Teachers & Writers Collaborative
Learning to See
Teachers & Writers magazine, Volume 11, Number 1, pp. 30-33 (Fall 1979)
Grades: 10-12
Genre: All
I
“Write what you don’t know about what you know,” Grace Paley said, and I add as commentary to that disarmingly simple wisdom: Hidden beneath every obvious, cliched surface, including our own image, are secrets which writing helps us discover and release. These secrets may even be the cliche finally felt, and therefore “made new” again. I have found that comparison is one very effective writing tool in getting at these unknowns.
Imagine we are writing about a lemon. You probably don’t even have to look at one. It’s round and yellow. How yellow? As yellow as the sun.
A lemon is round, and yellow like the sun. That is almost true. The sun is yellow of course, but a lemon is not actually round, more oval or spherical. Okay then:
A lemon is spherical, and yellow like the sun. Is that better? It is true. Then why is it likely, if you put this magazine down, that you will forget in a second that you read this sentence? And, what really matters, you will probably forget the lemon too and squeeze it into your tea tonight without a thought to its sphericalness or yellowness.
A lemon is spherical, and yellow like the sun. In this sentence there is no lemon. Do you picture it? Does your mouth pucker? The heart of the lemon and the associations and feelings that it might stimulate in us are missing completely. In fact, we have only stated its cliched reputation. Is there anything visible to a lemon? Is there anything to this “sphericalness” or “yellowness”? If so, we have not found a way to reveal it.
As part of six lessons in “Learning To See,” I asked twelfth-graders at Oceanside Senior High School to look at the lemon each had brought in “with wonder and amazement,” “as if you’ve never seen a lemon before.” For ten minutes the class was silent, looking, smelling, touching intently only the outside of the fruit. This silence and acute observation seemed to provide a bridge from self-consciousness, an impending test, and the noisy hall into the lemon. The time in the room seemed to slow down and thicken. Then people started sharing what they were discovering: “It has pores like my hand.” “The tip looks like a dolphin’s nose; hey, mine’s swimming.” “It’s like when you look closely you think it’s going to be rough, but it’s smooth.” “Mine has a yellow that smashes into cars.” “It smells like there’s a garden inside.” “The yellow of my lemon glides.”
The lemons were opened-peeled, split, squeezed, bitten into. Each way yielded a different view of the fruit inside. When the fruit was torn raggedly the filaments were clear, “a school of fish swimming towards one end.” Peeled carefully the lemon was naked, translucent white, egg-like. In groups of three and four now, people were pointing out discoveries to each other, and almost every description was figurative, as if “yellow,” “smooth,” “tart,” were inadequate to communicate a lemon the first time it was experienced.
For the next class the students were to write something that, in any way, reflected that they had seen a lemon. Here is one result:
A Lemon
When you look at a lemon you see a burst of sun. But as you look at it much closer you see the pores of the lemon, like the pores of your hand with its lines like the life lines of the hand. As you peel the skin away you hear the crisp clean sound of ginger ale; sparkling and crackling. As we peel away its outer covering we feel the smoothness of the inner skin, yet a surprise occurs. As you taste the lemon a sudden cringe comes over your body and you throw it away.
- Marshall Y.
The preparation for writing about something is to examine it with all one’s senses. In this manner the lemon is felt, projected into, fantasized about, connected with; that is to say, discovered. The explorer can’t get away without having been discovered a little also.
I crawled inside
a lemon today don’t
know why I
was so surprised
by the gentle heartbeat
beneath my feet
but, frightened, I leapt
through the sweet, thick air
and pierced the warm flesh,
knee-deep in bitter lemon
tears
Chemistry may hold
many interesting
facts and figures
But I’ve lived
inside a lemon
where numbers
don’t
count
How can you claim
to understand me
and, in the same breath
ask me why I write
about lemons?
I was never so alone
as I was inside
my lemon.
Quietly exploring
every secret place
and wondering why I
hadn’t taken time
to pass this way
before.
A strange satisfaction
filled me as I peered
into that portal
and saw what
no other had ventured
to look upon;
a different dimension
with no room for
complication.
- Anonymous
It is the nature of comparison to aid in revealing such things. Try for yourself. Look at an object. List its physical attributes. For example:
This paper towel is white. It comes in sheets. It has bumps in it. It is dry.
Now, paying attention to those same attributes, describe the object again by comparison. Try to take the time you need until you hit a comparison that “feels right.” It may actually “move you.” For example:
The paper towel is white like snow, like baby powder, salt, a salt plain. It stretches out, the parched bottom of an old river, waiting for water to suck at.
The comparison, beginning with a cliche, finally makes available the thirst or dryness of the paper towel, which is not felt by the statement “It is dry.”
Here are some examples from the work of third- and fourth-grade children that show the digging and connecting quality of comparison. I have preceded each with a statement of the physical “fact” of the line hoping you will feel the difference between each.
The sweater has black string and ugly buttons.
It had worms for buttons
and strings black as the day I cut myself
and had to go to the hospital.
-Sari E.
I’m quiet when I write.
When I write I feel like a new Olga.
I think I’m in a new galaxy
where no one lives and it’s really quiet.
-Olga M.
A rocket is fast and so am I.
A rocket is like a fat sword
and it’s like a fast comic.
I feel like a rocket when I jump off
a ramp with a bike
trying to jump over 12 buckets.
-Joel F., Brian S., Dana T.
It is raining hard.
The great open sky is an eye crying.
It travels to my heart like a ball of fire.
-Dimitri G.
These excerpts reflect four lessons in which I use comparison: the revealing of an object and attitude toward that object through the description of it; a discussion of what one’s mind feels like when one writes; an exploration of an object’s connection to other things and to oneself; and a lesson in which the students, having reviewed the tools available to them, including comparison, are free to write on any subject in any way.
These lessons center on the use of comparison as a way to reveal a subject and place it in a relationship to the world and oneself. The comparison of the abstract statement with the sensory and concrete comparison, hopefully provides a sharp feeling of difference between the two. Examining that difference, the reasons for the strength of one over the other begins to be clear. What if comparison is used to present a lesson, then what will be revealed?
II
What is more stereotyped, laden with cliche, devoid of sentiment and yet widely practiced than the love poem?
Faced with Valentine’s Day at PS 107 I decided (having no choice, really) that we would write love poems to someone special. That was the subject. The skill I wanted to work on was extending a comparison to make it more visual and exact. My experience was that, when asked to do this, the student was at a loss as to what it meant. I needed to find a way to explain both the visualness and extension of a phrase. I also wanted to encourage the students to vary their structure, find unusual comparisons and avoid a regression to “Roses are red ….”
The next day, armed with two poems I had written, I went into the fourth-grade class and said, “Good morning and Happy Valentine’s Day. Today we are going to write love poems.” Everyone groaned. “Oh you always groan when you’re going to write, don’t you?” I said. “Well I wrote a love poem to you. Do you want hear it?” They nodded and I read:
Mrs. Wolfson’s class I love you.
You are like an orange.
You are like the sun.
You are like my socks.
You are like salt.
You are like a pillow.
You are like words.
The class was listless, and except for some weak laughs at socks and salt, they were silent when I finished. “You don’t like it?” They shook their heads. “Why not? “
“It’s boring,” someone called out.
“Hmmm. Do you know from this poem that I love you?” They shook their heads. “I was afraid of that. Well a poem doesn’t always work the first time. I wrote another one.”
Mrs. Wolfson’s class, I love you.
You are like the smell of an orange
when my fingernail first breaks the skin.
And you are like the first piece of sun
that cracks the night sky.
Do you know how much I love you?
Do you mind that I love you so much?
And it is my red socks you are like,
little fires that keep me warm.
You are the right amount of salt on my salad,
You are a pillow that surprises me
with its cool bottom side.
Listen, I dream about you
and in my dreams you are beautiful words
that I sing to myself, over and over.
I could feel them listening as I read and when I finished they burst out applauding. I was very excited. I had been almost positive that they would be able to hear and feel the difference between the two versions and they clearly had. Now I wanted them to explain to themselves and me their reaction. If they could, then the point that was so hard to teach would be uncovered by them.
“You liked the second one better than the first?” I asked. They nodded vigorously. “Could you feel that I love you?” They nodded again. (It was true I loved them or I wouldn’t have invented this lesson.) “What made the second one better?”
“It was fun listening to,” one child said.
“Why?”
“You used funny things, like salt and socks.”
“But I used those same things in the first poem.”
“Details,” a few of the children called out.
“Details. Well,” I said, “I’m glad you remember that word but didn’t the first poem have details? I didn’t just say I like you.”
“They were details,” another child offered, “but they didn’t have any feelings with them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try to figure it out.” I wanted them to get in words as precisely as possible what they had sensed and felt.
“You explained what you meant.”
“What do you mean? Use an example.”
“Like this, anybody can say sun, right? But you kept going and said when we were like the sun.”
“They were red socks, not just any ones,” someone else said. “I think they were your favorite socks. You put in detail. “
“You mean you could see it,” I broke in. “It was visual. What other differences between the first and the second?”
“You didn’t just say like like like, like in the first one. That was boring.”
“What did I do instead?” I asked.
“You changed the way the words went. Like you said you are a pillow instead of you’re like a pillow.”
“You mean I actually turned you into the thing?”
“Right. “
“Questions,” the girl in front of me said. “You didn’t just compare us to things, you asked us questions.”
“A different kind of sentence completely. I like how well you’re remembering the two poems. Here’s a question. If I hadn’t said I loved you in the poem, would you have known it anyway?” They nodded. “Why?”
“Because the things you compared us to were things you like. You didn’t say we were mud.” Everyone laughed. “Then we would have known you thought we were disgusting”
“But if I said, ‘You are like cool wet mud on a hot muggy day,’ then would you have thought I liked you?”
“Yes,” everybody yelled. “You can’t just say mud; it has to have something after it.”
“But,” said one student, “if you said we were like a dead, run-over squirrel—no way you liked us then.”
When I felt they understood clearly the points they had brought up, extension of detail, sensory detail, choice of comparison, variation of syntax and direct address (“It’s like a letter to us”), I said, “You lucky people, today you get to write a love poem to anyone you want!” They cheered, and we threw out ideas of different people they might write to. “And when you’re finished you can copy it over If you want, make a valentine with it, here are paper and crayons, and give it to the person you’re talking to.” More cheers and everyone started to write.
For me, this lesson opened comparison as a new teaching technique. Since then I have used it often with different age groups, and its revealing quality has never failed. When students didn’t understand William Carlos Williams’ use of detail in his poem “Nantucket,” I asked, “What else might he have seen out the window? Does that change the poem? How?”
When a student wrote an exciting line I asked for someone to rephrase it in the most boring way possible. The students loved to think up something boring. The comparison made clear the power of the original line, often the reason for the power, and the fact that we always choose words when we write, and some work better than others.
When I taught a lesson in which students write to or about an object, describing it physically through comparison and through this description exposing their attitude toward it, I wrote two poems again and used the structure of the Love Poem class. Some students chose to do two versions themselves. Thus, classes were initiated to the use of first and second drafts.
This use of comparison takes trust on the part of the teacher-that given the evidence students willingly take on the task of uncovering for themselves, and then use those “secrets” of writing. Given time, many students will “reinvent” most of the elements anyway; discovering them as concrete ideas means they can use them over and over
knowingly and inventively.
Love Poems
To Ryan
You are like a tiger who roars to me.
You are like a bird who sings to me.
You are like a moon who lights me up at midnight
and sings in the beautiful air.
And when you sing to me
my cat starts to dance
and my dog goes crazy
and my bird gets strong.
-Robert R.
To My Cat Daisy
So smooth your fur it is,
White like the cotton just grown
Black like the night rising new.
Your name is a special flower.
Your skin is made of cotton, pure.
The meow you sing makes me glad.
You sleep on my arm and make me feel
I am touching smooth cotton.
-Leonor B.
To Walt
You are like a box of jokes that makes me laugh as much as if I and a friend had a lot of gum in our mouths so when we tried to talk it turned our words into sounds that were very funny.
- David A.
My Valentine
I picked myself for my own valentine.
I wrote to me a letter
and gave myself a box of candy.
My mother said, who is your valentine?
I said, I don’t want to tell people.
My father, sister, brother
asked me the same thing.
I got mad and threw the candy away
and ripped the letter.
-Kelly S.
Chicken and Rice
Chicken I love you
because when I eat you
you are like crackly fire burning
and make me think of biting
into a juicy grapefruit.
I do not like you alone.
I like you with rice.
Rice you make me think of the blue sky
and flakes you make me think of
white white paper.
But I do not like you alone either.
I like you with salad.
Salad, you remind me
of a juicy orange, just squeezed.
-Olga M.
To Daytuchus My Cat
My cat I like you very much.
You are like dark chocolate when it is just
going into the machine.
You are like soft butter when it’s just going to be spread.
You are like homemade bread
when it’s just coming out of the oven.
You are like boots with fur inside them.
-Francesca V.
My Fabulous Friend
Jimmy you are to me like an eagle flying
in the night sky.
Your wings of love cover me.
My heart is filled with happiness
when I see your delicate face.
Your blue eyes match gracefully with the sea.
Your jokes roll me over.
And when you’re serious I feel so proud of you,
even when you don’t feel happy.
But you too stand and put your foot down for your rights
and for me. But anyway I love you.
-Dimitri G.
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