Reading Rainbow

We started a book in language arts at the end of October, and we’ve been deconstructing some interesting pieces of it. I made the students highlight every color word on copies of the first four chapters (red, green, turquoise, etc.), and we’ve been keeping track of the sensory details the author uses to describe the setting. The students have come up with some interesting insights, and I always like it when they draw conclusions that I haven’t heard before. We tracked all of the scent and sound words in one chapter and then made a chart for each of them, and the students noticed immediately that there were far more sound words than scent words. I asked them why they thought that was, and they decided it was because of the setting. The book is set in the Cholistan desert of Pakistan, close to India, and the setting details make it clear that this truly is life in the harsh desert. So when we got to the scent and sound words, the kids concluded that the author was being real with people about the setting since the desert is a harsh environment in which the wind would probably blow away most of the scents that we’re used to. They pointed out that sand doesn’t really smell and might absorb other smells, but that the desert could still be full of sounds that would carry – blowing sand on sand, people shuffling their feet in the sand, camel sounds, etc. I don’t know how scientifically accurate we were being, but I LOVED how deeply they were thinking about this.

We also used the color words on a mood chart. The students kept track of how many color words were used on a given page, and we recorded them on a poster chart. (If you’re not familiar with poster chart paper, then you are either not a teacher or not an Office Depot junkie. I am both, and, as such, I use poster charts profusely.) Then I hid the chart for a day so that they’d sort of forget about it – which, of course, they did (because who needs to remember what colors are used in a school book when there is middle school gossip to listen to?). Then we assigned mood words to each page in that chapter. The students chose the mood words themselves, and they did a good job with it. (No surprise there… Who better to interpret moods than a bunch of moody adolescents?) Then we made another poster chart for the mood words. Finally, I pulled out the color chart and put the two charts side by side. The students themselves immediately noticed the trend – the author uses lots of colors when the mood is positive, but drops all the color words when the mood turns negative.

The high school English teacher in me (which is what I was in my former, non-middle-school life) loved these conversations and the in-depth literature analysis. I adore literature analysis! I’m not sure the students adore it, but they tolerated it well enough. And I heard them joking about the color of their moods in the hallway later that day. One girl actually turned around to another and said, “I feel rainbow today.” And the boy at the locker next to her replied, “Oh, lots of colors means you’re happy.” (Okay, I know we need to talk about how literature is not necessarily reality, but at least they’re paying attention!)