But some students is not our mission as teachers.

Yes, our passion for teaching and the delivery we use to demonstrate this passion engages some students. Just because we, as literate educators, appreciate the sheer beauty of an author's blending of words and phrases or the aesthetics of the visual an author creates within our minds, it does not mean students initially do the same. Often when teachers expose students to literature, engagement is missing. Who among us does not have five minutes, once or twice a week, to provide emotion, engagement, and comprehension for students? Within five minutes, a musical selection can involve students in any one of these effective practices. The teaching of popular music within the classroom responds to many of today's accepted practices: reader response, writing instruction, humanities exploration, multiliteracy, multiple intelligences, and environmental control. With over 125 references to music, The Pearl almost cries for popular music as part of its instructional delivery. As teachers, how can we translate Steinbeck's narrative into an emotion our students will engage with in order to comprehend the text? For me, I found the answer in the instructional delivery of popular music while reading the novel. However, as I teach this novel in my middle school classroom, I know many of my students do not possess the experiences to emotionally connect with Kino through a mere reading of the novel. I feel his warm solitude his contentment within a wordless but loving relationship with his wife, Juana and his acceptance of a world on the outskirts of a more civilized society. The rhythmic beauty of Steinbeck's words in The Pearl (1947) captures the emotion of Kino. In Kino's head there was a song now, clear and soft, and if he had been able to speak it, he would have called it the Song of the Family. That does not mean that there were no personal songs. The songs remained Kino knew them, but no new songs were added. His people had once been great makers of songs so that everything they saw or thought or did or heard became a song. Perhaps he alone did this and perhaps all of his people did it. It was very good-Kino closed his eyes again to listen to his music. Kino heard the little splash of morning waves on the beach.

The pearl john steinbeck citation