While students and teachers scurry from class to class, meeting to meeting, office to office, I move slowly, searching for where the light hits - a banister, an edge and here a corner and a sparkling floor. Seeing the sunlight glisten in this little marble corner sends me into secret glee and joy, imagining how I could paint it, capture the cornered pleasure on a flat surface. While I am sent reeling with joy, I patter towards my classroom, mulling over possibilities and painting and patching and anything else I can do to conjure the momentary joy of light as it leans into the corners of the mundane.
And this is what I found when I arrived at class - bubbly, giggly, girly and gleeful students on the last day of class, itching to leave early, just as I was itching to capture more of their energy and artistry. This is Yvonne.
And Leonard, ready for that exam, laughing along with the others, always good natured and engaged, contributed endlessly.
Charlonda, enthusiasm itself, designed a masterful review booklet for everyone; an up and coming elementary school teacher, Charlonda showed us how thorough and imaginitive she will be as a teacher. I know the other students were wishing I was as ingenious in reviewing for exams.
Hart is the one who created a reworking of the "Stackalee" poem in his video, packed with violence, male posturing and female strutting, he moved from killing his friend to his running hell, all done in contemporary terms such that students began laughing, hooting and hollering from the very start to the very end of the video.
Brittany made the "crackers" that Harriet Jacobs writes about in her narrative, and she claims she wants to try the recipe again; she promises the bisquits were quite lovely when hot, but by the time they got to the class, they had hardened and probably resembled more of what the slaves made.
And now we get down to the business of preparing for the exam and presenting the papers on research and on reviews. Here Latia sits with Nazeer to her right, then Andrew and to the far left, Jasmine; she and Nazeer performed the rap contest where Nazeer was Stackolee and Jasmine was a convincing Philis Wheatley. 
And this is what I found when I arrived at class - bubbly, giggly, girly and gleeful students on the last day of class, itching to leave early, just as I was itching to capture more of their energy and artistry. This is Yvonne. And Leonard, ready for that exam, laughing along with the others, always good natured and engaged, contributed endlessly. Charlonda, enthusiasm itself, designed a masterful review booklet for everyone; an up and coming elementary school teacher, Charlonda showed us how thorough and imaginitive she will be as a teacher. I know the other students were wishing I was as ingenious in reviewing for exams. Hart is the one who created a reworking of the "Stackalee" poem in his video, packed with violence, male posturing and female strutting, he moved from killing his friend to his running hell, all done in contemporary terms such that students began laughing, hooting and hollering from the very start to the very end of the video. Brittany made the "crackers" that Harriet Jacobs writes about in her narrative, and she claims she wants to try the recipe again; she promises the bisquits were quite lovely when hot, but by the time they got to the class, they had hardened and probably resembled more of what the slaves made. And now we get down to the business of preparing for the exam and presenting the papers on research and on reviews. Here Latia sits with Nazeer to her right, then Andrew and to the far left, Jasmine; she and Nazeer performed the rap contest where Nazeer was Stackolee and Jasmine was a convincing Philis Wheatley. 
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