The Sleeping Indian

From Prisoner of Second Grade by Joan Cutuly

After finishing out the school year, I spent the summer regaining my strength and preparing my courses of study for Journalism and Creative Writing. For my English classes, I also developed a writing program more conducive to grading on progress. When implementation of the program revealed its weaknesses, I would stay after school, prop open the outer door of my classroom, breathe in the sweet sage heat, and gaze up at the Sleeping Indian. Communion with the Old One never failed to inspire an effective revision. While conferring with students about their writing, I noticed that mistakes in grammar were symptoms of other problems. Students who didn’t narrow their topics got bogged down in run-on sentences. Students who rushed into their writing without knowing what they wanted to say often wrote in sentence fragments. Those who couldn’t see cause and effect relationships were plagued by problems of transition and awkwardly structured sentences. These root problems compounded themselves into other problems. So instead of marking every little mistake, I directed each student to work on the one type of error that seemed to be the cause of the problems.

Finding that all the other problems began to disappear, I refashioned my writing program into a series of assignments that reduced the writing process to its most elemental components. The first assignment was a paragraph that told a story about a lesson learned from a particular experience. The topic sentence stated the lesson learned. The single-paragraph narrative then told the story of how the student learned the lesson. I only graded for topic sentence, development, and conclusion. I also required an outline, which the student could construct either before or after writing the essay. Grading ninety papers wasn’t a drudge, and students weren’t subjected to so many red marks that it looked like someone had bled all over their papers. The simplicity and built-in structure of the assignment offered students an opportunity for success because it didn’t create the kind of confusion of ideas that led to faulty sentence structure.

The second assignment was a single-paragraph description of a place. Without a built-in idea and narrative, students had to think harder about a topic sentence and how to arrange the supporting details. Again, I accepted no paper without an outline. Most wrote their outlines after they’d written the paper and in doing so became aware on their own of lapses in order and unity. We then moved on to paragraphs that explained how to do a simple task. When others had to follow their directions, the writers learned the importance of clarity of thought and transition. After students had mastered the basic skills of narration, description, and explanation, we used these fundamentals to take on more complex writing assignments that included definition of an abstract term, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, and analogy.

Of course, this approach was similar to the lessons laid out in many composition texts. The difference was that these texts were written for juniors, seniors, and college students. By the time the student reached those levels, the instructor expected more complex essays. With seventh graders, I could keep the assignments so simple that the children had an opportunity to comprehend and practice writing skills at the most elemental levels. As I’d learned while at the college, just because students wrote good papers didn’t mean they understood the principles of good writing. In fact, writers with natural talent often plateaued into mediocrity because they didn’t know why their work was good.

With students of all abilities showing progress, grading on progress now made complete sense. However, that other very large and pesky problem remained in that the students still found everything we did to be “boring.” Their incessant judgment was an assault on my nerves and a challenge to my sense of humor. On weekends and holidays, I refurbished my spirit by hiking in the desert with friends. Toward the end of the first semester, my teaching began to change. Or rather, I changed. It was hard to explain what happened, except to say that my classroom became more like the desert, unhurried and full of space. I didn’t grasp the meaning of this until the day one class called me a slave driver because I didn’t reward them with a video every fourth Friday like Mrs. Stepford did for her classes. And oh yeah, this book we were reading, Animal Farm, well, it was really boring. And stupid. Animals wouldn’t ever take over a farm and make up their own government with a pig bossing them around. So what did this story have to do with real life anyway? And why didn’t we do fun things like Mrs. Stepford’s classes who got to draw scenes from The Martian Chronicles and make up radio broadcasts about events from the book?

As the twelve-year-olds imitated the farm animals and mocked the appearance of George Orwell whose picture appeared in the book, I suddenly got so fed up that I felt relieved of any responsibility for educating these spoiled and tiresome children. “Okay, everyone,” I heard myself say, “ you’re absolutely right. I’ve made a huge mistake by trying to force you to read something that doesn’t interest you. I apologize.” The room fell silent with all thirty-four pairs of eyes glued to the strangeness of the moment. “So here’s the deal,” I continued. “For the next two weeks, I’m turning the classroom over to you. Your only assignment is to pick a problem that bugs you then figure out a way to resolve that problem. Either you find some satisfactory resolution, or you don’t. The whole class will get the same grade, an A or an F. Since I’m legally responsible for you and what happens in this room, the only rule is that you follow all the school rules. This means you can’t leave the room without a hall pass signed by me, which I’m happy to provide as long as you let me know where you’re going and why. Other than that, you’re on your own.”

The children were ecstatic. “Free at last,” cried Robert as I waved good-bye then ambled to the table in the back of the room, sat down, and began to read a stray Superman comic book. To test me, the kids started walking around the room. One sat at my desk. Others drew on the board. The boys started throwing spitballs at the girls who yelled at them to quit. Deciding they needed officers and a plan to get the grade, the girls began to organize. The boys decided to let the girls do all the work. In a vote of 18 girls to 16 boys, the class passed a rule saying anyone who didn’t work didn’t get the grade. The boys got involved but started a gender scrap about who should be president. A week later, the class was still arguing. Suddenly realizing they had only four days left, the group voted to have a bake sale to raise money to get a traffic light installed at the busy corner where kids who walked to school had trouble crossing. George, whose uncle was with the street department, volunteered to find out the cost of a light. When word came back that traffic lights started at $40,000, the bake sale was off. With only two days left, bickering began over whose fault it was nothing had been accomplished. Meanwhile, my other English classes had demanded the same freedom. Sure, I told them. One group decided to file complaints against the cafeteria women, only to learn that the lunchroom problems were generated by ill-mannered students. A third group tried writing a pamphlet of instruction for parents but couldn’t agree on what the oldsters needed to know. 

With the classes all devolving into chaos and failure notices being mailed home in a week, there were groundings galore on the horizon. Did I have any extra credit? Well, no, I said, reminding the frantic children that I’d warned them on the first day of school that I didn’t believe in extra credit as a way of making up for not doing one’s regular work. However, I would take the evening to consider a possible alternative. In fourth period, a girl who had never gotten less than an A became hysterical. At lunch, she and five other girls burst into tears outside Mrs. Samolovitch’s office where they told the assistant principal I should be fired. After lunch, Mrs. Samolovitch, Kay, was at my door. “What the hell’s going on back here?” she wanted to know. “Well,” she said after I’d explained, “this had better be going somewhere because if it’s not, you could end up answering to a lot of irate parents.” Appearing more confident than the situation warranted, I invited her to stop by the following day, which she did.

Seeing her, the class sat at attention. The girls who’d complained looked smug. Julie raised her hand to ask if I’d reconsidered the possibility of extra credit. I had, and the answer was still no. Faces fell. “But,” I said, and the faces lifted, “there is this little book called Animal Farm in which the animals take over the farm only to end up under the tyrannical control of a pig named Napoleon. I would be happy to drop the F for any student who writes a clear and well-developed essay in answer to each of those questions at the far end of the board. First, how is what happened in this class like what happened in the book? And second, explain which animal best describes the part you played in what occurred.” Eager hands reached for pencils, paper, and the George Orwell fable. Seeing themselves in the book was easy. But writing about it was not. “How?” they begged, and within seconds we were knee-deep in a classic and the principles of good writing with everyone paying attention. Shaking her head in amusement, Mrs. Samolovitch left the room to take up more pressing administrative matters.

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