Locomotion Question Response Example for Socratic Seminar

This is how we will answer response questions in our class.  Please use this as a mentor text to indicate structure, grammatical choices, cited evidence, and overall quality content.  This is how you will be assessed for understanding of text and your personal connections to the themes and characters.

Locomotion – Socratic Seminar Questions and Responses w/Evidence

#3. 

It is important for everyone to have a mentor to guide us in a good direction as we make our way through our everyday experience.  Whether it is a parent, teacher, coach, or friend we all need encouragement and.  Lonnie’s story is no different.  Ms.  Marcus gives Lonnie hope.  For instance, in the piece “Describe Somebody” (Pages 22-23), Lonnie states, “When she smiles it makes you feel all good inside.” Ms. Marcus radiates good energy in a time when Lonnie is unstable.  The classroom is the only place that is consistent and he feels comfort.

            Ms. Marcus does deserve the Teacher of the Year Award because she has the ability to engage her students. She makes the assignments relatable. In the piece, “Hip Hop Rules the World” (Page 70) she proclaims, “Of course rap is poetry” when explaining good writing to Lamont.  At first trepid to engage in the process, Ms. Marcus involves Lamont by meeting him where he feels comfortable and the material is easier to understand.  Good teachers have techniques to involve their students and they are able to create a healthy and trustworth­­y learning environment.  Ms. Marcus displays all of these traits and that is why she is important to Lonnie and his classmates.

#7

            Being able to understand another person’s pain and plight takes the ability to listen and empathize. Throughout the book we meet many characters in Lonnie’s life who are also going through struggles of their own.  As readers we are confronted with multiple tragedies and we are asked to compartmentalize the tussles of these broken characters. Lonnie – no doubt – is struggling to come to terms with the death of his parents, the separation from his sis­ter, and a future without answers. 

His classmate Eric –we come to find out – is struggling with his own turmoil – battling Sickle Cell disease.  This new information that has come to light – actually allows us to see Eric in an entirely different light.  He is no longer the tough guy, no longer the abrasive classmate, not just a secretive singing angel – because his situation and diagnosis takes us (as well as his classmates and teacher) by surprise and acts as a catalyst to explain that maybe we all project hurt and anger when we ourselves our feeling or dealing or trying to make sense of our complicated emotions. In the piece, “Eric Poem” (Pages 63-66) Lonnie says (after hearing the news) “I take a deep breath and put my head down on my desk.  I try not to think of Eric’s angel voice singing in the church. I try not to think of us shooting hoops together.” Lonnie is sad when reminiscing Eric’s positive traits – Eric is very real and human in that moment – he is affected by unforeseen trouble – just like many of us do and will.

This new information is hard for anyone to understand – let alone a classroom full of children who have to continuously discuss death and hardships. When Eric does return to the classroom after his absence, Lonnie notices that he seems different. “First Day of School” (Pages 91-92) seems to illustrate this – “what happened to the other Eric” Lonnie questions.  He doesn’t want to play basketball, he sits by himself, and Lonnie notices “it’s like the first day of school and he’s the new boy”. And we all know how “new boys” are treated. Lonnie closes the poem by stating, Eric “knows some things we’ll never see” – noting that we can never truly know the troubles that even our closest friends may be going through. And that withdrawal may be very typical behavior – so we must be understanding of this as well.

We are not supposed to pick one of these tragic stories over the other – we are to empathize that both boys are experiencing adult sized trauma.  We want the best for both of them.  Author Jacqueline Woodson has an amazing ability – through the voice of Lonnie – to create these scenarios of empathy and real life tragedies.