I confessed to the Hooked on Whole Books Sharing Group in September that Jacqueline Woodson's book, I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This, made me cry more than once. I've been known to cry at the end of a book, but this short novel had my tears flowing at various points. As Elizabeth Whitsey wrote in her review of the book (forthcoming in the next edition of the Change Agent), the two main characters, Maria and Lena, are "each a composite of 'sadness and steel'.... Each strives to be more than the product of skin color and social class, more than a vicitm of life's calamities."
After my first read of the novel, I invited Jacqueline Woodson to speak as part of the A.L.R.I. and Boston Public Library's Readers Talk to Writers series. Woodson is an African-American writer with several award-winning books for young adults. In her novels she stands stereotypes on their heads. In I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This, Marie's mother leaves her and her father.
Now my father was the one running every faucet so that the water gushed hard in to the bathtub and and sink to drown out his crying. I crept through the house listening, wanting to hear how people grieved when the absence they were hurting over wasn't caused by death. I wanted to learn how to grieve and how to walk through the world feeling whole when half of me had walked away (p. 25).
Woodson's books give readers a look at the inner life of real-life characters like Marie and like Melanin Sun, an adolescent boy who narrates From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun.
All adult education classes are welcome to attend Woodson's readings on January 26 (from 10-11 am at BPL and in the evening at Roxbury Community College). At each one there will be time for questions and answers and book signing. The books are $3.99 each, but the branch libraries will have class sets of ten available for borrowing. Before coming, consider using some if not all of one of Woodson's books with your class. Here are some ideas to try with I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This.
1) Look at the front cover. Two girls are on a swing. What do you notice about the picture? Ask students to speculate-Why are they on one swing? What season is it? Is it important? What does the background remind you of? Why are they swining against a background of nothing discernible (no slide, buildings, trees, nothing)? What could that mean? Which girl looks more secure? Are they equally secure? Equal in other ways? What details make you think that?
2) I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This is the title. Ask students either to free write or to talk in pairs about: "A time that you slipped up and revealed something you hadn't meant to. What happened that led you to say it even if you hadn't meant to? How did you handle it? Have you ever been told something you shouldn't have known, when you got that feeling, I didn't need to know that. How did you handle it?"
3) In the first few chapters of the book, you will learn about the place--Chauncey, Ohio--and about Marie, her mother, her father, her best friend, Sherry, and the new girl, Marie. In reading the book, you'll come to know these characters, what they look like and how they feel. To help students assimilate all the new information, give them a head start by working together on three of the characters. Read the following quotes from the book. Then walk across the room the way you think each of these characters might carry themselves. If each one were to pick a song or a piece of fruit to fit their true selves, what would it be? What would it stand for? (For example, a lemon might represent a character's cheerful outside, but sour inside. Some fruits grow around thorns, like raspberries.)
Marie's father: "He has a hundred stories about how hard it is to be black in, as he calls it, a white man's world. My father said that when he was a kid, he thought people were just people no matter what color they were. But once he grew up, he said, he started seeing things in black and white." (p. 15-16)
Sherry, Marie's friend: "Sherry is small with tiny feet and hands. Delicate. But she has a quick temper. She's pretty when she isn't angry. But when she does get mad, she isn't only unattractive, she's downright mean." (p. 17)
Marie's mother: "What is air, Mama, I asked when I was five. Caressing the back of my neck with her hand, my mother waited a moment before she answered. 'Air,' she said, 'is something there isn't enough of here.'" (p.8)
As you read, find your own quotes for Lena and Marie.
4) After reading and talking, write a list of questions you wonder about, things you might like to ask the author, for example: Did you live in a place like Chauncey? Do you think Marie should have kept Lena's secret? How come?
For more ideas on using this book (to build vocabulary and writing, for example) or one of Woodson's others, call me at 782-8956 ext. 16. You can also call me for directions or more information about the readings.
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Martha Merson is the Literacy/ABE Specialist at the A.L.R.I.