“But my world has become one of infinite possibilities.” ― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man.
After a morning physical warm-up of mirroring activities that kept shifting who was leading and who was following, and how we have a sensory experience of becoming in sync with our colleagues, we entered the text from Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man in several different ways:
Marimar led a call and response reading of the excerpt.
We formed two circles, and each person was given one phrase from the text, read the phrase and offered their thoughts/ideas/interpretations of the phrase to their partner in the other circle. We then switched papers, and the outer circle circulated so that new partner pairs were formed, and we all had the opportunity to hear and express multiple ideas about multiple phrases from the text. This is a powerful, socially embedded way of becoming engaged with a text without the pressure of having to know exactly how all the pieces fit together. We become familiar with the language and “friends” with the text, already informed by the conjectures of our peers’ various responses. The work becomes enriched by a range of ideas and associations even before we encounter the whole text, providing a context for understanding new vocabulary and complex metaphors.
We adapted the thinking Routine Zoom Out (originally designed to reflect upon expanding attention to details of a visual artwork) to reflect upon expanding attention to details of a literary artwork.
We looked at the phrase from the text:
“I have been surrounded by mirrors.”
Then at the expanded phrase:
“I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass.”
And then at the further expanded phrase:
“Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass.”
After we read each expanding version of the phrase, we asked ourselves:
This process makes transparent to readers that our understandings and responses to a text shift and change and catalyze new ideas and questions as the text “accumulates” in the readers’ mind – that reading is an expanding, dynamic process with infinite possibilities.
We then reversed the “accretion” processes we had gone through (as more and more information and ideas bubbled up about the meaning of the text) and went through a “distilling” process of boiling a text down to essential elements. We read the entire text that we were exploring and chose a sentence we were drawn to in the text, and then chose a phrase in that sentence and then a word in that phrase. We shared our one-word distillations around your tables, returning from our individual work to a social exchange. This expanding and contracting of our points of attention has the feeling of “breathing” – a rhythm of taking in and letting out.
Kurt introduced us to the tradition of using cordels in Brazil as means of selling folhetos (poetry books), telling stories, and setting a backdrop for a performance. He told us a moving story about students in Brazil empowering themselves using the cordel as a form of activism to catch politicians’ attention after a traumatizing event in their town. We use cordels frequently in Habla as a beautiful way of spreading a message and exhibiting student work. This cordel presentation prepared us for the next activity of the day, where we used stories placed on a cordel to prepare a performance.
In pairs, we went outside to read different texts on the Cordel of Invisibility. After pairs shared, they gathered in groups and chose one text to bring to performance. The performance could be in English, Spanish, or both languages.
At the end of the morning, similar to the tradition in Brazil, groups performed their texts with the cordel as a background.
“But in my heart, I’ve worried that they’ve noticed a problem.” —Mary Beth Meehan
Sarah Leibel, Director of Teacher Education at Brown University, introduced us to the photographic work of Mary Beth Meehan that sought to document under-represented populations, and invited institute participants to observe and absorb some of her pieces. Participants had thirty seconds to talk in pairs about what they saw in each image with the exercise ending with a brief reflection to share what was discussed.
Click on the image to view Mary Beth’s Blog
“No sé quién sea el hombre en la foto, pero cuando veo la imagen completa, me da la idea de que sea muy importante; como un santo.” – Luis
“We were talking about the idea of valuing everyday people.” – Chantell
“La libertad de decidir cómo quieres ser visto, libertad dentro de la postura y expresión, y lo demás.” – Lee
After Sarah’s introduction, participants had eight minutes of silent reading to take in Meehan’s article “ReSeeing” in which she confronted her previous vision and blog title “SeenUnseen” and the process of her own seeing. During the reading, participants highlighted lines or words that represented mirrors or windows to them personally or to the thought process of the artist. “Mirrors” are ideas, phrases or words that were familiar to the participant, while “windows” are visions into the perception of others.
Once students read the article, participants had five minutes to provide the reasoning for their window/mirror selections using the following prompts:
Mirror: This is familiar because…
I see myself here because…
Windows: This is a new perspective for me because…
This is unfamiliar/new and makes me think…
Espejo: Esto es familiar porque…
Me veo aquí porque…
Ventanas: Esto es una nueva perspectiva para mí porque…
Esto no me es familiar/es nuevo y me hace pensar…
8 minutes to discuss in your group.
4 minutes. Message to Mary Beth: thank her for something (something you are grateful for), ask her a question (something you are wondering or are curious about), share (something you learned or are thinking about) because of her work, or something else.
“. . . it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass.” ― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
Cynthia and Patricia began their workshop with a 1-10 movement in the classroom. The smaller space showed that the activities done in the Habla Institute don’t require an auditorium, rather they can be performed in any space. Cynthia then distributed cut paper view-finders to lead into the self-portrait activity. She asked the participants to hold their “10” pose while their partners observed their pose through the view-finder. Then they switched.
“Te fijas más en la imagen. Te ayuda ver todos los detalles.” – Monica
“I understood that the body is the perfect frame. I saw the way Brad’s arm was bent and thought, ‘That’s the perfect frame!'” – Nany
“My frame kept going to hands. Just looking at one part of the body of several people was so interesting to me.” – Chantell
Patricia had the participants revisit yesterday’s text in which they wrote “I used to be ______ and now I am ______,” and then draw a frame in their notebooks. The outer part of the frame represented “I used to be,” while the framed area represented “and now I am.” Participants were challenged to expand upon yesterday’s response, write more sentences, and play with the idea of Mary Beth Meehan’s Seen/Unseen, or ReSeen.
“¡Antes me lanzaba en el vació sin miedo y ahora tengo miedo pero todavía me lanzo!” – Nany
“Before I was loved and now I am more loved.” – Aketzali
“Before we thought we could only be from one place, now we know we can be from both places.” – Alejo and Priscilla
Cynthia introduced the final art-making activity of the day with a presentation to give participants ideas for their portraits of visibility, sharing extraordinary photographs involving mirrors, double images, and repeated shapes. As the day drew to a close, we broke up into small groups of three to head out onto Habla’s grounds to shoot two different photographs of ourselves with our partners’ help.. Our goal was to reveal two different aspects of who we are, using our cell phone cameras to capture the images.
As the institute proceeded, the facilitators presented more and more inspiring challenges, while giving fewer and fewer directions. Once a sense of community had been developed, the participants increasingly learned from each other, discovering new capacities as writers, as artists, and as collaborators.
Double Portrait Assignment
IQ: insight/question – descubrimiento/pregunta
Patricia reminded us that while the notebooks are ours, we can also open up a space to share what we are writing. Some quotes from today’s reflection:
“I realized displaying things on a laundry line is perfect and now I need one in every aspect of my life.” – Lindsay
“I want to take the silence and its language to my classrooms.” – Lee
“I love to see the drawings and the cuttings and the doodles on your reflections because it reminds me so much of children and is so important in learning and reflecting.” – Marimar
“I love the idea of ‘reseeing’ because the students can take the opportunity to resee their lives and their teachers.” – Sophia
“The idea of reseeing invites us to critique how we see things.” – Chantell
“I’m feeling incredibly grateful to the room this morning with my kids tired and falling all over each other and I wasn’t sure I would be rooted today, but I arrived, found my table, found my place, and felt like I was on a raft. The words just starting spilling out onto my paper.”- Sarah