Summer Special Memoir vol.2

Donkey Bakery

Wednesday is an unusual day of the week because nobody in my private preschool is supposed to bring their lunch.  On some Wednesdays, we have to go home before lunch time.  On other Wednesdays, a teacher opens the little bakery in the office foyer to sell us some bread.  On these Wednesdays, a little truck rolls in through our school gate and unloads pastries into the building.  I only wish it could be my favorite Donkey Bakery.  If it were the Donkey Bakery, a real donkey would haul its trailer full of pastries through the narrow isle between the classroom buildings and the common temple hall building, while the catchy Donkey Bakery Theme song followed it. This song reminds me of Ferde Grofé’s On the Trail, of course, with the sight of the enormous Grand Canyon’s sunset.  With this tune, your mind will travel to the donkey’s back, holding the reign, swaying your upper body, and bumping your bottom while traveling on a rocky surface.  Sometimes the donkey lazily neighs. This somewhat idiotic and humorous music movement fits extraordinarily well in the gorgeous symphony, the Grand Canyon Suite.  The Donkey Bakery Theme song sounds just like the On the Trail music that instantly takes me to a dream land that I have never been to, aside from dreams. 

One day, I heard this song at Mitch’s house across from our house.  My heart began racing.  Agitation!  It allured the 3-year-old’s genuine temptation.  I happily inhaled the irresistible aroma that came along with the silly donkey melody.  Just visualizing my favorite Sweet ‘n Soft Steamed Bread filled my mouth with water.  All five of my senses were stimulated by the Donkey Bakery.  I had to get permission and money from my mother, so I could get something!  My mother’s regular bet is Mighty Hard Bread that is sweet but almost breaks your teeth.  If you don’t want to chip your teeth, you have to suck it for a long time so that it gets soft enough to chew.  Usually, my mother is not going to buy a Sweet ‘n Soft because it doesn’t last long enough to entertain a short tempered preschooler.  Mighty Hard Bread is my mother’s best friend; it is a long time period baby sitter. But I beg every time anyway, “Will you get me a Sweet ‘n Soft Bread?” 

“Mitch, I must go.  Good Bye!”  Slamming open Mitch’s door, I slipped my shoes on for the perfect run across the busy Main Street.   My old neighborhood had been a crowded and busy town with the commercial and industrial merchants.  Many small business owners and their descendants had developed and passed on their businesses over the years underneath the Japanese Castle during the Samurai era. In addition to the business buildings, people, bicycles, motor cycles, and cars were all sharing Main Street.  Were some things in my way?  I didn’t care.  My focus was just on where I would dash to.  I would have taken about 5 seconds to get home.  I darted toward my house like a bull.  But, in the middle of the street, something tripped my feet and hoisted my little body in the air for a second.  Then my little body fell on the hard concrete ground, flat on my tummy, just before I enjoyed a flying sensation.  Thud!  “Ahhhhhh!”  I’d just run through a donkey’s feet!  I froze on the ground like a dead frog by the donkey that was ignoring and passing by me.  There was a filthy looking canvas bag under the rider’s seat where the donkey’s droppings directly fall into.  What an amazing idea, this canvas sack’s spot was!  My eyes caught the huge amount of Donkey’s brown baseball-like dung.  The double shock of falling down and witnessing a poop sack paralyzed my entire body as well as my mental functionality for a long time on the hard ground.  By the time I finally stood up by myself, the Donkey Bakery’s theme song was far away from where I was.  The thoughtful wind carried almost echo-like music to a miserable child.  In the distance, the trailer became a tiny dot which became smeared in my wet eyes. 

Heartbreakingly, I dragged my feet home.  “What happened to your dress?  Oh, no, your knee is bleeding.  Did you fall?  What happened?”  Holding my baby sister in one arm, Mother looked terrified.  She washed my bloody knee.  “Here, why don’t you eat your snack,” she comforted me.  On my hand, a piece of Mighty Hard Bread left over from last week sneered at me, “He, he, he….  Eat me!  I am your destiny.”  Madly I started biting it.  It wouldn’t budge.  Then I realized I had to give up before my teeth broke; I had to suck it just as usual.  It was my typical snack time.  I often fought, but most of the time, I withdrew, then ended up obnoxiously sitting in front of the TV in the house where my family and Grandma Fumi lived.

Summer Special Memoir vol.1

Prologue

My mother’s eye lids gradually lift up like the rising sun. With her favorite classical music tone coming from the FM radio, the chilly early morning air is welcomed through her nostrils.  Quickly but quietly, she folds her futon cover and mattresses lying by her husband’s into thirds.  She swiftly hoists the futon pile up to put it away in the closet with sliding doors.  The space on the tatami mat (the straw woven floor) where her futon used to occupy upholds the warmth that she left.  Everybody else in the family is still sound asleep.  Her footsteps in the hallway don’t seem to bother anybody.  In the quiet kitchen, even before she washes her face, her daily routine begins.  She never wonders why she is the only one to stay busy starting from the early morning until the end of the day.  Her fingertips are always looking for something to do with her family.  Napoleon didn’t have the word “Impossible” in his dictionary; my mother doesn’t have the word “sacrifice” in hers.  None of her duties burden her.  All chores are done one by one with a tempo that she has established over the years.  By the time the kettle lid starts dancing with boiling water, the washing machine is getting even louder in the laundry room.  When the sizzling sounds from the little rectangular skillet pan on the stove joins the morning symphony, it means my mother is diligently preparing my lunch.  Every day, except for Wednesdays, my mother fixes my lunch as a part of the melody in the morning symphony

My lunch box is a colorful, mini full course dinner condensed into one little box.  Plain white rice or fist sized rice balls with seaweed sit on one side of the rectangle box.  Sometimes a sour plum proudly places itself in the middle of the plain white rice.  It looks just like a Japanese flag.  The sour plums are known to protect from spoiling food.  Because of this reason, I find a red sour plum inside of my rice balls.  I don’t like the flag lunch box or rice balls with sour plum inside because I feel old fashioned.  My classmates have cute tiny rice balls with colorfully sprinkled sweetened sesame seeds on them.  I ask my mother, “Can you make smaller rice balls?”  She replies, “Only if my hands were as tiny as yours.”  More than half of my lunch box is filled with three (jumbo!) Mother’s fist sized rice balls.  I never have four rice balls or four of any item, because “four” in Japanese language sounds the same as “death”.  Holding four items will give you bad luck.  In fact, there is no room number four in any Japanese hospital.  No patient wants to stay in room number four.  My mother picks up a couple of little octopus shaped wiener sausages to give the box some color along with the yellow, brick-like omelet and Teriyaki sautéed green beans.  Dessert is a slice of apple with its skin carved like bunny ears.  My mother imagines every color as a music note.  She looks satisfied in front of her creative culinary art that creates a complete symphony.  Steam still rises from the tin lunch box, just like music coming from a music box.  My lunch box is my mother’s proudest musical and visual art creation of the day, except for Wednesdays.

Let Kids Talk

Under the Speaking and Listening of the ELA Common Core State Standards, first bullet introduces the Comprehension and Collaboration.  It states; Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and

texts,building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.  This is what I have experienced in the last novel study with my 5th grade struggling readers.  

A group of students who I have worked with as a small group or one-one-one was ELL (English Language Learners).  Although by the fifth grade, most of ELL students are confident and comfortable in the informal conversation, their English literacy skills are not necessarily at the grade level including students who are troubled in decoding.  For example, most of ELL students' reading fluency doesn't reflect on their comprehension level or knowledge of academic vocabulary words.  This population of students successfully mastered phonemic awareness and phonics skills to be able to able to learn, at a stage of "Learn to Read".  Transition from there to the next level, "Read to Learn" is a bit of challenge.    It is devastating to learn the fact they don't understand what they read after such a beautiful oral reading.  Why are these kids at their plateau for a long time?  My answer was their lack of speaking experiences.  

Scaffolding.  I decided to have one-on-one or small groups to have scaffolding sessions while other students were independently reading.    Rebecca Alber suggests some effective scaffolding strategies in her article, Six Scaffolding Strategies to Use with Your Students.  In the beginning of the school year, I was hoping six ELL learners, who were all quiet in the class, would benefit from the diverse level of large group discussion because of my previous experiences.  There are some students who just listen, observe others, and internalize.  This year's kids were not like that.  Finally I admitted that group reading/discussions were not effective, although it was grouped by their reading level. I started to pull one ELL student at a time to read with them and checked for their understanding in the short segment of the book while everyone in the class had a same book that requires 5th grade or above reading level.  Six ELL students reading level varied from 1st grade to 4th grade in the STAR reading test. 

  

When My Name Was Keoko was a rich discussion material if you comprehend fully.  Prior to the whole class introduction, I pulled Maria (1st grade reading level) and Sal (both and future student's names are not real names) for the head start, they looked confused in the Korean language/culture and the history of the World War II.  We looked at the glossary page to learn major Korean words that continue to be important, such as Opah (brother from a little sister) and Abji (father).  We exchanged same words in Spanish and Japanese and celebrated our diversity.  Maria became confident enough to share her knowledge in a whole class.  The para educator Pam and I continued reading ahead two chapters each day with ELL students.  The best part was that they share their life connections to the text.  The conversation became very lively.  The family traditions are different, however, the family value was similar between Koreans and ELL students.

Although we had a good start and it seemed like a good discussion in each meeting, their responses were as exciting as I expected.  I noticed several misunderstandings each day, therefore more scaffolding comments and questions on the sheet, hoping they read my comments when it's returned to them.  Do they enjoy the discussion?  Do they enjoy understanding the text?  The novel study was almost done....

About the point of three quarters of the story, Jose asked me, "Can I take this book home?"  

During this school year, Jose has not read books or done his homework consistently at home.  In the meantime, Sean overheard Jose and said, "Can I, too?"  "I really want to know what happens next!"  Towards the end of the book, Jose kept grabbing me when I passed his seat, "I want to tell you about this story," begged me to stop by.  Without any support, he was independently reading and comprehending correctly.  

After we wrapped up the whole story, I showed the trailer in youtube to the class and asked to evaluate if the director did a good job on reflecting story elements from the book.  To my disappointment, the majority students who are at the grade level or above responded very sarcastically.   Well, it's spring time, 5th graders.....  Most ELL students did OK, however, comparing and analyzing are still challenging skills, especially, in writing.  Then Maria's. paper.  "The director did a great job quoting, 'You can burn the paper, but you cannot burn the words.'"  My jaw dropped.  This was the only student described the quote.  

The independent reading level is important, however, we shouldn't underestimate their maturity.  Depending on how we guide, ELL students or any struggling readers can be successful. 

c. Pose and respond to specific questions by making comments that contribute to the discussion and elaborate on the remarks of others.

d. Review the key ideas expressed and draw conclusions in light of information and knowledge gained from the discussions.

 (CCSS-ELA Speaking and Listening)