5 1 1 learning from ms liang

Make a chart like the one below and list what you now know about Emily Dickinson and what more you want to know?. Liang, would you have felt comfortable telling the class that you had o

Suggested levels for Guided Reading, DRA, ™

Lexile, ® and Reading Recovery ™ are provided

in the Pearson Scott Foresman Leveling Guide.

Scott Foresman Reading Street 5.1.1

ISBN 0-328-13503-8 ì<(sk$m)=bdfadf< +^-Ä-U-Ä-U

by Juna Loch

Ms Liang

illustrated by K E Lewis

Skills and Strategy

Realistic

fi ction

• Character and Plot

• Author’s Purpose

• Prior Knowledge

Suggested levels for Guided Reading, DRA, ™

Lexile, ® and Reading Recovery ™ are provided

in the Pearson Scott Foresman Leveling Guide.

Scott Foresman Reading Street 5.1.1

ISBN 0-328-13503-8 ì<(sk$m)=bdfadf< +^-Ä-U-Ä-U

by Juna Loch

Ms Liang

illustrated by K E Lewis

Skills and Strategy

Realistic

fi ction

• Character and Plot

• Author’s Purpose

• Prior Knowledge

Reader Response

1 How did the narrator change in a way that made her able

to think about her classmates differently?

2 What did you know about Emily Dickinson before reading

this story? What did you learn as you read? What more would you still like to know about her? Make a chart like the one below and list what you now know about Emily Dickinson and what more you want to know.

expanded, guaranteed, and worshipped—are verbs that

have been changed to end in -ed What are the base words

of these verbs? Use two of them in sentences.

4 If you were Ms Liang, would you have felt comfortable

telling the class that you had once felt like a “nobody”?

Why or why not?

What We Know What We Want to Know

Editorial Offices: Glenview, Illinois • Parsippany, New Jersey • New York, New York Sales Offices: Needham, Massachusetts • Duluth, Georgia • Glenview, Illinois

Coppell, Texas • Ontario, California • Mesa, Arizona

by Juna Loch

Learning from

Ms Liang

illustrated by K E Lewis

Every effort has been made to secure permission and provide appropriate credit for

photographic material The publisher deeply regrets any omission and pledges to

correct errors called to its attention in subsequent editions.

Unless otherwise acknowledged, all photographs are the property of Scott Foresman,

a division of Pearson Education.

Illustrations by K.E Lewis

Photograph 24 Library of Congress

ISBN: 0-328-13503-8

Copyright © Pearson Education, Inc

All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America This publication is

protected by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher

prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission

in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or

likewise For information regarding permission(s), write to: Permissions Department,

Scott Foresman, 1900 East Lake Avenue, Glenview, Illinois 60025.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 V0G1 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05

3

On Tuesday, we found out that we were getting a new teacher The rumor was that our old teacher, Mr

Williams, had gotten sick

Our new teacher was supposed to start Wednesday

Wednesday arrived, but the new teacher was late We didn’t mind The whole class was sitting around and talking excitedly about the upcoming fifth-grade chorus concert The girls were getting new dresses The boys were going to wear suits

Everyone was talking about it, except Lisa Linney

She just sat at her desk, her long hair hiding her face

Everyone knew that she didn’t have enough money to buy a new dress We would often talk about Lisa in front

of her People didn’t try to be mean It was just that

it was easy to forget she was there In a way, Lisa was invisible

The new teacher finally walked in She wasn’t all that

remarkable looking, and her clothes were kind of plain

But as soon as she came in everyone stopped talking

With just a glance around the room she made you want

to pay attention Even the noisy kids who sat in the back

fell silent as she walked up to the blackboard

What’s the first thing a new teacher does? She takes

attendance, or writes her name on the board, right? But

this new teacher didn’t do that Instead, she picked up

the chalk and wrote out a poem

I’m nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!

They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

5

“Good morning, class My name is Ms Liang,” the new teacher said She picked up a copy of the book we were reading “Can someone tell me where you stopped last?”

I looked around the classroom, wondering who was going to answer Then A.J., who always liked to challenge teachers, asked, “Aren’t you supposed to learn our names before you make us work?”

Ms Liang answered, “I’m sure we’ll get plenty acquainted as time goes by And, as a way of getting

to know my students, I’ve always preferred reading together instead of just going around memorizing names But since you were nice enough to speak up, maybe you could start reading out loud from where you left off?”

A.J muttered, “I knew this would happen,” and began reading

Ms Liang stopped him after only a couple of sentences “No, no,” she said “Not like that You’ve got

to place yourself in the story You’ve got to make it come alive for you and everyone else Read as if you’re telling

your story.”

A.J looked puzzled “What do you mean, my story?”

“What I mean is, read as if the book were about you

Read as if you knew everyone wanted to hear the story

of your life Imagine that you would burst if you couldn’t

share your story with the class.”

None of us had any idea what she was talking about

Then, just out of curiosity, I looked over at Lisa It looked

like she knew exactly what Ms Liang was talking about

“It is essential to read with feeling,” Ms Liang went

on “If you read with feeling, it’s guaranteed to be more

interesting to the people who are listening And it will be

more interesting to you.”

7

“Why?” my friend Mary Alice asked

“Because it’s a scientific fact that your face affects your emotions,” Ms Liang answered

“What’s that supposed to mean?” A.J suddenly blurted out I could tell that he was annoyed because Ms

Liang hadn’t gone over our names

Ms Liang explained, “Scientists have discovered that facial expressions influence people’s emotions When you make an angry face, your brain floods your body with chemicals that actually make you feel angry So if

you read with feeling, you will have a better chance of experiencing the characters’ own feelings Does that make better sense?”

Ms Liang then called on Lisa to continue reading

As soon as Lisa began reading, I thought, she’s acquainted with these feelings for sure But, as well as

she read, her quietness made it difficult to understand her Ms Liang stopped her when she saw that people were having a hard time hearing her

“What’s your name?” Ms Liang asked

“Lisa Linney,” was the mumbled reply

“All right, Lisa,” said Ms Liang “I want you to keep reading as you’ve been doing, with all that great feeling

But this time, read a little louder.”

Lisa resumed her reading Her words were full of

feeling Still, she wasn’t loud enough I realized that Lisa’s

quietness made people forget about her more easily

While Lisa read, Ms Liang stood by her desk, listening

carefully Lisa blushed in reaction to Ms Liang’s close

presence

After a while, Ms Liang stopped Lisa Turning to face

the class, she asked, “Did you get that? The character Lisa

was reading about said, ‘You never understand someone

until you walk around in their skin.’ What did that

character mean?”

9

It’s funny If Mr Williams had said the words “walk around in their skin,” someone would have said “Eeew, that’s gross,” or made a joke But everyone was quiet We could tell how much Ms Liang cared about her teaching, and nobody wanted to make trouble

We talked about the meaning of those words for a couple of minutes Then Ms Liang told us to take out a piece of paper

“Here’s your assignment,” she said “You’re going to find this difficult, but it’s important that you understand this concept I want you to write down what people would understand about you if they could walk around

in your skin.”

“What do you mean?” asked A.J

“I’m sure there’s been a time you’ve felt

misunderstood,” Ms Liang explained “So here’s the

question Would the rest of the world understand you

better if they knew what it was like to be you? That’s

what I mean Does that make sense?”

The class nodded together

“Good!” Ms Liang said “Then go ahead and start

writing Oh, and make sure not to sign your names.”

I took out my paper and stared at it Then I looked

up at the poem on the chalkboard I didn’t know what

to write What didn’t people know about me? I thought

Everyone knows everything there is to know I’m me I’m

popular I do okay I have a reputation for nice clothes

What else would anyone need to know?

11

Lisa was sitting in the desk to the right of me, writing quickly I tried to peek at what she had written, but

it was difficult She had her whole body shielding the paper, as if her words were top secret

A few minutes went by Still, I couldn’t find anything to write about Then I heard A.J in the back, making some mean remark about Lisa It made me think about the times he’s said mean things to me Then I thought about the time Katie Lee Clinton and her friends had stopped talking and laughed when I came into the classroom That had definitely made me feel like a nobody

I looked back up at the words on the chalkboard:

I’m nobody! Who are you? No doubt, I felt like that

sometimes There were many times when I felt like my class was filled with people who had no idea who I was Usually that feeling disappeared after a couple of moments But still, I knew what it was like

My thoughts inspired me to start writing “I know that,

at times, I’ve felt like the person talking in the poem Does

anyone else feel that way? Do other people in the class

ever feel like they’ve been forgotten?” I wrote

I wrote about how those feelings were worst on days

when I felt sad Everyone’s had those days They’re the

days when your mother yells at you before school, or

your best friend says something really mean They’re the

days when you do poorly on a test Like I said, everyone’s

had those days

I wrote, “If people really knew me, if people

could walk around in my skin and feel lonely like I

do sometimes, they wouldn’t say I was stuck up or

standoffish One day, Katie Lee Clinton told me that I was

both of those two things It made me feel like a nobody.”

13

After we wrote for ten minutes, Ms Liang collected our papers A.J had questions as usual

“What’s the deal with that poem?” he asked “And why didn’t you want us to sign our names?”

“I just thought you might find the poem interesting,”

Ms Liang told him “As for not signing your name, I use procedures like that to protect students’ feelings Some

of the students might have felt embarrassed if I knew who had written what.”

The rest of the day went by slowly Ms Liang went over our math and science homework Finally, the bell rang for us to go home As I walked out of class, an incredible thought occurred to me: We had shared more with Ms Liang in one day than we had with Mr Williams

in a whole year!

The next day the poem was back on the chalkboard I

knew it wasn’t left over from the day before, because this

time it was written in a different color chalk

“Why do you keep writing that poem on the board?”

A.J asked Ms Liang

Ms Liang answered, “As I told you yesterday, I find it

interesting.” She continued, “Now take out your assigned

reading, please Did everyone finish chapter five?”

I raised my hand “This isn’t about chapter five, but …

did you read what we wrote yesterday?” I asked

Ms Liang laid down her book

“I did,” she answered

“And what did you think?” I was incredibly curious

15

After a long pause, Ms Liang answered, “What you wrote tells me that you all have a lot to learn about each other It tells me that there are a lot of people in this class who feel like their classmates don’t understand them at all It’s important that you learn more about how your classmates feel Once you do, you’ll find that you’ll be treating each other better.”

“What do you mean?” Mary Alice asked defensively

“Are you saying that we’re mean? Are you saying that we don’t treat each other well enough in the first place?”

Ms Liang smiled “I’m saying that all of us are mean sometimes, without even realizing it.”

Mary Alice made a face “You think that if we really knew each other, we would like each other more? I know

a lot of people I don’t like them any better than other people just because I know them.”

“You might not like the person better,” Ms Liang

answered, “but you might dislike the person less

Understanding people does not excuse whatever poor

actions they may take But the more you understand

them, the more you might appreciate why they do what

they do It might even make you see things from their

point of view, as if you were in their skin.”

Ms Liang then told us our homework assignment for

that night This time, she wanted us to sign our names

because she was going to grade what we wrote She

wanted us to write a paragraph about trying to get inside

the skin of someone we didn’t like To protect people’s

feelings, she didn’t want us to use anyone’s real name

17

I had a hard time with the assignment I wanted to write about A.J because he’d been mean to me But I had no idea why he’d been mean, so I couldn’t get inside his skin, like Ms Liang wanted us to Then I remembered the time when I had been mean to someone, like A.J had

been mean to me

Mary Alice and I had been standing in the school hallway We had been talking about Lisa’s clothes and laughing at them Right then, Lisa came around the corner She had heard everything we said It was awful

Lisa turned pale, and ran away

Mary Alice and I just kept laughing I don’t know why

I laughed at Lisa’s clothes I don’t know why I didn’t say anything to try to make her feel better so she wouldn’t have run away The memory of that time made me feel so bad that I couldn’t make myself write anything

The next day, everyone was talking about the

fifth-grade chorus concert again Like last time, the girls were

talking about the fancy dresses their mothers were going

to buy for them Of course, Lisa wasn’t part of those

conversations But I noticed that she had stopped hiding

and pretending she wasn’t there Instead, she was sitting

up straight, with her homework on her desk, waiting for

Ms Liang to arrive

I was waiting too I wanted Ms Liang to come in and

tell us what the poem meant When she came in, I asked

“It’s a poem by Emily Dickinson,” she answered

“But what is it? I mean, what does it mean?”

Ms Liang thought for a minute before answering

“Well, what do you think it means?” she finally asked us

19

Nobody answered at first

“Well,” she prompted, “which would you rather be—a somebody or a nobody?”

A somebody, we all said “Who wants to be a nobody?” A.J added

“Of course,” said Ms Liang “But how does the poet talk about somebodies?”

That was when Lisa raised her hand In the past she had always been too shy, but now her hand was high in the air

“The poem says that somebodies are like frogs,” she said “Frogs that sit around all day doing nothing but boasting.”

“Is she really talking about frogs?” Ms Liang asked

“No,” Lisa continued “She means that people who are full of themselves are as silly as frogs Their talk is just like ribbeting Because of that, Emily Dickinson is proud

to be a nobody.”