Words: A Love Story

When I was a child, I fell in love with words.  I sat with them deep into the night under the glow of a flashlight or, in December, the flood of icicle lights pouring through my curtains.  I whispered them, slowly, hungrily, rolling their sounds.  I tested them, using my voice to give them life.

In turn, words awakened my writing.

Noden suggests that if we provide the instrument, then we will hear the music in the words.  I used to read out loud to myself (and sometimes still do) because the cadences of the words are enchanting.  My mom is usually my victim; I'll run over to her: "Mom!  Mom!  Listen to this!  This is just incredible!" and then proceed to read whatever passage so moved me.

Our Noden reading provides numerous strategies to encourage students to both recognize and emulate music in words.  Again, he uses comparative model texts.  I appreciate the way he presents a mentor text and then strips it of its music in order to demonstrate the power of its rhythm.  Comparing the altered text to the original text makes the rhythms more prominent.

Noden further addresses sentence length with a very clever passage that begins: "This sentence has five words" (67).  I really want to use this passage in my further classroom!  While editing, I have often encountered short, simple, repetitive sentences that can easily be transformed into something more sophisticated and harmonious.

Teaching the patterns of rhythmic writing before the labels is less intimidating to the writer.  It empowers them by saying: "Look at this.  This is how this is achieved.  You can do this."  Noden - and Anderson, too - have students imitate mentor texts in order to practice these rhythms.  They both advocate that if students are immersed in this music, then they will start to sing along.

Anyway, that's how it worked for me.