I was reminded of teaching the Wallace Stevens poem when Andrew said he’d been thinking about the difference between what it means to memorize the multiplication table and what it means to know the multiplication table. Today’s meeting was led by Andrew Sanfratello, who is a Mathematics Curriculum & Instructional Specialist for the CUNY LINCT College Transition Program. “He stopped to pay attention to something so maybe we will too.”.“We don’t pay attention to these things and he wants us to focus.”.“If you look at the bird you will find all the different things it does, but you have to look closely.”.“Thirteen ways to understand the bird is better than one… but you have to take time to see the bird.”. Then I asked them, “What about the first part? What does that mean Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird?”And they said things like: They had all kinds of ideas about looking at blackbirds. Before I gave out the poem I put the title on the board and asked students what they thought the poem was going to be about. I once taught a poem by Wallace Stevens called “ Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” to a class of adult literacy students.
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