The Maze Runner by James Dashner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In The Maze Runner, Thomas finds himself trapped in an enormous maze with dozens of other boys and none of his memories of his pre-maze life except his name. It is an interesting premise, and I like how the author shows the little society the boys have created for themselves inside The Glade, complete with government, economy, and their own slang. I would imagine this would be a pretty good book for boys, but it does skew more middle school than high school, I think. The monsters in the maze (Grievers) are too fantastical to be truly frightening; the really terrifying question is why the boys are there in the first place and what ending of the book reveals about the truth of their circumstances. I am curious to see where Dashner takes this story in the next book.
View all my reviews
What you want is practice, practice, practice. It doesn’t matter what we we write, so long as we write continually as well as we can. I feel that every time I write a page with real effort, even if it’s thrown into the fire next minute, I am so much further on. - C.S. Lewis
Friday, November 22, 2013
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
YA Lit Review: 'Matched' by Ally Condie
In my effort to be in the habit of posting more regularly, I'm going to start sharing my reviews on the various young adult books that I've been reading as a part of the classroom-library/book-reading-culture-building that I'm working on with my 11th graders. We always had Silent Sustained Reading time at my last school, but here I am really trying to commit to make the SSR time sacred--no grading or email-checking for me, and in general I'm trying to make sure the kids see me reading books that they would be interested in reading (though once in a while I slip in a book just for me into the rotation!). If you're already my friend on Goodreads, then these reviews might be a re-read for you, but otherwise, hope you enjoy my humble thoughts!
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[Review embedded from Goodreads.com]
Matched by Ally Condie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Matched is the first in a trilogy (trilogies are THE way to go in YA lit, apparently) set in a futuristic society where The Society (with ominous capitalization) makes decisions for all its citizens based on science and probability to maximize happiness and healthiness: what to eat, where to work, where to live, whom to marry, when to have children. If you were any sort of reader at all as a child, you'll recognize--this is basically the world from Lois Lowry's The Giver.
Add a teen love triangle and intriguing cover art, and you've got a book that appeals pretty well to YA readers (likely girls). You can tell Condie loves literature and poetry and language, which I can appreciate. The romance was a little... melodramatic for me. I probably would have appreciated it more when I was a teen. As it was, it felt a little overwrought to me (at the ripe old age of 26). Mostly this book makes me want to read The Giver again. Perhaps I should now that the series is complete.
With all that said, I wrote this in my journal midway through reading this book. Perhaps it is enough of a recommendation:
Whatever else I feel about the strengths and weaknesses of this book, I will love it forever for giving teenage girls (and me) this line: "Then, the question I asked myself was: Do I look pretty? Now the question I ask is: Do I look strong?"
View all my reviews
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[Review embedded from Goodreads.com]
Matched by Ally Condie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Matched is the first in a trilogy (trilogies are THE way to go in YA lit, apparently) set in a futuristic society where The Society (with ominous capitalization) makes decisions for all its citizens based on science and probability to maximize happiness and healthiness: what to eat, where to work, where to live, whom to marry, when to have children. If you were any sort of reader at all as a child, you'll recognize--this is basically the world from Lois Lowry's The Giver.
Add a teen love triangle and intriguing cover art, and you've got a book that appeals pretty well to YA readers (likely girls). You can tell Condie loves literature and poetry and language, which I can appreciate. The romance was a little... melodramatic for me. I probably would have appreciated it more when I was a teen. As it was, it felt a little overwrought to me (at the ripe old age of 26). Mostly this book makes me want to read The Giver again. Perhaps I should now that the series is complete.
With all that said, I wrote this in my journal midway through reading this book. Perhaps it is enough of a recommendation:
Whatever else I feel about the strengths and weaknesses of this book, I will love it forever for giving teenage girls (and me) this line: "Then, the question I asked myself was: Do I look pretty? Now the question I ask is: Do I look strong?"
View all my reviews
Monday, October 28, 2013
Books, books, books!
One of my favorite new things that I've implemented this year is my classroom library. I always had a small one before, mostly old library discards and miscellaneous books from home, yard sales, etc., but this year I invested some money at the end of year Scholastic Book Sale and have been hitting up Goodwill on the 50% off weekends to find newer, popular books that kids actually want to read.
It hasn't been cheap, but I've seen it pay off in students who willingly, excitedly, and regularly READ. We take 10-15 minutes at the beginning of class two days a week (on a block schedule, we meet 3 days a week) just for reading, any book they want. One of the things I love about this school is that there seems to be a reading culture. Aside from some minor (and very rare) grumbling, all the students seem to take SSR as a matter of fact. It's just something we do. They even ask for it on the rare occasion that I have to push it from the schedule for a special event.
Now that we've established SSR time as a regular routine, my goal is to push students to read books that are a little more challenging, books that will stretch their minds a little, whether classic literary fiction or modern popular nonfiction and memoir. I'm calling this the College Bound Reading Project. Students have to self-select a book that will in some way "prepare them for college and college-level reading," complete three easy tasks related to the book, and finish by December. No time for too many details now, but if it goes well, I might post about it here.
(Please excuse the embarrassing, cluttered mess that is my classroom...)
It hasn't been cheap, but I've seen it pay off in students who willingly, excitedly, and regularly READ. We take 10-15 minutes at the beginning of class two days a week (on a block schedule, we meet 3 days a week) just for reading, any book they want. One of the things I love about this school is that there seems to be a reading culture. Aside from some minor (and very rare) grumbling, all the students seem to take SSR as a matter of fact. It's just something we do. They even ask for it on the rare occasion that I have to push it from the schedule for a special event.
Now that we've established SSR time as a regular routine, my goal is to push students to read books that are a little more challenging, books that will stretch their minds a little, whether classic literary fiction or modern popular nonfiction and memoir. I'm calling this the College Bound Reading Project. Students have to self-select a book that will in some way "prepare them for college and college-level reading," complete three easy tasks related to the book, and finish by December. No time for too many details now, but if it goes well, I might post about it here.
POEM: Things I Learned Last Quarter
At the end of the quarter, I asked my students to write a poem modeled off William Stafford's "Things I Learned Last Week" as a sort of review/sharing activity. (I previously wrote one modeled on this poem over the summer during CAWP. You can read it here. Even though I probably should come to expect it by now, whenever I give these kids a chance to write creatively, I am astounded by their thoughtfulness and honesty. Their words belong to them, but here's the poem I wrote with them as a model.
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Things I Learned Last Quarter - A Poem Written on September 30th, 2013.
My dog Oliver really likes
to pull the stuffing out of things--
his new toys, my new couches.
In football, the "red zone"
is the part of the field
20 yards or less from the goal line.
Walking up and down
stairs in high heels
is
terrifying.
And no--
you don't get used to it from practice.
Phoenix freeway traffic
at 7:30 AM on a weekday
is wildly unpredictable.
It is best to leave a few minutes
earlier than you need.
There is a restaurant in Scottsdale
where they bring you
plates of filet mignon and lobster
using skateboards as serving trays.
The food is good,
but I still don't get it.
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Things I Learned Last Quarter - A Poem Written on September 30th, 2013.
My dog Oliver really likes
to pull the stuffing out of things--
his new toys, my new couches.
In football, the "red zone"
is the part of the field
20 yards or less from the goal line.
Walking up and down
stairs in high heels
is
terrifying.
And no--
you don't get used to it from practice.
Phoenix freeway traffic
at 7:30 AM on a weekday
is wildly unpredictable.
It is best to leave a few minutes
earlier than you need.
There is a restaurant in Scottsdale
where they bring you
plates of filet mignon and lobster
using skateboards as serving trays.
The food is good,
but I still don't get it.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
The Benefits of Role Reversal
These last few weeks at school have been pretty busy and stressful. With quarter grades due on Sunday, parent conferences next week, and Fall Break so close but oh-so-far, it was difficult to convince myself to go to the Arizona English Teachers Association conference this weekend, even though it was free (paid for by CAWP! Yay!). On Friday afternoon, I had to stay late at school and was so exhausted that I couldn't make it to any of the sessions and decided just to go home and rest. But I managed to talk myself (guilt myself?) into making the drive this morning, and I'm really glad I went. Funnily enough for a person who loves being in school as much as I do, it was a good reminder that sometimes I need to take a break from being a teacher and just be a student for a while.
Learned lots, had time to catch up with some CAWP people, and picked up the names of some cool resources and ideas I can take back with me.
Also, I made this:
and scored some teacher swag (i.e., books):
Not bad for six hours on a Saturday. Yay conferences!
Learned lots, had time to catch up with some CAWP people, and picked up the names of some cool resources and ideas I can take back with me.
Also, I made this:
and scored some teacher swag (i.e., books):
Not bad for six hours on a Saturday. Yay conferences!
Saturday, September 14, 2013
They Come To Me
THEY COME TO ME: A BACK-TO-SCHOOL POEM
They come to me at the sweaty, red-hot tail end of summer
with curious, sunburned faces
and back-to-school haircuts just a little too short.
They come to me sporting backpacks in clean, bright rainbow hues (no Sharpie graffiti yet),
glossy shoes that squeak down linoleum-tiled hallways,
and uniforms with the newness still creased into them.
They come to me with new packs of lined paper
--the crinkle of clear plastic wrapping, the scent of fresh stationery--
with mechanical pencils, five to a package,
and 3-ring notebooks, see-through covers waiting to be cluttered
with photos and ticket stubs and illicit notes passed quietly during boring lectures.
They come to me with forms--
forms for the nurse
forms for the office
forms for the cafeteria
forms for the bus.
(School is all about forms.)
They come to me with test scores, with GPAs, with transcripts, with all sorts of records--official and not.
They come to me with expectations, with goals, with preconceptions, with dreams.
They come to me with questions--
"When is lunch?"
"Can we listen to music in here?"
"Do we have assigned seats?"
"How do I try out for football?"
"Is high school as hard as they say it is?"
They come to me with ideas--lots of ideas.
Ideas to start a club
Or rebuild their community
Or spark a revolution.
Ideas to change the world.
They come to me and I watch.
They come to me and I listen.
They come to me and I marvel.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
POEM: Fear
I love writing group! That is all.
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FEAR
As a child, I had a reoccurring nightmare—
Trapped in a darkened warehouse
Huddling in a corner
Sinister voices echoing against concrete walls—
“What do we do with her?”
“She knows too much.”—
I watch
Doll parts pass by on conveyor belts—
An arm, a leg, a tiny dress-covered torso—
Before I realize
Not doll parts—human.
Another nightmare—
Running through the long corridors of
Sky Harbor Airport
Brown geometric carpet shapes blurring under my feet
Fleeing—or Chasing—
I run up an impossibly tall flight of stairs only to realize
There is no second floor.
Finally—
Black-clothed men with automatic weapons—
A torrent of bullets in a tiny grocery store—
Shattered jars of pickles littering white tiled floors—
I huddle behind the glass-fronted display counter
With a terrified checkout boy and neatly-stacked bags of rice.
My heart pounds.
Even now, these nightmares stay with me.
But fears change with age and experience
As the world both expands and contracts—
Terrorist attack, global pandemic,
The death of my parents, losing my house,
Early morning car accident on a crowded freeway—
Possibilities too real to entertain in dreams.
Of the two kinds of fears, I know this:
The fantastic visit only at night;
The prosaic show no similar discretion.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
FOUND POEM: "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros
This is old, but I haven't posted anything in a while, so I thought I should produce SOMETHING.
I'm starting my new job on Monday, and I'm feeling a little bit of what Cisneros' narrator Rachel describes, that feeling of being out of place or not quite what everyone says you are or what you're supposed to be. I think all of us at times can empathize with what it feels like to be eleven.
You can find the full text of Sandra Cisneros' story here.
My "found poem" version of the story is below.
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Found Poem from "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros
What they don't understand
what they never tell you
is
when you're eleven
you're also
ten
nine
eightsevensixfivefourthreetwoone.
You expect to feel eleven
but you don't
you're still ten
and you are--
underneath.
You grow old like
an onion
the rings inside a tree trunk
little wooden dolls that fit
one inside the other
each year inside the next.
You don't feel eleven.
Not right away.
It takes days,
weeks,
months,
before you say
"Eleven"
when they ask you.
Today I'm
eleventtennineeightsevensixfivefourthreetwoone.
I wish I was one hundred and two.
I wish I was anything but
(eleven)
because I want
today to be far away
far away like a runaway balloon
like a tiny
O
in the sky.
You have to close your eyes to see it.
I'm starting my new job on Monday, and I'm feeling a little bit of what Cisneros' narrator Rachel describes, that feeling of being out of place or not quite what everyone says you are or what you're supposed to be. I think all of us at times can empathize with what it feels like to be eleven.
You can find the full text of Sandra Cisneros' story here.
My "found poem" version of the story is below.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Found Poem from "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros
What they don't understand
what they never tell you
is
when you're eleven
you're also
ten
nine
eightsevensixfivefourthreetwoone.
You expect to feel eleven
but you don't
you're still ten
and you are--
underneath.
You grow old like
an onion
the rings inside a tree trunk
little wooden dolls that fit
one inside the other
each year inside the next.
You don't feel eleven.
Not right away.
It takes days,
weeks,
months,
before you say
"Eleven"
when they ask you.
Today I'm
eleventtennineeightsevensixfivefourthreetwoone.
I wish I was one hundred and two.
I wish I was anything but
(eleven)
because I want
today to be far away
far away like a runaway balloon
like a tiny
O
in the sky.
You have to close your eyes to see it.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Things I Learned Last Weekend
One of the CAWP co-directors shared this poem with us earlier this week, and I immediately became enamoured of it. (On a completely unrelated note, what does it say about me that every time I use the word enamoured, my brain insists on using the British spelling of it?)
One of the things that I am most excited about for teaching a new course this year is the opportunity to use much, much more poetry than I have in the past, teaching AP Lang. I am excited to use this one as a model with my students.
Things I Learned Last Week
by William Stafford
Ants, when they meet each other,
usually pass on the right.
Sometimes you can open a sticky
door with your elbow.
A man in Boston has dedicated himself
to telling about injustice.
For three thousand dollars he will
come to your town and tell you about it.
Schopenhauer was a pessimist but
he played the flute.
Yeats, Pound, and Eliot saw art as
growing from other art. They studied that.
If I ever die, I'd like it to be
in the evening. That way, I'll have
all the dark to go with me, and no one
will see how I begin to hobble along.
In the Pentagon one person's job is to
take pins out of town, hills, and fields,
and then save the pins for later.
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Things I Learned Last Weekend (in St. Louis)
There really is a difference
between freeways
and highways,
and that difference is
stoplights.
The sentiment,
"At least it's a dry heat"
is annoying,
but accurate.
Humidity sucks.
Monet's Waterlilies is
WAY larger in real life
than it looks
on other people's bathroom walls.
Shakespeare in the Park
on a summer night in open air
is exactly as wonderful as
I always dreamed it would be.
There are many people in this country
who think of any place
west of the Mississippi River
to be
West,
even though I had to fly
hours east
to get there.
It is mind-boggling.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Lessons in Transit
[Revised and Updated: 6/25/13]
A teacher’s life is one that is constantly in
transition. We transition from lesson to lesson, period to period, unit to
unit, year to year. We transition from one (new, life-changing, time-saving,
field-innovating) program to another similarly "innovative" program.
We transition from one classroom to another, one team to another, one grade to
another.
This May, I left the school where I began my
teaching career, where I’ve been working, teaching, learning, and sweating,
crying, and sometimes practically living for the past four years. This July,
I’ll be starting at a new school downtown. I am excited, but also a little
nervous. My new position and new school will present me with many new
challenges, and I look forward to the opportunities I’ll have in the coming
year (and beyond, hopefully!). But it’s important to me that I take with me the
lessons I learned at my last school into this new one.
Here are just a few of the things I’d like to
remind myself:
1. Keep everything --but do it
electronically!
My natural tendency to be a packrat is
incredibly frustrating to most people who have ever had to live with me. Ask my
parents, my sister, my college roommates--even my dog expresses his displeasure
with the cardboard boxes I have stacked in my room by gnawing holes on their
corners. I save clothing receipts (in case I need to return something), ticket
stubs (for the memories), magazines (so I can make that recipe for lemon
cheesecake one day), even slightly holey articles of clothing (because I am
definitely going to mend that tear someday soon and it will be as good as new,
seriously). I realize that this is generally unhealthy in my regular life, but
it is a bad habit that has served me well as a teacher. I spent my first four
years as a teacher avidly collecting anything and everything I could: lesson
plans, worksheets, books, classroom supplies, even furniture! I begged my
colleagues to email me copies of their worksheets and PowerPoint presentations,
braved the vast wilds of the Internet to search for and save other teachers'
lesson ideas, scanned copies of students’ projects to use as models. The last
four years have taught me that even if I am teaching American Literature this particular year, I never know when this lesson on A Midsummer Night’s
Dream will come in handy later on, or that peer review checklist, or
these MLA formatting handouts. After a year or two of stuffing filing cabinets
full of worksheets, I now know that electronic is infinitely more organized
(and space-saving and clutter-minimizing) than paper, but this collecting habit
of mine has saved me more than once on days when I had some unexpected extra
time at the end of class or needed emergency plans for a colleague with a sick
child or even when I (shhh—don’t tell!) forgot to plan a lesson for that day.
2. Share freely and ask without shame.
One of my most persistent and worrying fears
in life is being a burden or inconvenience to other people. I am tempted at
times to attribute this to my upbringing by two hard-working immigrant parents
who taught me that I should never ask another person for anything that I was
capable of doing myself. While this attitude has taught me to be self-reliant
and fairly capable, it also has made asking for help a challenge throughout
most of my life. During my first year, I had one veteran teacher who committed
to being my mentor, even before I was brave enough to ask. She regularly
updated me on what she was doing, sharing all her materials with me to use as I
wished or not, without strings, and she was always available with help when I
had specific problems (like the day when I got to school and realized I had
left my flash drive at home and I had no lessons with me at all... which may or
may not have happened more than once that first year). Almost in spite of
myself, I ended up leaning on her heavily for materials and ideas all
year, and she was an absolute God-send. Although that first year still
felt sometimes like treading water wearing a cement suit and surrounded by
hungry sharks, I realize now that she saved me from a lot of first year teacher
catastrophes that would have arisen had she left me completely to my own
devices. At the same time during my first year, another new teacher and I
developed the habit of sending each other drafts of lessons and activities we
were working on, even when we were teaching different grades. This not only
helped by providing each of us feedback on our work, but gave us practice in
looking critically at someone’s work, providing good feedback, and learning how
to adapt something for our own use. When I wasn’t the newest teacher in
the department anymore, I made it a point to be as generous with my materials
as these women were with me. More than a few times, my colleagues would use
something I passed along and provide great feedback on it or adjust it for
their own purposes and share it back better than before. Sometimes they would
even just reply back with a file or link to what they’d been using instead.
Eventually, I began to realize that whether the other teachers actually used
what I shared didn’t matter so much as creating and maintaining the habit and
culture of sharing. Collaboration—that highly-valued educational
buzzword—didn’t have to be as time-consuming or formal as I had previously
thought.
3. Take a real lunch break.
Despite the inherently social nature of it, teaching
can be such an isolating activity. Sometimes I fear that a zombie apocalypse
could begin sweeping the nation on Tuesday morning, and I wouldn't know it
until 2:05 when I finally get a chance to sit down at my desk and check my
email. That's why taking a break in the middle of the day has become so, so
important to me. Part of the culture of my department was that most of us ate
lunch together in the teachers’ lounge every day. I know it isn’t the same at a
lot of schools. I’ve actually even been told by some veteran teachers I know
from other schools to avoid the teachers’ lounge at all cost.
I know they were well-meaning, and every school culture is different, but for
me, taking that short break to talk to real live adults in the middle of my day
was absolutely critical for my sanity. At times, teaching is a lonely
profession, and that time to share stories, troubleshoot problems, think
through lessons, and yes, vent our frustrations was incredibly valuable for me.
Having those 30 minutes to talk to my colleagues every day, even if it was just
about last night’s episode of American Idol, reminded me that I was not alone
in this sometimes scary and exhausting endeavor we undertook every day. On days
when I didn't feel like making the walk to the lounge, sitting at my desk in a
quiet classroom with my lunch and the day's headlines (or the day's celebrity
gossip, depending on my mood) on my web browser could be just as refreshing,
another simple reminder that there IS indeed a world outside my classroom.
Taking a lunch break, with coworkers or by myself, helped me to feel less like
I was stranded on a deserted island of books and papers and red ink pens.
4. Keep the door open after school.
I am an introvert. (Once in a while I ponder
how I came to choose a profession that quite literally requires me to be
surrounded by at least 30 people all day long and I consider bashing my head in
with a rock.) Some days after school, I am so exhausted of people that all I
want to do is lock the door, close the blinds and pretend no one is home for a
good 60 minutes. Some days, I actually do this. Most days, I resist the
temptation. Some of the best conversations (personal and professional) that
I’ve had with other teachers and students have been during unexpected moments
in passing after school. An open door says, “Hey! I’m here! Say hello!” and
helps to build community. I wonder how many wonderful conversations I would
have missed, how many collaborative moments I would have never experienced, if
someone hadn’t popped their head into my classroom to say hello or I hadn’t
gotten up from my desk to see what the commotion was happening down the hall.
Keeping my door open was an easy, visible reminder to myself and others that I
was available and part of the community in my hallway and in my school.
5. Find at least one way to interact
with students outside of class regularly.
One abrupt realization I had at the end of my
first year of teaching was that the students who had become my daily companions
for the past year, whom I had read poetry to, written essays with, lectured
about the Transcendentalists, listened to discussing Plato, nagged about
deadlines, even yelled at in frustration and cried over on my drive home, these
students were mine no longer. Even if I saw them in the hallways or in the
cafeteria or at a football game, I would never be their teacher and they would
never be my students in exactly that same way again. That one year suddenly
became far, far more precious. What a brief window of time where my life and
their lives intersected! After my first year, I was asked, with one of my
fellow newly-minted second year teachers, to sponsor our school’s National
Honor Society. In a school as large as ours, NHS is a massive undertaking, with
over 150-200 students in any given year spanning up to three grades. Although
it was a lot of work and my co-sponsor and I felt at times that we were just
making things up as we went along and praying no one would reveal us as frauds,
sponsoring NHS gave me the opportunity to build relationships with my students
that lasted more than just a year in my classroom (or even a semester, in our
case, with our school’s crazy course scheduling). What incredible pieces of my
students’ lives I would have missed if I only ever saw them for two hours at a
time only three times a week! I would never have known that Aleyna loved
animals and volunteered at the county animal shelter or that Dylan devoted
hundreds of hours every summer to teaching seven-year-olds how to play soccer.
Just as my students forget that teachers have lives outside their classroom
walls, I think sometimes I forget that my students have lives beyond my
classroom, too. NHS was an excellent way for me to see them outside of our
“normal” context. The other thing I tried to do was to commit to attend my
students’ music and art concerts (and yes, sometimes their sporting events,
too). Many of my students were involved in theatre, dance, band, and choir, and
it never ceased to surprise me how appreciative they were when I came to see
them. I think they, just like all of us, like to be recognized for doing what
they love, and I often learned new ways to appreciate my students that I hadn’t
known before. Yes, Maria was quiet in class discussions and turned red in the
face whenever she was called on to answer, but I saw her sing and dance in the
spring musical, and she saw me in the audience, and after that night, she smiled and
greeted me when I saw her every morning. That smile felt like a victory to me.As I look back over this list, I recognize that I could never fit all the lessons I learned during my first four years into a neatly numbered list, even if I let myself continue on until I reached one hundred or even one thousand. I've probably forgotten more of those lessons than I could remember to record. What I do know is how important it is for me to keep reflecting and writing and learning, no matter how many more years I teach. Because I have many more transitions ahead of me. And I'll take those new lessons with me when I go.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
One person in one head
We watched this lovely poem by Tanya Davis in CAWP yesterday.
How to Be Alone - by Tanya Davis
ALONE.
I used to have a real terror of being alone. I realize now that this is strange, considering how much of an introvert I am, how much time I need by myself to recharge. But living in a close-knit family with a close sister, a multitude of cousins and uncles and aunts, I never really had to be alone unless I chose to be. Even now, I make conscious and unconscious choices to NOT be alone, placing structures into my life that prevent my alone-ness.
I imagine it must be significant, then, that I've become a teacher--a profession in which, although I am surrounded by children all day, I am basically working alone nearly all the time. Sometimes, it is, indeed, lonely, and other times I feel it is not alone enough--I crave those moments where I can be quietly, blessedly alone in my classroom, no kids, no administrators, just me and the quiet hum of my computer, working, and 36 empty desks waiting patiently to be filled again.
Sometimes when I feel the need to trace patterns in my life, I think that I'm being trained on how to be alone. Maybe the cliche is true, that it is only when we learn to be alone with ourselves that we are any good at being together with other people. Maybe this is just one of those platitudes together-people tell single-people to say it's okay that you are waiting, to comfort you in your loneliness by assuring you that it is temporary. Maybe this is a lesson that just applies to me. Maybe, maybe I work too hard to find universal truths to reassure myself that I am not alone in the universe.
Whatever it is, I have learned to find pleasure in small moments of solitude--shopping, reading, watching TV, exploring the outdoors, wandering a museum. These moments are precious to me. Sometimes the people I'm with find this uncomfortable, I think. Some people understand. Those people, perhaps, are lonely, happy, peaceful people like me.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Thoughtshots
Our CAWP demo lesson yesterday was on something she called "Thoughshots," basically a moment in a text (usually narrative) in which you let the reader into the mind of a narrator or character. There are three kinds of thoughshots:
1) Flashback (thoughts about the past)
2) Flashforward (thoughts about what might occur in the future)
3) Brain Arguments (talking/debating/arguing with oneself)
After reading a lovely story and presenting the three types of thoughtshots as a revision technique (must remember this!), we were invited to take something we had written and add in a thoughshot or two. I didn't have anything to revise, so I ended up just writing a poem. (This could be a good way to teach stream-of-consciousness as well.)
Thoughts Upon Holding My Newborn Baby Cousin
Careful--careful. Gentle, gentle...
Elbow under her head, arm supporting her neck...
Okay. We're good. I've got this.
OH MY GOD I AM HOLDING A TINY HUMAN.
Hold her tight, be carefulgentle, don't drop her, don't--
Whoops, don't squeeze her either.
I can't believe they are trusting me with this.
This is too much, this is too scary, this is ... kind of nice, actually.
Her tiny face looking up at mine, her tiny hands waving at me.
Her sweet warm baby smell.
Her body a little tiny furnace in my arms.
I could get used to this, I think. Maybe one day, I'll--
Whelp, nope. That smells like poo.
Back to mommy you go.
1) Flashback (thoughts about the past)
2) Flashforward (thoughts about what might occur in the future)
3) Brain Arguments (talking/debating/arguing with oneself)
After reading a lovely story and presenting the three types of thoughtshots as a revision technique (must remember this!), we were invited to take something we had written and add in a thoughshot or two. I didn't have anything to revise, so I ended up just writing a poem. (This could be a good way to teach stream-of-consciousness as well.)
Thoughts Upon Holding My Newborn Baby Cousin
Careful--careful. Gentle, gentle...
Elbow under her head, arm supporting her neck...
Okay. We're good. I've got this.
OH MY GOD I AM HOLDING A TINY HUMAN.
Hold her tight, be carefulgentle, don't drop her, don't--
Whoops, don't squeeze her either.
I can't believe they are trusting me with this.
This is too much, this is too scary, this is ... kind of nice, actually.
Her tiny face looking up at mine, her tiny hands waving at me.
Her sweet warm baby smell.
Her body a little tiny furnace in my arms.
I could get used to this, I think. Maybe one day, I'll--
Whelp, nope. That smells like poo.
Back to mommy you go.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Where I'm From
Another writing activity to try with my kids this fall that one of our co-directors shared at CAWP. This one uses a beautifully illustrated picture book as a mentor text:
Momma, Where Are You From?
Written by Marie Bradby and illustrated by Chris Soentpiet
In it, a daughter asks her mother (obvs.) where she comes from, and the mother explains by giving these beautiful details of people, places, objects, and colors from her childhood.
To write your own, you brainstorm places, people, events, foods, colors, etc. that have been important to your life.
Here is my very, very rough version:
I am from square black letters printed on yellowing pages that tell magical stories of far off lands and mystical realms, times and places that seem more exciting, more romantic, somehow more real than my own. I am from wishing--fervently, often--that life was more like the books I counted as friends.
I am from places far more prosaic.
I am from a white stuccoed house on Kachina Drive with rocks in the front yard because grass takes too much work in the withering Arizona heat.
I am from places far more prosaic.
I am from a white stuccoed house on Kachina Drive with rocks in the front yard because grass takes too much work in the withering Arizona heat.
I am from a choir director father and a pianist mother and listening to afternoon choir rehearsals, sitting on red cushioned church pews in dusty choir lofts.
I am from five older cousins, both feared and admired, from sleepovers and impromptu makeovers and musical reenactments and hot Sunday afternoons in the pool and roughhousing in the living room.
I am from one younger sister, from Legos and Barbies and pretending to be librarians, farmers, ice cream shop owners, sumo wrestlers, and dolphin trainers.
I am from Saturday mornings at the public library, wandering through the rows and rows of dusty shelves, searching for books I haven't yet met and devoured. I am from the sighs of my mother as I emerge, triumphant, arms laden with too many books to see over, nearly tripping over a display of paperbacks.
I am from Sunday evening dinner with the family, uncles and aunts and five older cousins chattering about the week's events, arms darting out to reach for food at the big round table, hurrying to grab your share before someone else takes it.
I am from white rice, fried rice, noodle soup, fried noodles. I am from special tofu soup just for me and my sister because the hot and sour soup for the adults is, well, too hot and too sour.
I am from dried shredded pork between two pieces of bread and butter for school lunch. I am from ham and mayonnaise sandwiches for school lunch. I am from butter and sugar sandwiches for school lunch. I am from wishing my mom made better sandwiches for school lunch.
I am from sleepovers of giggling preteen girls, not sleeping, Spice Girls on the TV screen and impromptu fashion shows down the hallway at 2 A.M.
I am from red and gold for Christmas and weddings and babies and Chinese New Year, shiny gold and inky black characters printed on red paper scrolls.
I am from impossibly blue Arizona skies, from brown grass, brown dirt, brown rocks, brown everything.
I am from breathtaking sunsets, pink and purple and orange streaks layered behind a golden-red sun on the horizon.
I am from warm hugs, loud music, a cool glass of sun tea, a quiet, comfortable silence.
I am from finally, finally realizing that there's plenty of romance and excitement and love right here, where I'm from.
I am from white rice, fried rice, noodle soup, fried noodles. I am from special tofu soup just for me and my sister because the hot and sour soup for the adults is, well, too hot and too sour.
I am from dried shredded pork between two pieces of bread and butter for school lunch. I am from ham and mayonnaise sandwiches for school lunch. I am from butter and sugar sandwiches for school lunch. I am from wishing my mom made better sandwiches for school lunch.
I am from sleepovers of giggling preteen girls, not sleeping, Spice Girls on the TV screen and impromptu fashion shows down the hallway at 2 A.M.
I am from red and gold for Christmas and weddings and babies and Chinese New Year, shiny gold and inky black characters printed on red paper scrolls.
I am from impossibly blue Arizona skies, from brown grass, brown dirt, brown rocks, brown everything.
I am from breathtaking sunsets, pink and purple and orange streaks layered behind a golden-red sun on the horizon.
I am from warm hugs, loud music, a cool glass of sun tea, a quiet, comfortable silence.
I am from finally, finally realizing that there's plenty of romance and excitement and love right here, where I'm from.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Writing for CAWP
One of the hoped-for benefits of the new job I am starting in July is the opportunity to do cool professional development and teaching community stuff.
So far, it seems to be delivering. For the month of July I am participating in the Central Arizona Writing Project (CAWP) Invitational Summer Institute, which, as you might imagine is a room full of teachers who care about writing and care about students and for at least 3 hours a day, we are writing, reading someone else's writing, or talking about writing. It is both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. (The impetus for this blog comes from my attempt at a professional writing project which we are being asked to do over the course of the next month, actually.)
Yesterday we had a guest speaker come in and share with us a really cool activity that combines language arts standards with American history content. She shared with us a list of events that had happened on that day in American History and gave us three writing prompts, each from a different point of view.
Events on June 4:
1812 - Louisiana Territory is renamed Missouri Territory (because LA is now a state).
1862 - Union troops take Memphis (Civil War).
1876 - Transcontinental Express train makes it from NYC to San Francisco in 83 hours and 39 minutes.
1896 - Henry Ford completes his first gas-powered automobile.
1912 - Massachusetts becomes first state to set a minimum wage.
1917 - First Pulitzer prizes are awarded.
1919 - Congress approves 19th Amendment (suffrage) and sends it to states for ratification.
1939 - The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida. Forced to return to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps.
1940 - Churchill delivers "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.
1998 - Terry Nichols sentenced to life in prison for Oklahoma City bombings.
PROMPTS:
1st person: I was there when...
2nd person: You never know when you're going to wake up and a day will be one for the history books. You don't know it when you wake up, and you usually don't know it when you go to bed, but you...
3rd person: He/She was a complex person...
Attempting this activity made me realize how large the gaps are in my understanding of American history (I managed to write a SINGLE sentence about Henry Ford before drawing a complete blank), but it was a really cool exercise, and I'd like to see how to incorporate it into my class sometime this year.
This the little bit I wrote for the second prompt. I chose 1919:
You never know when you're going to wake up and a day will be one for the history books. You don't know it when you wake up, and you usually don't know it when you go to bed, but you see it on the newspapers the next morning--"CONGRESS PASSES AMENDMENT FOR WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE"--"WOMEN MAY VOTE IN 1920".
You, of course, are thrilled, but you wonder what you father will say when he reads this. He married an intelligent, outspoken woman and raised two intelligent, outspoken daughters, but you know that, at heart, he is a traditionalist, a man who believes strongly in the value of the way that things have always been. You remember his disapproval of your new clothes, your short hair, the "radical" ideas you've been bringing to the dinner table. More than once your mother has had to break a tense, awkward silence with an amusing story about your baby sister's antics from that afternoon while the two of you stared at each other across the table, neither willing to back down.
You wonder who will bring up the topic first. Will it be your mother at breakfast, when she hands him his plate of eggs and bacon and toast? Will it be you, when you bring him the paper and his morning cup of coffee?
In the end, it is your sister, sitting across from you at the table, happily shoveling down her oatmeal and managing, as always, to get half of it on herself. Six years old is too old to make such an enormous mess at the table, you think absently.
"Daddy, what's suff--suffer--" She has trouble wrapping her mouth around the unfamiliar word she sees printed in black at the top of his newspaper. You pause mid-bite.
He looks up from the Business section. "Hmm? Oh, it's suffrage," he corrects.
"What's that?" she wants to know.
You want to know, too. You hold your breath and your piece of toast halfway to your mouth as you wait to see what he'll say.
A few "true sentences".
("All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." --Ernest Hemingway)
I love novels, stories, poems, songs, essays, and all things language. I teach high school English. Writing this blog scares me. I am learning to be brave.
I love novels, stories, poems, songs, essays, and all things language. I teach high school English. Writing this blog scares me. I am learning to be brave.
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