A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

I have a student who's name is Charlie R. Charlie R. is a low-performing student. I noticed right away that he wasn't doing his nightly homework, so I sent an email to Charlie R.'s parents. No response. And Charlie R. still wouldn't do much work let alone homework. I emailed his last year teacher: Did Charlie R. have a problem doing his homework? What are the parents like? The response was that Charlie R. never did work, and that the parents never returned phone calls or emails, nor did they attend conferences. So, Charlie R. has parents who don't give a fig about school, then so why should Charlie? Obviously, Charlie is set up to fail from the start. But Charlie loves to draw. He is not especially talented. But he loves color, and whatever he draws, he works on for days adding to the picture until the whole space is colored. I think to myself that this is how I'm going to connect with him. Charlie R. goes to speech, thereby putting him into the Special Ed category, and if I can help him to show improvement, that will not only be good for him, but good for our school, which isn't doing well in the special ed category according to the state. The first clue I had that Charlie R. was going to buy into whatever I wanted him to do was during a lesson that I don't even remember the topic. It could have been math. It could have been writing. I don't remember. But I asked if there were any more questions, and Charlie R.s hand went up. I called on him. "You're really funny!" he said. I told him that good, maybe then he'd listen and learn something, and moved on. The next day I did a lesson with the kids about character in stories. We discussed how good authors use great description to give a visual of the characters. I used as an example the book Matilda by Roald Dahl. He is the master of character description. I put up the description of Mr. Wormwood, Matilda's father. We read it together, then I let the kids draw whatever they imagined Mr. Wormwood to be. Then they shared. The kids loved looking at eachother's drawings and laughing. We did the same with Mrs. Wormwood (just as funny) and with The Trunchbull. Later that day, Charlie R. comes up to me and hands me a picture of some man. I said, "Oh, look! It looks like Mr. Wormwood without the ratty mustache!" "No," said Charlie, "it's you!" I looked closer, and sure enough, those were my purple rimmed glasses. And that was indeed my denim jacket with a pocket. He had all the detail. Now I was glad there was no mustache! I thanked him profusely and stapled it up on the wall. I have never had a boy draw a picture of me before. Girls do. Boys never. Yesterday he came over to me and gazed at his picture of me he had drawn. Then he asked where this other picture was that he had drawn me. Luckily, it was laying right there. I told him that I was running out of space, and needed to figure out where to put all the pictures I was getting. "I guess all the kids must love me," I said. "Well, I know I do!" he exclaimed. Sweet, huh? I think I will be able to get somewhere with this kid this year.