Mentor Text: ‘Here’ from Miles Morales: Suspended by Jason Reynolds
Techniques:
- Setting
Background – It’s April, so you know you’re only getting poetry inspired MTW posts.
I’m writing this between parent conferences at school, and the last couple books of poetry that I’ve read are sitting on my desk at home, possibilities to share here flagged.
So I had to dig into the archives on the computer. As I started that, I was reflecting on the changes in my teaching assignment this year, probably because I was discussing some of the plans for next year earlier today.
One of the major changes for me is that I’m focused on Grade 11 and 12, and don’t teach Grade 9 and 10 anymore. I miss some of the stuff that I get to teach in those grades.
For example, this is the first time in a long time I haven’t done the Adversity of High School poetry project inspired by Jason Reynolds’ Long Way Down that I’ve shared here before.
And that reminded me that I’ve pulled some of the poems from his Miles Morales novels that are actually more explicitly about school to add to that project that my co-worker will now be doing.
So here’s one of them for you.
How we might use this text:
Setting – Yes, I know that we don’t traditionally think of establishing setting as a thing we do in a poem, but Reynolds does that very well here. He demonstrates that setting, when established well isn’t just about a time and a place, but about how a place feels, or as the kids say, the vibes.
He introduces the setting of school, which is a pretty universal experience. You don’t really need to do much work there to express that it’s not a place you want to be, especially to an audience of students.
This is where I think this really shines as a mentor text. In the first two stanzas, he uses metaphor to describe how school feels, using very physical sensations and imagery to communicate that. I loved doing this one with students, and hearing the writerly talk of how school feels, the physical sensations.
There’s a move into how he dresses for the setting, but that changes into a metaphor about feeling using a restrictive feeling piece of clothing to continue setting the scene, establishing the feeling of being in school. This sets the tone so wonderfully, and that tone impacts the imagery that’s chosen.
And Miles, through Reynolds’ words is able to express his school experience, that there is something that needs to come out of him while he is in a place that discourages that. Perhaps a common feeling for our writers, and supplying them with a mentor text that shows them a way to express this is, I think, a good idea.
So, I guess this post finds me in a reflective place. We do a lot of work, developing units and creating resources, and we are faced with one of the only constants in education – change. Yes, my colleague across the hall has a really solid set of lessons and mentor texts to use. As I look at this poem this evening, I find myself wondering what its place in my classroom might be outside of my original plan for it.
What mentor texts have you used and loved that no longer fit in your classroom? Do you find yourself crafting a plan A and a plan B for mentor texts sometimes?
Leave a comment below or find me on the socials as @doodlinmunkyboy.
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