"Voices" and Voices: An Epiphany, a Plan, and a Plea by Jennifer Paulsen

Jennifer Paulsen is contributing to Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday once again. She has an interesting perspective. For much of her career she was an ELA teacher and she now finds herself teaching social studies. Her previous posts reflect this cross curricular point of view and you can find them here and here. Take a look. She also provided the weekend picks for September 2018 and you can revisit those by going to the weekend picks page and scrolling down.

Voices and Voices: An Epiphany, a Plan, and a Plea by Jennifer Paulsen

​One book from the past year has been replaying in my memory: David Elliott‘s book Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc struck a chord and has haunted me. Something about it was scratching in my brain, pushing to the surface but I wasn’t sure yet what it was. The story was so familiar to me, but Elliott’s rendition of it is refreshing and eye-opening. Written in powerful poems taking a variety of forms such as the villanelle and rondolet, Elliott gives voice to inanimate, yet intimate, objects like Joan’s dress, a candle, even the fire which took her life, allowing us to view Joan from many perspectives and adding texture to her first person narrative. Woven into the poems are snippets of the transcripts of both of her trials, which allow her family, friends, neighbors, and enemies to speak across the years from 1431
 
The scene that keeps surfacing in my mind’s eye takes place in her cell after she has been given a choice: dress like a woman and live or continue dressing like a man and face the fiery stake: 

     

​...How often did they ask
me why I would not wear a dress.
How they frequently berated
me and urged me to confess that
To put on the clothes of men was  
a foul abomination. They
said it was a mortal sin and
even promised me salvation
from the smoke and scorching fire if
I would just recant and put on
women’s attire, the way, they said
that God himself intended (74).

​I imagine the frustration and anguish it would cause her to give up the clothing allowing her freedom of movement, the clothing that made her feel fully her natural self, in order to play the narrow part allowed for her by her era by wearing the dress she described as “a hemmed and homespun cage” (24), I am so moved that she would rather die embracing who she was fully than live by society’s expectations:

I would face my death unafraid
and proud. If that meant that my
tunic would also be my shroud,
then I would enter Paradise
a bright and shining jewel, not an
abomination but the way
that God has made me, his singular
creation (75).

​Joan of Arc achieved so much in three years against impossible odds, yet perhaps her best achievement was embracing her true self. On this Valentine’s Day, may we all be blessed with the courage to do the same. 

A few days ago, I realized why I have been unable to let this scene rest. I have numerous students who are struggling with identity, whether it be gender, sexual, or cultural. This is not new, I thought. There is one student in particular I couldn’t seem to reach last semester. His gender assignment was female but his identity was male. While I made every effort to connect with him personally, he was not thriving in my class. The epiphany that finally surfaced from Elliott’s book is that I have NOT made every effort to convince this student that history is for him. Teaching Colonial America is a predominately white male story. I have been pretty good about surfacing perspectives of race, women, and the common people. I have not found ways to share the stories of people who pushed against the boundaries of gender identity and sexuality. This is NOT NEW! This history MUST be surfaced and shared. And I know tragically little about it. I feel like I dropped the ball with this student, indeed all students, in failing to find that hidden history.

As a former English teacher, I have a large collection of LGBTQIIA fiction, but my non-fiction collection is non-existent. As a social studies teacher, I really need that non-fiction. So, the first part of my plan involves enhancing my classroom library. Part two is to listen and learn, so I can better connect students with our collective history, bringing those voices from the shadows into the light. Yesterday, I asked my students to educate me, if they are struggling to see themselves in the history we cover. The third part of my plan is to develop more notebook “warm-ups” to begin class, featuring as many perspectives and profiles as I can. So, I hope you will help me in this journey, recommending books, events, people, and resources to help me close this gap. In return, I will share all I gather with you.
 
Thank you, David Elliott, for your powerful and vivid writing which was the catalyst for this learning journey. And to Joan of Arc, for daring to be her true self.
 
Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc will be available on March 26, 2019.