The Power (and Art) of Dissent

Guest Post by Debbie Levy

 I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark tells the story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life and work through the lens of her many disagreements and dissents, ever since she was a little girl. The book illuminates this central theme: disagreeing does not make you disagreeable, and important change happens one disagreement at a time.

I think that RBG is such a fine example to hold up for our children. She’s a person who has been a change-maker and path-breaker through her disagreements. As importantly, her example shows that one can disagree and make big change happen without resorting to personal attacks, without insulting your opponents, and without closing yourself off to opposing points of view.

          A variation on the “I dissent” theme appears on nearly every spread in the book:

·       “She protested” (as a schoolgirl, to being forced to write with her right hand even though she is left-handed).

·       “Ruth objected” (also in school, to the rule that required girls to take home ec, reserving shop class for boys).

·       “Ruth disapproved right back” (when people disapproved of her decision to go to law school).

·       “She resisted. And persisted” (when, as a young law school graduate at the top of her class, no one would hire her because she was a woman, a mother, and a Jew).

          And so on. Today, of course, she is United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—and she is still known for her dissents from court rulings that she considers wrongly decided.

          But simply disagreeing or dissenting, without more, isn’t really enough if you want to change your life or anyone else’s. On the back of book jacket for I Dissent, there’s this, one of my favorite RBG quotes: “Fight for the things that you care about. But do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” Sounds simple, right? But it’s that second sentence that is so hard to pull off. And here is where educators (and parents and other adults) can help children discover the power of dissent and of persuasive argument.

First, we can use the language of I Dissent to broaden students’ vocabulary of disagreement. I’m talking about words like:

 accept - protest - support - disagree - object - defend - resist - approve - concur - differ -dissent -  agree

Students can start by putting these words on a continuum—or a “semantic gradient.” (I am indebted for this idea to Myra Zarnowski, professor in the Department of Elementary and Early  Childhood Education at Queens College, CUNY, who includes it in the I Dissent Curriculum Guide she wrote for my publisher, Simon & Schuster.) “Agree” can be on one end of the gradient; “dissent” on the other. There is no single correct way to array these words! But this is a good way to get kids talking about the shades of meaning in words that we often use interchangeably, or as opposites.

          

Second, we can use the themes of I Dissent to help develop students’ skills at engaging in effective and appropriate disagreement. I’ve had fun with third and fourth graders by having them take on the proposition: You should only be allowed to play video games after school once you’ve finished your homework. Most kids seem to dissent! So they make their case for taking time to relax before doing their homework. And they practice the elements of effective arguing, like:

·       presenting ideas that they’ve thought through—not just “because I want to”

·       having facts and evidence to back up what they’re saying

·       disagreeing respectfully, without attacking the person who holds opposing ideas

          Third, we can use RBG’s example to discuss—and write about—when the expression of disagreement is most important, and when expressions of disagreement may be more hurtful than helpful. Ask students to respond to this question:

          When have you seen or heard something that you disagreed with, that you either challenged or wanted to challenge?

          The idea here is to encourage young writers to think about speaking out when they see bullying, or when they’re told to do something they think is wrong, or when someone says something about another person that they believe is untrue. Let’s also get them thinking about when a disagreement isn’t important enough to voice, especially if it might be hurtful—such as disagreement with another’s choice of clothing or what’s in their lunchbox.

          And fourth, readers of I Dissent will notice that RBG did not succeed at everything she tried. She has had setbacks and failures. Ask students to think about their own setbacks, and to write about what they learned from their failures. Everyone has them. What can young writers do with theirs?

Debbie Levy is the award-winning author of nonfiction and fiction books for young people, including I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark; We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song; The Year of Goodbyes: A True Story of Friendship, Family, and Farewells; and Dozer’s Run: A True Story of a Dog and His Race. Debbie’s next book, Soldier Song: A True Story of the Civil War, is an 80-page picture book for older children about how music, and one song in particular, brought the two sides of the struggle together for one night, enabling the soldiers to see the other side—the enemy—as fellow human beings. It comes out in February 2017. Visit her online at debbielevybooks.com

RISK AND REWARD

Guest Post by Debbie Levy

            Visitors to this blog who are in the teaching and reading professions know—better than I—of the movement among literacy experts to give children more so-called “risky” texts to read, listen to, and discuss. By definition, risky texts raise difficult issues, and these educators say that kids can handle them, when the books are age-appropriate.

            Risky texts might raise feelings of sadness, guilt, or anger, even among young readers. That’s the risky part.

            But in my view, and the view of many others, the benefits can far outweigh the drawbacks. Quoting an academic paper I read recently: risky texts “can help students learn about . . . injustices, make connections to their own lives and broader social contexts, and consider potential actions to redress these injustices.” They also promote empathy and a moral sensibility to the sufferings of others.

            I didn’t set out to write a “risky book” when I wrote We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song, a picture book about how voices upon voices over years upon years built up this famous song like a collage. The book describes how this song came to be and how it helped the people who sang it while they fought against injustice—and how it still helps people today.

            The book starts like this:

Back in slavery times—

when enslaved people worked long days

with no pay and no say,

no freedom, no fairness,

no choice and no chance—

the people sang.

They suffered, yet they sang—

to soothe the hurt,

to fight the cruelty,

to declare that—yes!—they were human beings.

            Each spread has lyrics from the song, or precursor of the song. The book travels through different historical events and times in which the song evolved and played a part.

            I didn’t think of it as a risky book.

            But this past August I received a letter about the book—about this page:

            The text, if you can’t read it in the image, reads as follows:

It took a war—the Civil War—to end slavery.

But even after,

white people treated black people

as less than fully human,

excluding them, ignoring them,

blaming them,

even attacking them,

all because of the color of their skin.

Black people were no longer slaves,

it was true.

But they were not truly free.

Still they believed things would get better.

Still they sang.

           

            As I said, I received a letter.

            “Hello,” the letter began, “at work we had a book fair, and I purchased your book We Shall Overcome. My mouth dropped on page 7, and I had to put the book down! . . . Why didn’t it just say, after the civil war, ‘people’ still had a hard time getting along or understanding. Why did you have to be so . . . I don’t have words. . . . I thought the book would be shocking to read to my grandson.”

            Now, I wouldn’t want to take the approach this letter-writer wanted: to suggest that the problem after the Civil War was that people had a hard time getting along. The problem was racism, and although this book doesn’t use –ism words, I wanted readers to know that white-on-black prejudice was the problem. It wasn’t a matter of simply not getting along.

            Reasonable minds can certainly differ on what a particular child should read. And, of course, a grandmother should choose what she’s comfortable reading to her grandchild. But I do want children to know and to face truths, even uncomfortable ones. I think they are capable. And I think that facing truths is something that goes on, and should go on, in our schools. Which brings me to using this book in the classroom—both as part of social justice education and to get kids writing about how to respond to injustice.

            In my own interactions with young students around this book, I’ve found that they don’t necessarily grasp the notion of racial bigotry at first. (Not a bad form of ignorance!) But we do need to introduce them to this part of our history, which, as we adults know, isn’t really a thing of the past.

            So, with the younger students, I like to begin by talking about unfairness, with some “what if?” questions. What if you couldn’t go to your favorite park because of your hair color? Had to sit apart in school or on bus or in movies because you go to a different church—or don’t go to church? Couldn’t go to the place where they serve the best ice cream in town because only blue people can and you are orange?

            They giggle, but they get it. And then I talk about how, not so long ago, restaurants could refuse to serve you a meal if you were African American. I explain that, in those days, if you were African American, if you were Mexican American—you could not drink out of the same water fountains as white people in some parts of the country. (I share photographs of these and other segregationist practices. They are easy to find on the Internet.)

            So, I ask the kids, what’s unfair about all this? Write a letter to persuade the people in charge—the owner of a restaurant or theater or ice cream parlor, the superintendent of a county park, the president of the bus company—to allow equal access to these places.

            And I ask: if you were being treated so unfairly, or if someone you loved were, how would you feel? Write a diary entry about this.

            We can agree that being treating this unfairly could make you so angry and frustrated that you might want to fight. But fighting with your fists could create even more problems for you and it probably wouldn’t get you what you wanted.

            So, I ask the students, how can you fight with your brain? This is a good question to discuss in a group. And it’s a good question to lead into reading my book, because the story of the song “We Shall Overcome” is in part the story of the ways people in the civil rights movement thoughtfully fought against race discrimination.

            After reading the book and after singing the song, I ask: why was singing part of the fight against unfairness? (I have my answers. Singing shows the people who are treating you unfairly that you are strong, that you are a human being, and that you will be heard. And singing can give you courage and can lift your spirits—especially if you’re singing with others. But I want to know what the students think.)

            Two more writing activities after reading the book:

            Write a journal entry from the point of view of a person who lived through one of the time periods in the story and timeline. It can be someone who participated in the struggle. It can be someone on the sidelines. Someone black, someone white.

            Finally:

            Write your own new verses for the song, verses that respond to problems you see in your or community today. (Bullying comes to mind. Social shaming, too. But let’s see what’s on the students’ minds!)

            This last activity is my favorite. The song’s structure is simplicity itself, so everyone can succeed at this. I like encouraging the idea that everyone can author his or own lyrics about fighting injustice. And the lyrics can lead to a discussion of these difficult issues. The new verses, like “We will stand with you,” or “We are on your side,” are among the rewards for taking on a “risky” subject.

Debbie Levy is the author of more than twenty books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for young people, including the Jane Addams Award Honor book, We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song, and the Sydney Taylor Notable book, The Year of Goodbyes. Visit http://debbielevybooks.com/

             

SUMMER LETTERS AND PICTURE POSTCARDS

by Karen Leggett Abouraya

There was a time before Facebook and Flickr when people mailed picture postcards to friends and family as they traveled on vacation. They were often called “penny postcards” because the stamp cost just a penny. Here is one from Washington, D.C. in which the writer - Celinda, my grandmother - tells of voting and attending a luncheon with other Daughters of the American Revolution from Ohio. You’ll also notice that this 1935 postcard bears an address with just a name and a town!

Why not make this the summer to bring back the pleasure of picture postcards and summer letters? A dear friend of mine who goes to Minnesota to fish every summer often writes four to six page letters by hand; they can’t be read on the fly as we do with emails and Facebook posts. They must be savored, as I visualize the family members or fishing adventures he describes.

Debbie Levy devotes her award-winning book, The Year of Good-Byes: A True Story of Friendship, Family, and Farewells, to the beauty and emotional power of much shorter handwritten notes.  The notes include drawings and poetry in a poesiealbum, or autograph book, kept by Debbie’s mother Jutta during her last year in Germany in 1938. Young readers continue to add their own poetry to Debbie’s Poesiealbum Project.

In Valerie Tripp’s American Girl book, Changes for Kit, Kit Kittredge writes a letter to the editor dictated by her uncle. She disagreed with it so completely that she wrote her own - and the newspaper printed hers! The teachers who developed the website Books Kids Love include a long list of titles perfect for encouraging letter writing.

Letters help us preserve memories, make political statements or just add pleasure to a friend’s day. Encourage students to write and send a picture postcard from wherever they are going this summer - or even from their own hometown.  It is a chance to practice the mechanics of writing an address correctly when it includes more than just a @ and a dot. The space on a postcard is small enough that even reluctant writers might be inspired. A 140-character Tweet would fit just fine!

Encourage students to

•   describe something colorful or interesting in a few carefully chosen words, or

•   tell what they have been doing so that the reader could visualize it, or

•   make a connection with the reader by mentioning something they have in common that relates to the picture or place (hearing a band they both like, seeing a funny dog or cat, flying a kite on the beach), or

•   send postcards to a teacher at school so they can be shared in the fall.

Wishing everyone a lovely summer, filled with books - and letters!

http://childrensbookguild.org/karen-leggett-abouraya

WRITING CONNECTIONS WITH DEBBIE LEVY

by Mary Quattlebaum

Award-winning author Debbie Levy talks about her two most recent titles—The Year of Goodbyes (Disney Hyperion) and Imperfect Spiral (Walker/Bloomsbury)—and how they might prompt discussion and writing in the classroom and at home.  Both books connect to themes of injustice, intimidation and bullying, friendship, family, and identity.  Debbie’s website includes more information on her twenty wonderful picture books, novels, books of poetry and biographies for young people.

1.  Thanks for visiting Pencil Tips, Debbie!  The Year of Goodbyes is such a powerful, beautiful book.  My whole family read it and loved it!  Where did you get the idea for this historical novel in verse, which is set right before World War II?  

The idea for The Year of Goodbyes wasn’t so much an idea as a discovery.  After years of trying to find a way to write my mother’s story of living as a Jewish girl in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, I discovered Mom’s poesiealbum.  (Let’s get the problem of the multi-syllabic German word out of the way:  It’s poesie, pronounced po-eh-ZEE, or poem, + album = poetry album.)  A poesiealbum is like an autograph book or friendship book. They were popular among European pre-teens and teenagers. 

I didn’t discover the poesiealbum up in some dusty attic.  My parents’ house didn’t have an attic.  No, my mother pulled it out of her bedside table when she got together with six of her childhood friends from Germany for the first time in 62 years in 2000.  (You can read about how the reunion came to be here.)  Some of them had written in it back in 1938!  If I’d seen the album when I was growing up, I didn’t remember it.  When I saw it in 2000, I was moved by this beat-up little book full of handwritten poems, proverbs, and drawings from my mother’s friends and relatives that she brought across the Atlantic Ocean when she left Germany behind in November 1938.   

I had the album translated, laid out photocopies of the pages in chronological order on the floor, and found that each entry contained a truth that related directly to the goings-on around my mother from January through November of 1938.  And so, nearly every chapter in The Year of Goodbyes opens with one of these poesiealbum entries.  Arranged chronologically, these poesies give shape to the true story of that fateful year in Nazi Germany and in my mother’s life.

2.  What triggered your new YA novel Imperfect Spiral?  I love the way you explore larger issues (immigration policy, community activism) through your vivid characters.  First-person narrator Danielle, with her wry voice and worries, seems very real.

The origins of Imperfect Spiral were musings about a character, a teenage girl, who feels, as teenagers often do, that she is unutterably peculiar, when actually she is just a little bit peculiar, as so many of us are.  I wanted her to see herself reflected in the eyes of a little boy (who may also be a little bit peculiar) who thinks she is absolutely the greatest, and with whom she develops a deep connection despite the difference in their ages.  So it was this relationship that was the spark. 

These two characters, Danielle and Humphrey, then took on lives of their own in my imagination, and so did other characters and plot ideas, and this one, in particular:  What if something terrible happened to little Humphrey, and it happened on Danielle’s watch, when she was babysitting him?  What would the consequences be for her personally?  And—as importantly, because I wanted to write a story that wasn’t only about a teen character looking inward—what would the consequences be for her community?  With this as a framework, I was able to explore such disparate ideas as unlikely friendships, immigration policy, and how even well-meaning people can twist events to suit their agendas.

The characters themselves gave me more ideas.  Their inner lives suggested situations where dramatic tension might develop, where opportunities for change would arise.  Until Humphrey has a tragic accident, Danielle has made something of an art form of not being engaged in school, community—you might even say she’s less than fully engaged in her own life.  But that becomes less of an option as reaction to the tragedy spirals, if not out of control, at least in directions that she can’t accept.   

3.  Were you a writer as a youngster or did you come to a love of writing later in life?

When I visit with students of all ages I always bring with me some of the “books” I wrote when I was around seven.  Like Something Happens To Tuggy.  The Captured Boys.  And my first foray into nonfiction:  Fish.  You can see thumbnail pictures of these on my website. 

I shared two of these early efforts with kids at the Sandy Spring Friends School Authors Fair in April and it is not much of exaggeration to say that the kids spent more time paging through them than through my books that have actually been published! (By the way, this relates to my belief in the power of handwritten works—see above, poesiealbum pages.)  I think the younger children look at these books and realize, “I can do that!” and the kids in middle school and up think they’re cute and maybe it would have been fun to babysit me when I was seven.  If, that is, they can imagine me ever having been seven.

By the way, guess who saved these early works?  My mother, of course!

4.  How have you used The Year of Goodbyes in working with young people and their writing?

When I do school assembly presentations about The Year of Goodbyes, I focus on the book behind the book (that is, the poesiealbum and its tradition), life in Germany in the 1930s for my mother’s family and others like them, and, of course, my mother’s story. I do this with the help of a PowerPoint slide show that is rich in photos and other striking images.  I also talk about the connections and contrasts between the old-fashioned poesiealbum tradition and Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. 

Then, in the more intimate classroom setting, students write and share their own “poesies” in response to a series of prompts.  I have led these writing workshops during school visits, and teachers and librarians have also done this work themselves, either using writing prompts of their own creation or prompts that I offer online.  My writing prompts are found on a “Poesiealbum Project” website I’ve put up to encourage readers to write and submit pages for a modern-day online poesiealbum.  It’s http://theyearofgoodbyes.blogspot.com/.  (The prompts are under the tab labeled “Create.”)  They include, among other things, asking students to write something:

         

          - to the young people in Nazi Germany in 1938 who chose to discriminate against, or torment, their  Jewish neighbors, or
         

          - to friends or classmates today who choose to ridicule people they deem “undesirable” or unacceptably different, or

         

          - to inspire somebody who faces great adversity or fear.

Why engage in these exercises in poesiealbum-style writing?  First, this approach integrates learning about the history of the era with practice in formulating thoughtful responses to injustice in the world.  Second, I like the idea of writing a few carefully chosen words, packing as much meaning as possible into small packages.  And third, as I explain to the students, for us as writers and as denizens of the twenty-first century, one reason to try our hands at poesiealbum-type writing is simply to step back in time—to feel the historical experience of people who came before us in our bones, just a little bit, through the act of writing (with a pen or pencil on paper) as those people wrote.

I am always surprised and fulfilled by student poesiealbum writings in response to The Year of Goodbyes.  It’s very hard to single out one or two.  Have a look at these, which students have sent in to the online Poesiealbum Project:

http://theyearofgoodbyes.blogspot.com/2011/04/change-we-want-to-see.html

http://theyearofgoodbyes.blogspot.com/2011/05/life-is-like-ocean.html

http://theyearofgoodbyes.blogspot.com/2012/05/no-matter-who-you-are.html

http://theyearofgoodbyes.blogspot.com/2012/05/look-around-slow-your-perception.html

5.  What writing prompts or exercises for young people have evolved from Imperfect Spiral?

Imperfect Spiral is woven around themes concerning friendship, fear, courage, connection, and heartbreak.  There’s also a thread relating to the topic of immigration. Not to mention the twisty spiral of unintended consequences.  So many possible topics for students to write about!  I’m just at the beginning of creating the writing connections that I hope to be making with readers once this book is in their hands.  Here are some of my ideas so far:

          - Imperfect Spiral concerns a tragedy and a community’s search for someone or something to blame for that tragedy.  Why do you think people need to find someone or something to blame when tragedy strikes—even when it’s entirely possible that the tragedy has no villains?  Write your response as an essay or a poem.  

          - Write a letter to the editor—something that could be published in a newspaper—about an accident or controversy in your own community or school that prompted a focus on someone or something to blame that you believed was misplaced, and what you think the focus should have been.

          - Given their age difference, Danielle and Humphrey obviously are at very different places in their lives.  Despite that, Humphrey teaches his teenage babysitter some important lessons.  Create a “top five” list of things Danielle learns from the little guy.     

          - In the story, we see Danielle questioned by authorities on three different occasions with respect to the accident.  Following this theme of Q-and-A, create a list of questions that you would you like Danielle to answer about the events that transpired two years earlier, when she went through a life-altering experience at her Bat Mitzvah.

6.  What are you working on at the moment?

I am working on the very beginnings of another contemporary young adult novel.  And I’m in the research and thinking stages of something that I hope will end up as a nonfiction picture book about a Civil War topic.  And who knows what fresh ideas will present themselves tomorrow!

FRIENDSHIP POEMS AND WRITINGS

by Mary Quattlebaum

The Beatles song says it all:  “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

I certainly feel that way when I’m writing and teaching.  Just recently I gleaned new insights from fellow bloggers Laura Krauss Melmed and Pam Smallcomb from their posts on using folksong and tall-tale prompts.  Thanks much!

Another friend whose creative work is informing my teaching is Debbie Levy.  Debbie’s The Year of Goodbyes (Disney Hyperion, 2010) is an exemplary novel in poems, perfect for writing teachers working with grades 4 through 9 and for college and graduate students interested in the form.

Debbie chronicles a year in the life of her mother, Jutta Salzberg, a Jewish girl growing up in Germany.  It is 1938, a time of horrifying change for Jutta, 12, and her country.  In free-verse poems, Debbie personalizes the sweep of historical events with details from her mother’s youthful perspective:  the click-clack of Nazi boots, her father’s desperate pleading “like tears” for the visas that will allow the family to leave for America.

One of the few things that Jutta was able to take to America was her poesiealbum—an autograph book filled with the inscriptions, verses and drawings of family and friends.  Each poem in the book is introduced by one of these inscriptions, and they offer a variety of voices (some soon to be silenced by the Nazis).  These poesiealbum entries might be jumping off points for your own students’ reflections and writings.

The Poesieablbum Project at http://www.debbielevybooks.com/:  Debbie’s website includes a discussion guide, video and writing project invaluable to educators who plan to share The Year of Goodbyes with students.

Beginning a Classroom Poem on Friendship:  Everyone seems to have strong feelings about friends.  Teachers might begin by having students talk about their reactions to Jutta’s friends and have them name some of the things the girls did together.  Students might share their reactions to Jutta’s losses and their own experiences on losing friends whether to moves, different schools, changing interests, and death.

Writing the Class Poem:  Teachers might have each student contribute one line about a friend or friendship.  The line should not include the name of the friend.  Before they write, first have students close their eyes and focus on the friend and some of the things they do together.  Then ask students to think of and write about one time when this person was a true friend and why.  Teachers can collect these lines, keep them anonymous, and arrange them into one long classroom poem, which he/she might read aloud and post on the bulletin board.

Individual Poems on Friends:  In a journal or during private writing time, students might be encouraged to pen additional thoughts about friends or their loss.  It’s important to honor the sensitivity of the topic and any students’ desire for privacy by not mandating that these pieces be read aloud.

The Friendship Continues:  Students might also discuss the power of writing to connect friends, including their own texts, emails, and Facebook pages.  It was Debbie’s article in the Washington Post that helped some of Jutta’s childhood friends (now women in their 70s) to find one another and re-connect.

Oral History Poem or Writing:  Debbie’s blog http://www.debbielevybooks.com/ references her extensive research and the many talks she had with her mother as she tried to re-create Jutta’s story through poems.  Students might “interview” an older family member about a childhood activity or incident and write this up.  This might become a treasured piece of writing to share with other family members.  Examples of questions:

1. What was your favorite activity when you were (same age as student)?
2. Who was your best friend?  What kinds of things did you like to do together?
3. Tell me something that made you angry or sad when you were my age.
4. What was your favorite subject in school?  Least favorite?  Why?
5. Tell me about a time when you got into trouble.

www.maryquattlebaum.com