed. Data consist of 245 narratives by children ages 6-16; 95 practitioners’ reflections; classroom visitations; and a video recording. Out of a total of 125 practitioners only three did not complete the project⁴.

We utilize Christensen’s (1987/88) poem as a heuristic. The poem "I am from" (Yo soy de) consists of six verses that elicit the following themes.

1. Traditional foods
2. Special places at home or in the neighborhood
3. Things/events you remember
4. Family "sayings"
5. Places in the community
6. Your roots

We share our own poems as well as previous student and teacher narratives and model the entire activity. Several weeks are given for the practitioners to complete the project and to bring the children’s poems and their comments to the university classroom. Practitioners can modify the assignment as needed, and early elementary practitioners often shorten the poem. Extensions to this assignment were not a part of our original project and they represent the children and practitioners’ creativity and dedication.

The authors, as well as Ada (1988); Christensen (1987/88); Cummins (1996); and Torres (1990) are concerned about furthering a tranformative pedagogy at the classroom level. They consider such pedagogy essential for the academic success of immigrant children. Even though the project described below is rendered in a linear form (see also chart below), it is a circular learning process consisting of three stages (Statzner and Miller, 1998).

At this stage the traditional pedagogy has been "modified." Teachers become vulnerable by sharing their lives through their poems; the students know the end product. Content, not mechanics, is emphasized. The authors share with practitioners’ past mistakes and a commitment to "learn together," in a Freirian sense, because we are seeking better ways to learn.

Practitioners implement Stage I when they model the assignment and share their poems to set the stage for their students’ writing. This begins the learning circle: professors and practitioners; and practitioners and children.

Stage II

At this stage the pedagogy is progressive based on the children’s experiences and collaboration among students is encouraged (Dewey, 1938). The narratives succeed because every child has something to say. Gloria Walters, a middle school practitioner, describes her experience with students in a bilingual classroom.

[They] started drafting the images that came to their minds. It was quite interesting to see them thinking, consulting … asking what was special to them, who they were, what they had left behind in their querido [beloved] Mexico… the students without realizing it were interpreting their emotions and experiences.

Stacy Holm describes her fifth- and sixth-grade bilingual classroom.

The writing process was great to observe and even my lowest students were able to somewhat create the poem. I saw great images being written and fantastic use of words … This is a wonderful way for children to really look into themselves and their culture and be proud of who they are and where they come from.

At this stage we echo Cummins' (1996) contention that literary expressions situated in the personal offer "identity options … typically suppressed within a transmission approach to pedagogy where the interpretation of texts is non-negotiable and reflective of the dominant group’s notions of cultural literacy" (p. 159).

We consider this stage the beginning of a transformative pedagogy and literacy created by looking critically at everyday experiences (Freire, 1994), for a transformative education is inherently political and necessitates a reflective awareness, termed conscientization (Trueba, 1998).

This stage commences when children share their poems and discuss their life experiences with each other. Thus, they begin distancing themselves from their own experiences. They have become observers of their own and each others’ lives. This awareness represents an embryonic Freirian "conscientization" and the beginning of a transformative literacy. None of the practitioners reported "put-downs" among children, and immigrant children submersed in English-only classrooms gained support from their peers. Patricia Bachmann, a third-grade-bilingual practitioner, reports on her students' experience when sharing the poems.

[It] was a warm and wonderful experience for all the [children], because they were able to talk about things that they had not told anyone else and because they all found something in common between them: their roots, their culture, their traditions and their love for each other.

Transformative literacy requires that after "conscientization" the students take a collective action that transcends their individual experiences. A common expression of the children making extensions is that they want to make class books to share with their parents. When children have real audiences respond to their literary efforts, editing/translating becomes part of an understood process.

The following examples illustrate the range of the practitioners’ extensions.

1. Michelle Hecht, a second-grade-bilingual practitioner, displayed the bilingual poems in the school hall. This motivated a mainstream teacher to do the same activity and then bring the two classes together to share their poems.
2. Patricia Bachmann, a third-grade-bilingual practitioner (referred to above), sent the poems of the entire class to a national poetry competition and five poems were published. This required all the children to translate their poems into English, and later children and parents became aware of copyright laws, etc.
3. Carol Anne Warner, a sixth-grade-mainstream practitioner, paired her sixth graders with their kindergarten buddies. The six graders helped, one-on-one, kindergartners write their poems. Then the sixth graders created a school display in which the kindergartner’s poems were nested in life-size representations of themselves. The six graders later voiced concern that their little friends were not receiving enough positive feedback from their parents. (Resolution of this insight is pending.)
4. Preeti Batt, a middle-school-ESL practitioner, used the children’s poems to demonstrate their creativity when a member of a grant review board visited her classroom.

Closing and Beginning the Learning Circle

After the children’s poems have been shared in class books or through another activity, practitioners share their thoughts and their students’ work in the university classroom. This is the most rewarding part of our work and practitioners have a difficult time selecting the poems to share in class. The following comments are typical of what practictioners tell us. For example, Ms. Lewis, a second-grade-bilingual practitioner, shared the following.

I tried [this activity] in my second grade bilingual classroom where 98% of my students are of Mexican origin. My expectations were very low. I did not think that my students could produce a poem that would express as much as [it] did. The activity was very successful…I want to continue to use this activity with my bilingual students.

Aimee Barsanti, an ESL-high-school practitioner, states, "It is often difficult for natives of this country [U.S.] to see the good work that these students can produce." Nancy DiBattista, a second-grade-bilingual practitioner, addd, "[The poem] is a simple way to allow children the beautiful self-expression they have inside themselves to be revealed." The circle of learning is ready to re-commence.

The following chart summarizes the three stages and highlights the implementation process.