At 1:30 on the last Friday of the school year, the remaining three parents reluctantly left our end-of-year Literacy Celebration. Students had their Personal Galleries displaying their choice pieces of writing to disassemble, their favorite books on display to re-shelve, and cookie crumbs to wipe from the refreshment table. After all the excitement of the day, I expected the rest of the afternoon to consist of those housekeeping details. We'd celebrated a year's worth of reading, writing, and thinking, and to be honest, I was intellectually exhausted and expected the same of the students. However, I was wrong.
"Is our lit circle group going to meet now?" asked one girl. "We're ready. We've all finished. Can we talk about it now?"
Four of my girls had absolutely fallen in love with the fictional book The Summer of Riley, by Eve Bunting. They wanted one final group discussion, so we quickly cleaned up the room; and I invited the "Riley" group to meet me at the table and asked the other children to begin reading their independent reading books, which they did.
The girls' conversation flowed, and I was suddenly intellectually engaged. My role became one of providing affirmation of their own feelings as they related to William's feelings of loss from the death of his grandfather, his parents' divorce, and the pending loss of his dog Riley. All the girls in the group had experienced at least one of those losses, some very recently. Their words were passionate, and they longed for healing for William and for themselves. They wondered why Riley behaved the way he did. What was his history?
The story The Summer of Riley helped these girls understand their life stories in a very therapeutic way.
They wanted to talk--to continue along the path we had been traveling all year long...reading, thinking, and discussing meaningful books in meaningful ways.
Children need affirmation of their lives. They need to understand their stories, and other people's stories can help them. A literacy program which allows for student choice of books, ample class time for reading, and an emotionally safe and intellectually stimulating environment for discussing the books sets the stage for this to happen.
Story Note: The same type of catharsis through story is attained by 12 year old Abilene Tucker, the main character in Moon Over Manifest, by Clare Vanderpool. Unable to care for her, Abilene's father sends her to stay with a friend of his in his home town in Kansas during the summer of 1936. Through the stories of Miss Sadie, the Hungarian "gypsy", Abilene pieces together her father's past, thereby gaining the understanding needed to heal past wounds.
Moon Over Manifest, by Clare Vanderpool. New York: Delacorte Press, 2010. John Newbery Winner, NY Times Bestseller.
