Object Connections: Janet Wong’s Poetry

March 6, 2023March 5, 2023 ~ wordancerblog ~ 5 Comments

Last week, I had an opportunity to attend a poetry workshop presented by Janet Wong and sponsored by Rutgers University Center for Literacy Development, which is directed by Dr. Lesley Morrow. Janet won the NCTE excellence in children’s Poetry Award in 2021. It is a lifetime achievement award, and one of the highest honors a children’s poet can receive. Before becoming a poet, Janet was a lawyer. Currently, she serves on the Yale Law School executive committee. However, decades ago she decided to change the direction of her life to become a children’s book author. She has published over forty books for children and teens on diverse subjects. This workshop was special to me because, as a member of the advisory board of RUCLD, I had been asked to help Janet throughout the day. I have always admired Janet, and now I got to spend the day with her.

Janet brought two large suitcase of props: flip-flops, popcorn, marshmallows, nori seaweed snacks, gummy worms, a rubber duck, a bunch of bananas, a bag of just-ripe avocados, a can of peas, an apple, an orange, an onion, a clove of garlic, and much more. As she read poems and told the stories behind the poems, Janet would give away objects as gifts to the audience members. This is where my job began. I put on my best “Vanna White” imitation – holding objects up in the air, smiling, and then racing around the conference space delivering the precious objects to participants.

One poem that Janet acted out for us and had participants act out in turn was “Noodle Soup.” It is a short, happy rhyming poem. From the repetition, alliteration, and whimsical rhyme, one would think it was just a funny kid poem. However, Janet told us the story behind this poem. When she was a child, she invited her best friend over for breakfast. Her mother made a steaming pot of wonton soup, Janet’s favorite. When her friend arrived late, she looked at the soup and said, “Don’t you eat ‘normal’ food for breakfast?” This hurt Janet immensely, but she never told her friend.

Another of Janet’s poems, “Waiting at the Railroad Café,” recounts a tense scene when Janet and her family were on vacation and went to restaurant to eat. When the family entered, it was like they were invisible. They weren’t greeted or taken to a seat. They weren’t given menus. They were completely ignored because they were Asian. That experience made a profound impact on Janet.

These two poems come from Good Luck Gold, which was the first book Janet published in 1994. Good Luck Gold & More was published in 2021 and took Janet’s original forty-two poem collection and added fifty more pages of prose explaining the backstory of each poem. I loved that Janet took everyday objects and connected them to times in her life. Out of that connection a poem was born. Many times we read poems but do not know the backstory. The backstory creates context and gives us a deeper understanding of the poem.

After her large group presentation, participants were able to attend a small group session with Janet. That session was designed to give participants a chance to write. Janet and I stacked copies of her various poems and spread a majority of the contents of her two large suitcases onto four long tables. As a warm-up, Janet asked us to match her poems with the objects that were displayed around the room. Then, Janet asked us to choose an object and write a poem about it. As we shared our poems, Janet gave away more objects to the poet-participants. It was clear that Janet has a generous spirit: she gave her time and knowledge freely. She enjoyed gifting people with the objects she had lugged from Seattle, Washington to Piscataway, New Jersey.

Below is the poem I wrote for my object – a small yellow rubber duck. The poem came to me as I remembered my friend, Arman, telling me how his son, Caram, did not like water and bath time at all. He would cry and cry. So I re-imagined how Caram could become in love with bath time.

As we packed up what was left of her belongings into now one suitcase, Janet encouraged me to keep writing and to join her summer initiative, Think Poetry, which will provide opportunities for teachers and librarians to publish their poems. As we departed, Janet stacked cookies, popcorn, and Nori seaweed snacks in my arms.

“Put them in your faculty room,” she said with a smile. “I couldn’t have had a more helpful partner today. We are a good team.”

I smiled, thanked her, and walked to my car juggling my teacher treats. Janet not only connected people to objects and experiences, she connected people to each other, and that is the true power of poetry.

Some Books by Janet Wong

Picture Books

Poetry Books

Anthologies Created with Sylvia Vardell

A Gift for Story

February 27, 2023February 27, 2023 ~ wordancerblog ~ 5 Comments

John Schu has a gift for story, and he wants to share it with EVERYONE he meets. This past week, I attended one of John’s professional development workshops sponsored by Rutgers University Center for Literacy Development directed by Dr. Lesley Morrow, my former professor and mentor at the Graduate School of Education. Throughout the hour, John drew us in and told us his story through the books he’s read. His mission is to connect readers to stories that will affect and change their lives.

John believes that stories save lives, and he proved it by telling us his life story, weaving events in his childhood to the books that helped him heal and grow. He was a shy boy, a boy who loved musical theater, a boy who loved to play school complete with his own grade and roll book, chalk, and red pens. With his imaginary class he could exert control and have some power over his world.

As he recounted his story, he gave vivid book talks about both current books and old favorites. His generosity is amazing, and he graciously gifted many books to his audience. John has developed what he coins as “the smell test,” because he loves the smell of books. He rates books using “the smell test,” and makes us laugh. Books that get high ratings on “the smell test,” have the capacity to touch one’s heart. Tiger Rising was that kind of book for John, and it led to a strong friendship with its author, Kate DiCamillo. John describes Kate as someone with a “capacious” heart, a term Kate used in her novel, Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventure to describe a person who is open-hearted, a person who can connect, empathize and heal. Periodically throughout the workshop, John had us chant Kate’s name. What a wonderful homage to a devoted friend. Good friends like good books are invaluable.

As we got to know John, he opened up more and more about why he became a teacher, a school librarian, then a school library ambassador, and then an author. He was funny and energetic and made us laugh; he was poignant and vulnerable and made us cry. What John conveyed in his workshop is what a book does every time a reader opens the cover and turns a page. Story is indeed important.

John had two teachers who served as reading role models. One was Dr. Mary Margaret Reed, who was his 5^th grade teacher. She was exuberant and eccentric and a reader. She knew how to entice children to read, especially a shy boy who needed some friends and some healing. John writes about Dr. Reed in The Creativity Project, which was edited by Colby Sharp. In the book, John wrote a letter to Dr. Reed expressing his admiration and confessing that he stole her copy of Matilda by Roald Dahl because he so greatly needed that book. He still has that copy of Matilda. Another reading role model came to John when he was in college. Her name was Dr. Penny Britton Kolloff. John was eager to become a teacher, and he worked so hard to do his best – maybe too hard. Dr. Kolloff recognized this, and she told John that to be a teacher one must learn self-care as she put a copy of A Fine, Fine School by Sharon Creech in his hands. John keeps a copy of the book displayed wherever he’s worked to remind him to keep in the forefront of his mind personal well-being.

At one point, John asked us our definition of story. I wrote: Story is like breathing in and out. I could not live without story. And when children tell me they hate reading, I remind them that they LOVE stories – and they agree. I remember when I was tutoring dyslexic children, and they would get discouraged because reading was so hard for them. It was such long, hard, and tedious work. They would tire and feel disappointed with themselves. I found ways to encourage them. I would empathize with them that reading was indeed difficult, but I would also remind them that they LOVED stories. They would nod their head and agree. Then, I would read aloud to them to help them energize and enter a story. After I read for a while, we would stop and share our thoughts and have deep conversations about characters, events, and make predictions about what might happen next. It was that anticipation that kept them going. They needed to know what was going to happen next.

John told us a great story about the anticipatory joy that reading brings. He recounted a time when he got a book in the mail and be became so absorbed in it that he spent the day taking the book with him to his living room chair, over to the refrigerator, back to the chair, then into the bathroom, then back to the chair and round and round again and again until he had only five pages left. That’s when a monumental decision loomed: finish the book or make it last a little longer. As avid readers we do not want the story to end. So John decided to go to sleep with the five pages unread. Of course, he tossed and turned in bed. He needed to know the ending of this now beloved story. He got up, went downstairs, sat in his comfy chair, and read the ending, tears flowing down his face. The story was complete. The book? The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. The story had changed him like all good stories do. John spent a lot of time telling everyone he could about The One and Only Ivan. It was a treasure he wanted to share. He even got a chance to meet Ivan and have Ivan autograph his copy of the book, by signing with his thumbprint in green.

This day with John was well spent. I now have a longer list of books to read, I have a box full of books from Amazon on their way, I have a renewed love of story, and I have found a kindred spirit and book whisperer extraordinaire.

Books by Mr. Schu

Connect with Mr. Schu

Some of the Books that Pass Mr. Schu’s Smell Test

Writing to Surprise

December 11, 2021December 11, 2021 ~ wordancerblog ~ 7 Comments

This week, I was able to once again attend a professional development workshop in-person! No Zoom, just educators getting together in a large space – listening and thinking; talking and laughing – the essence of true learning. We were all thrilled to be out in public once again, even if we still had to don masks and socially distance. We were together and that’s what mattered. The workshop was offered by the Rutgers Center for Literacy Development, directed by Dr. Lesley M. Morrow. I have been attending workshops presented by the center for the last twenty years, and I am on the board, helping make choices on presenter offerings and other logistical matters. The presenter for this particular workshop was Kelly Gallagher, and the title of his presentation was Building Readers and Writers: Moving from Compliance to Engagement. I have seen Kelly several times before. His expertise is teaching high school writing, which has no direct connection to me in my present role. I figured I would relax and listen and not worry about learning something. But of course, I was totally surprised.

In the course of Kelly laying out the importance of writing with students, he said something that sparked my interest. He talked about the notion of writing without a plan – writing to discover what you think and know. I do this all the time when I compose my blogs. I think of a topic, roll it around in my head for several days, and then start to write. I don’t make an outline, a web, or a Venn diagram. I just write. And then I revise. And revise. And revise. Many, many times. Eventually, I edit, and then I hit the publish button. The week before, I was discussing this very idea with Hadley, one of my private students who is a gifted 6^th grade writer. She expressed her displeasure of having to always write a plan before she writes at school. She insightfully stated: “Sometimes I have an idea, but I don’t exactly know how the story is going to go until I start writing and meet the characters.” She is perfectly right, and I empathized with her, explained why the teacher was asking her to make a plan, but also encouraged her to write without a plan at home and with me. Hadley and I often write together, stopping when stuck, reading our pieces out loud, talking about where we might go next, asking ourselves, “What does this story need now?,” and then continuing to write quietly. I treasure these times when we are in the flow of writing.

Kelly explained that the “Writing process includes daily practice with finding and shaping words to express ideas, creating confidence, flexibility, and joy. He spoke eloquently about the importance of volume in student writing. Writing needs space and time to grow. It isn’t perfected overnight. A writer has to create, explore, discover, take risks, fail, and start all over again. It is the teacher’s job to help design that time and space, that love of story, that sense of adventure.

At one point during the workshop, Kelly had the attendees read the poem, “Learning the Bicycle” by Wyatt Prunty. Then he asked us each to select a line that stood out to us, write that line on a sheet of paper, and then start writing off of the idea we had selected. We got to work. I selected the line: “And her certainty she will always fall.” It jumped out at me as I read. “Yes, that’s me, always ready to fall, waiting for the moment, tense and certain.” I began to write, crafting a poem that pleased me.

The next day, I was working with Hadley. We were finishing up reading Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. We had about 20 minutes left in our session. Poetry would fit in perfectly, so I read Wyatt Prunty’s poem to her, and I asked her to select a line and then start writing. Hadley took up her pencil and leaned her head toward the paper.

After several minutes, Hadley lifted her head. “I’m stuck. I don’t know how to end it,” she declared. I listened as she read her poem aloud. I didn’t have to give a word of advice. Hadley picked up her pencil and put her head down again and started to write. Quickly, she finished and said, “ I’m done, but it doesn’t make any sense.” She read the entire poem to me, and I was stunned by its deep beauty. I was surprised that a twelve-year-old girl could express her self-doubt so clearly and maturely. I told her how incredible her poem was, and she looked at me with her dark brown Hadley eyes and said, “But what does it mean?”

I turned to her and smiled, “What do you think it means? What were you trying to say?”

She implored, “I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Do you know?”

I took a breath and a chance. “I think it means that you are growing up, and the girl on the inside doesn’t always match the girl on the outside. You are trying to find your identity.”

Hadley pressed her lips together in thought and nodded her head. “How can you write when you don’t know what you are thinking?”

I smiled again. “Well, that’s what we’ve been talking about: writing without a plan, writing to discover what you are thinking. It takes time. And sometimes it surprises you!”

My words seemed to satisfy Hadley. She picked up her pencils and put them back in her case. Our writing time together was done for now.

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