Teaching

When a single word tells a story–Hallowe’en edition

Alison Baker3 Comments

Certainly we craft stories out of words, but some of my favorite stories are the ones the very words contain, and that we often overlook.  I became enchanted with word histories, or etymology, in grad school, when I studied multiple medieval languages—some Romance languages, some Germanic—and saw the same words in different classes and then watched their meanings change as time passed. Linguists talk about languages developing like trees.  It’s certainly true they live and grow and branch out.  I’m more interested today in individual words, which feel a little more like people to me, with cousins in other branches of the family tree, a history to trace, and a story to tell.

The story of words always comes up in my Chaucer class, where we work toward reading Middle English.  The first week we always go slowly, getting to know the language.  I spend a good bit of time trying to make it seem more familiar than it might look at first sight (or certainly than it sounds at first listen).  As we worked through that first sentence that so many students memorize, “Whan that Aprille, with his shoures soote, the droughte of March hath perced to the roote,” we paused and made sure we found all the cognates.  ‘Whan’ = when (never trust a vowel!), ‘shoures’ = showers, etc. We stopped at ‘halwes.’
Chaucer says pilgrims everywhere are headed “to ferne halwes.” I assured my students they knew these words.  ‘Ferne’ contains ‘far;’ you can see it in there (especially if you’ve learned never to trust a vowel), and ‘halwes’ is just ‘hallows.’  Blank stares.  Hallows—you know, like All Hallows’ Eve. Enough impatient faces that I realize we’re losing that idea, and I shift gears in to story-telling.
Hallow is an old word related to ‘holy,’ basically.  One can have hallowed objects—things that have been made holy, like the items present in a mass, or something holy can actually be a hallow, like the holy grail or the spear of Longinus, or… Harry Potter fans… the Deathly Hallows.  So Chaucer’s pilgrims were traipsing off to visit hallowed places and objects.  Holy things.  Taking, in fact, some holy days.  “Holidays” is just a contraction of this. But we don’t think about Labor Day in a context of holiness anymore.  Neither do we, apparently, think of Hallowe’en in this context. But I do. Because it’s a great story.
In the Catholic and Orthodox faiths, where every day is a saint’s day, and people can celebrate both their birthday and their name day (the day devoted to the saint they were named after), one day a year stands out:  All Saints’ Day.  On the first of November all saints are worshipped, not just one or two, like St. Michael on September 29 or St. Francis on October 4, to name a few recent biggies.  There are various reasons that this may have come to be, but the one that appeals to me is the clash of the old pagan festivals at the end of the harvest, and the day of holiness that follows, honoring all the saints.  There is a powerful strain of death there—for the pagans, the end of the season, the end of productivity, the beginning of the death of the world, before it renews in the spring.  For the Christians, the day of saints is already a celebration of hundreds of dead people; it is easily extended to honoring all the dead.  All Hallows’ Evening, shortened to Hallowe’en (especially if you keep the apostrophe), is the celebration of the dead, an invitation to think about life, death, and life after death, and, you can see an easy story to be told about the thinning of the veil between worlds–more commerce between the living and the dead, for good or ill, depending on your approach.  Whatever you believe, this night has its history in holiness.  Hallows.
P.S.  I’m thinking of adding little “word-tales” more frequently, either as whole blogs, like this one, or as small additional tidbits on other blogs.  If you’d like more of this sort of etymology-as-story, let me know.  Thanks for reading!
Reading

Reading to Kids

Alison Baker4 Comments
The best thing I have ever done for my kids, and probably for myself as well, is read to them. When I was pregnant, I had my husband read to me. (People told me that was a good way to have the baby recognize daddy’s voice when he or she made her appearance.)  When they were too tiny to scoot away, I held them and read to them, pointing at pictures and making big faces along with the book. By the time they were able to scoot away, they didn’t want to.  Storytime was such a warm, happy place that we could sit for an hour by the time they were one, when everyone was telling me babies had no attention span. A few years of books bringing close, loving, quiet time, and my kids associated books with happiness. Neither one of them has lost that, even during those perilous ‘tween years, when pressure increases to do more and be more cool.They are 14 and 16 now, and they both read more than I do. And while we don’t have faithful, nightly storytime (starting about a year ago), I still read some–just bigger books: The Odyssey and The Iliad. A Tale of Two Cities.
There have always been books all over my house. My parents used to talk about “decorating with books.” They had whole walls of bookshelves in most rooms of their house, so I grew up knowing books as a part of daily life long before college–where I first dubbed myself a reader. My house looks like that too, now, but with a lot more kids’ books, and a lot less order. There are books in every room, and some of them are not neatly stored on shelves, but stacked on tables or desks, resting on the couch where they were last read, or piled on the floor, practically becoming furniture themselves because we can’t bear to put them away and have them not close at hand. That was the one request I could never refuse, if I had the money. I could say no to the Nerf gun or the latest Littlest Pet Shop critter, but if they wanted a book, that was something else.That was an investment.

And it has paid off more than I could have anticipated. At the end of third grade, my daughter was testing at 12th grade level, and her teacher thanked me for doing all that “enrichment” at home.  Reading to her?  Really? I certainly never did flashcards or drills or any overt reading instruction. All I did was read. We talked about the books, defined unfamiliar words as we went, and talked about anything scary or troubling as well as laughed together about the funny moments. And we built a repertoire of stories that became our shared frame of reference for the world. That kid is just like Ferdinand the Bull; he just wants some quiet time to himself. Today I feel like Angelina the mouse, when she submarined herself and missed her chance to be in the big ballet. Poohsticks is just like Calvinball is just like our made-up games.
Both kids called the shots on their relationship to storytime, in addition to helping choose the titles. The girly went through a phase where she wanted to “be” the people in the stories.  She would point and assign: “I’ll be Frances, Mommy. You be Gloria.” (Can you name that picture book series?)  And we would start from the plot of the book and make up new adventures for the sisters. My son left the couch at around 8 years old and never came back. He built stuff with Legos on the living room floor while we read; his sister eagerly followed along with the words, but he was happy to listen and keep his hands busy.
I don’t think there’s any right way to read to kids. I think any time we spend reading to kids is good. If we ham it up with voices and emotions, they get involved viscerally, but if we don’t do so much, they bring their own faculties to bear. If we let them read some too, they get to feel like they run the show too, but if we don’t, they get more time listening to an experienced reader, and their skills improve more quickly. Kids benefit from being exposed to a wide variety of genres and cultures, so it helps if the reader brings in new stuff the kids have never seen. But kids also thrive on repetition, the familiar, and the power to choose texts for themselves, so reading time is best when it’s a mix of both impulses. In fact, the only way I can think of screwing up storytime is simply by not having it.
Teaching

Folklore and Facebook

Alison BakerLeave a comment

or Quizzes and Character 

The fall quarter started today, and I met three new classes’ worth of readers.  I always spend a few minutes on the first day getting to know the students, and introducing them to the subject.  My folklore students were pretty eager, really.  They came in thinking it sounded fun, so we talked about why.  What are some of the fundamental differences between folk literature and authored literature?

Folk literature is orally composed—people tell stories they have heard told, but each version is legitimate to a folklorist.  Orally composed texts tend to focus on plot, not character, and use stock scenes and characters to build up a narrative.  We stopped there for a while.  One of the fundamental differences between folktales and novels, say, is depth of character.  Folktale characters are bare-boned.  Novel characters are developed, fleshed out, or what E.M. Forester called “round” (as opposed to “flat,” which folktale characters definitely are).
Folktale heroes and heroines have very few identifying traits, as a rule.  Nice, young girls and clever boys populate this world.  All we know about Little Red Riding Hood is that she’s young and beloved.  All we know about Jack is that he’s poor and clever.  The effect of these sparsely developed characters is that anyone can identify with them.  There are so few details, they tend not to hamper our seeing ourselves in them.  We can quickly insert ourselves in to the story and focus on the plot: live the adventure.
Novels are different, as are modern television or movie characters.  These, we read (or watch) for character development, and they don’t disappoint.  Anyone who reads The Great Gatsby has a crystalline vision of that character.  Scarlett O’Hara—very clear.  Any character we spend that much time with, we get to know, and if they’re well-written, “round,” we know them very well.  This actually makes it harder to identify with completely.  We may be like them in some ways, but some of their actions or emotions make it hard to identify completely.
This is why that recent Facebook trend, to post pictures of the three fictional characters who define you, requires three.  When it comes to fictional characters, one won’t do it.  There’s always some detail to the character, or some lack, that keeps us from identifying fully.  But if you could choose three… that makes it easier. I chose Molly Weasley because I am a goofy-but-fierce mom and wife. But there are some qualities about her I don’t embody, some actions she takes that I wouldn’t. I chose Mole from The Wind in the Willows because I am an incontrovertible optimist who finds reasons to be joyful all around me, but I’m not, you know, a mole. Or a male. I chose the Lorax because I speak for the trees; I am a nature nut, a tree- hugger, a hiker, a bird watcher, and an environmentalist–and because I sometimes sound self-righteous and priggish.  But if I left any of these out, the picture would be hopelessly incomplete.  Molly Weasley wouldn’t address the teacher in me; Mole leaves out my protective Molly-ness. The Lorax, without some Moley and Molly would be insufferable as a person.
Human beings are more complicated than the roundest of characters.  And in the wave of Facebook quizzes and people asking to be told who they are, this one feels refreshing.  We choose (I had help from my family), and we get to be complex, multiple.  Instead of a Facebook quiz spitting out one ‘80s song or aura color or spirit animal for you to believe represents you, you get to choose your own, and you get to choose several.  Narratives inform our lives, but it takes a lot of narratives to come close to containing us.  And so we keep reading—searching for and finding more of ourselves in each book.
That was just the first day.  It’s going to be a good quarter.
Living

This is a House of Stories

Alison Baker9 Comments

Uncle Gerry brought tiny tomatoes to the birthday barbecue. He’s been very well brought up, my mother would say.  He never comes to a meal without an offering.  I didn’t need anything in particular this time, so he surprised us.  When he drew them out of his tote, like Santa plucking toys from his bag, he didn’t give them to me, to put in a salad or set out as crudites.  He presented them to the kids, drawing them close with one arm in to a conspiratorial huddle, and asking them if they believe in The Little People. 

 
“You mean like gnomes, or like real dwarves?” asked the skeptical teen.  “The tiny people,” said the uncle of Norwegian extraction, “like the faery or the nisse.”
 
At this point, both kids, the skeptic and the dreamer, stated firmly, “Yes.”
 
Then he told how he gathered the cherry tomatoes from his garden, where he regularly witnesses acts of magic and wonder.  The tomatoes are tiny—half an inch in diameter for the big ones, and most a little smaller.  They look like fairy fruits. 
 
The kids started munching, but reverently, plucking the stems gently and looking appreciatively at each fruit before popping them in their mouths like a giant pops pumpkins. 


While they were happily chomping, Uncle Gerry put that arm around me and said, “I knew I couldn’t come in to this house without a story.”