Sample_lit_lesson

The idea of craft

Introduction
After the orientation of tools and the worksite for about 2 days, we wanted the students to understand the idea of craft. We wanted the students to recognize and appreciate the difference between using tools to build and how to use tools in a way that helps one create a better product.

Essential Question – How does the idea of craft help you create and build a better product?

Learning Objectives
Students will be able to:

• Understand and develop an appreciation for the idea of craft using literature and hands on training and practice with tools
• Identify and discuss uses of imagery and figurative language in a piece of nonfiction

New York State Standards for the English Language Arts
Students will:
• Read a piece of nonfiction text
• Apply strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts
• Present responses to and interpretations of the text drawing on their personal experiences and knowledge
• Make perceptive and well-developed connections to prior knowledge
• Apply knowledge of literary elements to create, critique, and discuss text
• Participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a learning group

Materials needed
• Excerpt of Mind Over Water by Craig Lambert
• Tools (saw, hammer, shovel, drill, etc)
• Wood, dirt

The Lesson
I. Read through the excerpt from Mind Over Water – ask the students to underline any passage or phrase that they liked or struck them in some way.

An Excerpt from Mind Over Water by Craig Lambert
“This evening I sit in the center of the boat, in the #5 seat. We are easing comfortably into our warm-up. The ritual evokes a meditative state. Deep breaths infuse oxygen into my blood, then blood into tissues, awakening muscles and memories. It is always thus. The first hundred strokes stretch limbs out, loosening tendons and connecting me with other times on the river. To starboard, another eight paddles downstream…

…On the water, though, it is ultimately the stroke who is in charge. When in doubt, we follow the stroke's blade, not the cox's voice. If the cox orders the rate up two, but the stroke stands pat, the rate will not go up. While the coxswain's power is de jure, the stroke rules de facto. Luckily, strokes rarely overrule their steersmen. Stroke and cox are the only two crew members who face each other, and they had better see eye to eye. Should they disagree often, the boat is in trouble. Tonight, happily, it feels like stroke, cox, and the rest of the crew are on the same wavelength.

Something happens as we emerge from the River Street Bridge and come up on the red brick powerhouse. The boat suddenly gets quiet; we hear only eight oars grabbing the water together, finishing as one. Some energy flow grips us like a river current, synchronizing our motion; we row as one body. Thinking disappears, leaving behind only presence and rhythm; yes, presence and rhythm are rowing this boat, using us for oars.

The boat is perfectly level. Set up beautifully, we skim the surface on an invisible laser beam running from horizon to horizon. There is no friction; we ride the natural cadence of our strokes, a continuous cycle. The crew breathes as one. Inhale on the recovery, exhale as we drive our blades through the water: inspiration and expression. In. Out. Row with one body and so with one mind. Nothing exists but: Here. Now. This. Rushing water bubbles under our hull, as if a mountain brook buried within the Charles flows directly beneath us. I have never heard this sound before, but I know that it means we are doing something right.

The coach calls the end of our three-minute piece and we gradually come out of the trance. Back on earth, I recall that we were racing, and wonder what happened to the other boat, which is nowhere in sight. Then I see them, a hundred yards downstream, a good five boat lengths behind us. We must have horizoned them.”

II. Share lines and discuss the author’s description of the sport of rowing:
- How does the author relate the experience of rowing as more than just a physical sport?

III. Ask the students to define the word “craft”.

Definition: skill in doing or making something; an occupation or trade requiring manual dexterity or skilled artistry; to make by hand; to make or construct (something) in a manner suggesting great care or ingenuity

Identify and discuss what parts of the passage show examples of craft.

IV. Now ask the students to connect the ideas of craft from the excerpt to the craft of using tools and building things from the week.
- Has there been any moment where you became aware of how a saw or a drill worked better or worse in your hands?
- What did you do to change the way the tool was working in your hands?
- Was there a point where “thinking disappeared” and you only felt “presence and rhythm”?

V. Lastly, the students break into groups that each focus on the use of a particular tool (handsaw, drill, hammer, shovel, etc) and encourage them to think about the idea of craft.