Adrian Fogelin's fiction in the middle school classroom

ALAN Review, Winter 2003 by Bowman, Cindy, Edenfield, Renn

A University Teacher Educator's Perspective Cindy Bowman

More Than Pages in a Book

Stories are powerful tools in building relationships, understanding, and knowledge. As teachers, we should consider the narratives of all of our students and the ways that these stories intersect to create new narratives. Our narratives are where we develop a sense of ourselves; and if these selves are to grow and develop, we must seek spaces where we can make deliberate, value-based decisions. Nietzsche espouses that our narratives about ourselves only have worth if we alone have formulated that narrative; accepting anybody else's version of ourselves makes us a failure as a human being.

Meeting Adrian Fogelin and reading her novel Crossing Jordan, which is set in Tallahassee, Florida, took me and prospective teachers, as well as the middle schools students and teachers with whom they worked one year, beyond the pages of her books and offered us new understanding of the rich history of Tallahassee. When they first read Crossing Jordan, a few university students questioned the authenticity of a story of racial prejudice in their hometown. Yet within seconds, stories of misunderstanding, distrust, discrimination, and prejudice filled the classroom. A similar response occurred when we introduced Crossing Jordan to a class of Th graders: disbelief melted into serious discussion of examples of discrimination that they had seen, or even in which they had been participants.

Community emphasizes mutual and interactive experiences directed toward the preservation of humanity. It affirms the subjectivity of students and leads to positive change for the welfare of others. Without community and without trust, moral and intellectual growth would not become full or rich. Our sharing of narratives-in university classes, in middle school classes, and during the times that university and middle school students met together to read and study Fogelin's Crossing Jordan-became a vital component in planning classroom activities to awaken middle school students across the county to personal and social issues. The pre-service teachers began planning lessons on the Civil Rights Movement, local heroes, Southern values, Confederate generals, and stereotypes. They created analogies for fences, taped Gospel spirituals, made photo essays of the local landmarks mentioned in the novel, wrote skits depicting Cass and Jemmie, and planned field trips to the cemetery where the two girls secretly met. They saw the power of Fogelin's novel when they presented some of their ideas to young adolescents in two different middle schools in Tallahassee.

Crossing Jordan in the Schools

The study of this novel demonstrated a connectedness with others, developed a community of learners, and allowed students to learn together and be responsible for one another. Through these experiences, university and middle school students created and constructed a fuller meaning of the novel together. The integration of an awareness of the social dynamics and life contexts of Tallahassee created dynamics for learning which were unparalleled. While the university students implemented pre-reading activities in two middle schools, they discovered how each individual student responded to different sections of the novel, and how vividly the middle school students could explain their favorite parts. They also noted how the connections the students made to their personal lives encouraged participation and class discussion. The pre-service teachers were unprepared for the young adolescents' commentaries on female athletes, makeup, friendship, competition, the "New York lean," "the boob factor," and relationships.

Activities

Teachers, English Education students, colleagues, and I began creating excitement for the literary event of reading and studying the novel in one Tallahassee middle school by hanging sneakers from the ceilings in classrooms, the cafeterias, media centers, and gymnasiums. A few days later, signs proclaiming, "Crossing Jordan is coming" decorated the schools' hallways. The chorus students began learning Gospel spirituals for a school-wide kick-off celebration that was scheduled for one of the two schools. The middle school students became as excited about the reading kick-off as they would have been about a high school football game. The university students worked with classroom teachers and school administrators to invite the Superintendent of Schools, Adrian Fogelin, a local sports celebrity, local television news anchors, and newspaper reporters to the celebration. They created a video slide presentation of city landmarks accompanied by Bruce Springsteen's "My Hometown" and canvassed local vendors for prizes to award students participating in warmup activities. Classroom teachers performed a skit of a scene from the novel to the cheers of all students and guests, the school chorus sang, and accompanied a popular teacher as she sang a Gospel solo. The kick-off event was a celebration of reading and a celebration of community.