Back to School!

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Thursday I got to set up my desk and classroom at the school where I'll begin teaching in a couple more weeks.  I actually get to meet my students this coming Tuesday at orientation, and I must say it feels quite surreal. For the past couple of weeks I've been putting stuff in a box to take with me to the school, making a few purchases at Target I just couldn't seem to pass up.  I also went to the local teaching supply store down the street from us.  I'd never allowed myself to go in before because I didn't have my own classroom yet, or a reason to need some of that stuff (bulletin board borders, cut-outs, 'good job!' stickers, plastic tubs in all shapes and sizes).  It was an awesome feeling walking the aisles with other teachers and overhearing their conversations about the coming school year.  I know several of my friends share an excitement for buying school supplies, but I'm sure it's an unusual recreational pastime for most.

And since taking the job my Pinterest activity has greatly increased; I've been filling my teaching board more and more everyday.  Mostly I've been excited to look at what other people have been doing in their classrooms - and wow! there are so many teaching blogs out there - I've found some really neat teaching ideas and classroom activities.

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Because I'm a total dork I took pictures of my desk and I wanted to share them. One of the other teachers helped me find a nice old wooden desk with lots of drawers and I'm so excited about it. And I love the green and tan checked floors in my room.  Now all that's left is meeting the students...can't wait!

On the side I hung positive messages from old calendar pages I had laminated when I was still in undergrad; it's amazing how much stuff I've been saving for when I become a teacher.  One is a quote by Helen Keller: "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched.  They must be felt with the heart."

...and my little desk caddy from Target.

Job Search: Over!

If you haven't noticed, I've been slacking on my Summer Reading posts lately.  I've been doing some fun-reading when I get the chance but the last couple of weeks have been devoted to drafting and revising resumes and cover letters and conducting job searches.  I think it's an understatement to say that it's not the best time to be looking for a job, and it certainly doesn't help when the political campaign and the news in general seems to remind us everyday.

Pretty funny, and sadly, still pretty true for the Class of 2012 (Source).

I've pretty much nearly driven myself crazy (just ask my husband, family, and best friends) applying for jobs, but I'm excited to report the search is over!  Last week I accepted a position at a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) middle/high school just down the street from where we live.  I'll be teaching three classes of 11th and 12th grade technical reading and writing, and serving as the school's yearbook advisor.  Not only is the school conveniently located a few blocks from our apartment, it seems like it's going to be a perfect fit for me - I love the faculty and staff I've met so far, the school stands for an ethics of creativity and craftsmanship, and I'll be getting paid to do what I love: teaching students how to read and write and guiding them to make a yearbook.  This job couldn't have been a better fit if I had planned it myself, but I know that wasn't the case.  I've been praying and praying for a job and this one pretty much landed in my lap.

Although I've enjoyed teaching Composition and Developmental Reading and Writing at the college level as a Teaching Assistant, I'm excited to get back in the high school environment, especially being a part of this unique school.  Over the past two years I drove by the STEM school as I went to classes everyday.  I watched excitedly as an old Value City department store transformed into an innovative, colorful school.  From the large glass windows in front I could see artwork, models, and sculptures in display cabinets and a colorful mural painted on the wall.  I saw students outside playing or conducting research, and as I watched the school grow and change I never could have imagined being a part of it, and now here I am.  I feel so blessed!

This weekend, I was so excited about getting back in the high school classroom with my own desk that I just had to browse the 'school supplies' aisles in Target (and refrain from buying everything!).  I was giddy looking at expandable file folders, white board markers in unique colors, and notebooks with owls on them.  I don't want the last weeks of summer to fly by, but I'm very excited for Back to School!

The next couple of weeks will be devoted to revising, creating, and planning a new curriculum for this Technical Reading and Writing course, guiding students toward an understanding in writing business letters, using other kinds of business communication, composing resumes and cover letters, creating user manuals and instructions, and writing with different types of technology.  I'm so excited to get started and more than anything, I'm excited that my job search is over.  I am a part of a school and a learning community and boy, does it feel great!

Obsessions

ob-ses-sion (noun): 1: a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling; broadly : compelling motivation 2 : something that causes an obsession* 


 Our first day of the CNF writing class our professor had us go around and introduce ourselves, and 'confess' two of our obsessions.  I thought this was brilliant for a creative writing class, but it could also be a great way to break the ice in any class! As we went around sharing our current obsessions, we learned a lot about each other's interests, backgrounds, and personalities.

One girl shared that she was obsessed with buying movies and owns more than 1,000 of them; another girl said she's been obsessed with Titanic since it came out when she was in middle-school (I could definitely relate); several of us admitted that we were currently obsessed with The Hunger Games, and we jokingly remarked that we need to have a small group discussion one day - it's yet to happen but I don't doubt that it might one day.


Sharing our obsessions got me thinking about my own strange obsessions I've had over the years.  I think it would be an interesting thing to explore in writing some time.  I've tried to think of some of the things I've gotten hung-up on for a period of time growing up, and I found that most of these obsessions came about because of a movie:

Source: sharetv.org via Jade on Pinterest

Storm Chasers - - I loved Twister and went around 'chasing' them in the backyard with my own 'Dorothy' I'd made from a plastic play grocery store cart, balls of paper, and the little whirligigs that blow in the wind.  One year for Christmas Santa Claus brought me Tornados, Hurricanes, and Thunderstorms videos from The Weather Channel.  I've watched almost all the movies made about tornados (that seemed to be my favorite storm to chase).


The Home Alone movies - - I was Kevin. I wanted a brown backpack like him to carry the TalkBoy I got for a birthday (or Christmas, can't remember). I had Mom record things he said into my TalkBoy ("...and I want one of those little refrigerators you have to open with a key.  Credit card, you got it!").  This is perhaps the weirdest obsession in my mind, and I can't really figure out why I was so interested.

Titanic - - I already talked about this in a recent post; I loved the 1997 film and started exploring the real Titanic, checking out books at the library, watching the old films of the tragedy, typing up facts about the people and the things onboard on our little computer and printing them out.

I'm sure there were many more in between if I really sit and think about it, but when I was older I was obsessed with more literature-related stuff:

Transcendentalists and the American Bloomsbury - - Writers who lived in Concord, Massachusetts - Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau. I thought it was so interesting that they all lived close to one another and had relationships, such brilliance living in one area.  When I was a sophomore in college my parents took our vacation in Concord and my mom and I got to tour the Alcott house; we visited Walden Pond where Thoreau lived for a while and wrote Walden; we saw Hawthorne's and Emerson's houses.  I am so thankful that my family took the time to do this, because goodness knows they weren't that interested in it except that it was part of American history and it's quite beautiful up there.

Holocaust Literature - - Another tragedy to add to Titanic and Tornadoes, I've been interested in Holocaust literature since college and can probably call this an ongoing obsession. I think it first started around the time I was in a play about children in the Holocaust called I Never Saw Another Butterfly.  I never got to take a Holocaust Lit class (though they offered one...bummer), but I've researched it a lot on my own and written papers since then.  I have a growing list of related books and I'd eventually love to build a class centered around Holocaust Lit.  I find it fascinating that what these people - who were days and months from their death, threatened with being exterminated, or those who lived and survived - wanted to do was write and create art.   The children in Terezin wrote and drew on the back of Nazi paper; they could turn it over and find the list of people who were dying around them. If that isn't powerful and if those words don't tell us something, then I don't know if there is really power in anything. "A Wall of Two" is a collection of poetry written by two sisters in a concentration camp; they sewed the words into their clothes and they live on today. Anne Frank's words live on. These victims of humanity survived through the words they left. Those words are read today. They live through those words. Their words will last forever (or as long as someone finds the need to pass them on).  I just find that amazing.

The Hunger Games - - Again, a very recent and current obsession.  Anytime I hear someone talking about it I join the conversation.  I know many people think it's a bit morbid (and it is) but it's a powerful story and metaphor for our world, providing a place to begin discussion about oppression, subversive living, and class structures.

It's interesting to think about our obsessions; they tell a lot about our personalities and experiences, and they help us explore the stages we've gone through.  Our obsessions shape us and stay with us for the rest of our lives. What obsessions did you have growing up or do you have now?

*from Merriam-Webster dictionary online

.our bully society.

Bullying has been on my mind lately...

There's a new book out I'd like to read, called The Bully Society: School Shootings and the Crisis of Bullying in America's Schools by Jessie Clein.  The Women's Media Center included a piece discussing the book's focus on the impact of gender and sexuality on bullying situations.  MS Magazine also included a recent piece on the many different programs working toward ending bullying in middle and high schools.  Cartoon Network and others have sponsored a Speak Up campaign against bullying.  And today a friend on Facebook shared this NYTimes article about a new documentary coming out this Friday called Bully. Basically, I've been seeing this topic everywhere I look!

Source: womensmediacenter.com via Jade on Pinterest

I couldn't agree more with Clein's assertion:


"Our children need a compassionate school community to counter these despairing trends. Keeping discussions about gender and sexuality out of schools reinforces isolation and cements our schools’ bully society. Even schools that take bullying seriously often miss the connection to gender. They may punish the bullies and throw one after another out of school, but they leave the culture of sexual harassment and bullying firmly intact. Schools can and should instead become leaders that change these hostile conditions. Doing nothing means students fend for themselves; and that’s why so many choose violence. One-day workshops and after-school programs do little to change our schools’ culture of hostility."

Because this has been on my mind lately, and because I continue to be reminded thanks to the media and many others that bullying is such a huge issue, I'm thinking of doing a related community outreach as a project for the Feminist Theory class I'm taking this quarter.  As an option our professor is letting us choose a topic/problem that relates to feminism/women's studies and try to create a related community service project.

I was reminded as I read these articles and thought about a future prospective project, of my students in my English 102 classes; both times I taught it I've had several people write papers on bullying and cyberbullying.  Most all of these students wrote about it because they were victims of it sometime during middle or high school (it's still a problem that's close to them and that they wish to combat as freshmen in college). I was a witness to some of their 'stories of bravery' as they shared them in their short argument reflections.  This past quarter, similar to my Women's Studies professor, I gave students the option of writing a letter to someone about their topic or doing a 'pocket-size' service project that related to their topic in some way. One girl who chose cyberbullying as her topic wrote a letter to her high school, advocating for more actions to be taken against cyberbullying: teacher-led workshops, a counselor on campus for students to talk to.  Another girl chose to do a small service project by signing a pledge on Stand Together and sharing her number on her social networking sites; she said many of her friends joined her in the pledge against bullying - - I thought this was so exciting for her; she saw that in taking this seemingly small stand, she became more than just a number!

As Clein suggests, as teachers we have an obligation to create a dialogue with students to "help them creat[e] friendships based on trust rather than social climbing and clawing. Instead of more punishment and increasing suspension rates—another form of social exclusion—conflict needs to become an opportunity for teaching where students learn to stand up for one another, refrain from vilifying others, and learn ways to appreciate, support, and help everyone in their community."  But, sadly, as Clein and the NYTimes article both suggest, "cruelty is embedded in our schools and therefore in our society as a whole."

Perhaps the best way to combat this growing problem is by providing a place for sharing our stories, making them our own, and becoming people who've overcome rather than people made into victims.  The Born This Way Foundation has a mission of 'inspiring bravery,' and has created a place for people to share their 'stories of bravery,' personal experiences with bullies.  I think this is one very helpful way to put an end to bullying, by sharing those stories with others and having people listen.  I shared some of my own stories in part of a memoir I wrote for a feminist memoir class, and I can't tell you how good it felt sharing those stories, making them my own.  Similar to my students who shared their stories with me, I was glad to have witnesses to these events (I might get up the courage to share them on here sometime).  If more of us understand that we've gone through these experiences, we might find a better way to combat the issue and understand the underlying problems.

.Welcome to Holland.

One reason I love being a teacher is that I get to guide students in learning new things; but another is that my students help me learn new things too!  This quarter I was blessed with a really great class - the students worked well together, there was a great sense of community, and they encouraged each other in their individual projects.  Overall, it was a great learning experience for me after last quarter which was unpleasant to say the least.  But I can see how I did things differently at the beginning of the quarter and how this created a better, more communal learning environment (sometimes difficult to create, I've found, with freshmen undergrads).

One of my students wrote her 102 paper arguing that parents should not choose to put their disabled children up for adoption.  She was very close to this issue because she is a triplet sister to a brother with cerebral-palsy. When she first began this project I wasn't sure where it would take her.  I didn't know that there would be many people out there against her argument, but we both found out there were plenty of counter-arguments to address. I tend to be pretty open to any project student might propose.  I mean, I won't let them go down a dangerous path that might have them frustrated and weary by the end, but I don't set strict limits about what they should do.  I have found so far that when they work through whatever problems might arise with their topics it can help them problem-solve and learn.

This quarter I also gave them the option (and encouraged them) to conduct interviews with someone connected to their topic in some way.  This student chose her mother and through that interview discovered a poem that her mother read when she found out about her son.  This was a special experience for the student and her mother; she told me she started to cry when her mother described the poem.  She shared it with me and I'm sharing it with you today!

Here's a recording of the poem or you can read it below - -

Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley (1987)
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......


When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.


After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."


"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."


But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.


The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.


So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.


It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.


But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."


And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.


But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

.Appalachian Resources.

I'm putting the final touches on the Appalachian class I've been building this quarter (I'm sure some of you are as ready as I am for it to be finished just so I'll stop talking about it on here..haha!).  Anyway, it's been one of those projects you feel like it's your baby so I'm glad the 'pregnancy' is over.  With that said, I wanted to share some of the resources my students will/would explore and discover during the course. I'm pretty excited about finding and exploring these myself so I hope they appeal to working-class/Appalachian (or even non-Appalachian) high school/college freshmen.


Part of the class is focused on the controversial topic, Mountaintop Removal (MTR) since it's such a large part of the culture in Appalachia (the other subtopic is technology and modern media's impact on place and heritage - might blog it soon).  I'm not having students argue or debate the MTR issue; (since it is so controversial and many might bring personal baggage to this issue) but rather they'll be looking at how different groups (coal companies, workers, environmentalists, church activists) depict, represent, and discuss the issue, people, the mountains, etc. Here are a few of the resources for the MTR unit that I'm pretty excited about - -


Thorney Lieberman’s Honoring America’s Coal Miners: A Photographic Project  - - This online book provides pictures taken for Lieberman’s traveling photographic exhibit honoring coal miners.  


I've talked about this next one on my blog before...The Bee Hive Collective’s “The True Cost of Coal” graphic concept booklet (excerpt) - - The Bee Hive Collective, an organization of artists and environmental activists, travel and raise awareness about environmental issues, including MTR.  This graphic concept booklet describes some of the specific illustrations in their mural, “The True Cost of Coal.”  Though they are discussing the consequences of MTR, they do so through visual narratives, depicting the stories of the different groups involved by portraying them as animals of the forest.  For example, the excerpt “The Dance of Hard Choices,” (pictured below) describes the broken-down miners (frogs) continuing a dangerous cycle – they work, they hurt, they buy addictive pills from pharmaceutical companies (depicted as an Ass in a well-endorsed lab coat), they work to buy more pills. 

Source: beehivecollective.org via Jade on Pinterest

Coal: A Love Story - - Very excited to find this resource! An interactive site produced by Powering A Nation includes small video vignettes about different aspects of the coal industry.  It also includes a tool to calculate one’s daily use of coal, which will be a fun interactive activity for them.   


Video Clips from SpikeTV series Coal: “Life of a Coal Miner” and “Economy of Coal” - - These clips provide a brief overview of coal miners in West Virginia.  Students will get to hear from the workers, listening to their ‘voices’ and views of the issue.


We'll also be watching an episode ('The Spoil') from the FX original series Justified.  The characters represent different groups involved in MTR - Carol from Black Pike Mining Company; Boyd Crowder a Harlan man hired out by the company to persuade families to sell out; and Mags Bennett, an Appalachian woman and leader of the 'Bennett clan.'  Carol makes her argument that “we can bring prosperity back to this land; God put coal in these hills for just that purpose,” while Mags argues “the story’s always been the same – big money men come in and take the timber and the coal and the strength of our people, and what do they leave behind? Poundments full of poisonous slurry and valleys full of toxic trash.” In this interaction, both women argue within the conventions of the specific groups they’re a part of – both are trying to put their arguments into language patterns that will appeal to the Appalachian community members – Carol mentioning God’s plan of coal in the mountains and Mags’ assertion that only dangerous leftovers will be produced.

Mags Bennett

Source: google.com via Jade on Pinterest

Carol of Black Pike Mining Company and Boyd Crowder
Source: google.com via Jade on Pinterest

I hope you enjoyed exploring as much as I have.  If you find any other resources about Appalachia that might be helpful for this future class feel free to share! (Thanks Chelsea for telling me about the Snakeman show on Discovery; didn't get to work it in but I definitely think there's a place for it in a larger course design!)


P.S. It's Appalachia Awareness Week at Scott's school, University of Dayton - - interesting!

.StoryCorps: Every Voice Matters.

This weekend I've been working like a madwoman on the Appalachian class I'm building for one of my courses (we're starting our final week of the quarter tomorrow so needless to say it's nearly finished...or should be).  During one of the units we're supposed to have the students interact with people in some way.  In my class they'll be interviewing people in their community about the impact modern technology and media has on their place and heritage.  But, before they conduct these interviews they'll need to learn some interviewing skills.

To do this, we'll be watching the following animated clips, discussing interviewees' roles as 'living' sources and the interview process as a type of 'research.'  These clips are from a wonderful resource called StoryCorps, a non-profit organization that records and collects interviews to share on their website.  The librarian at my school introduced it to our class as a resource to use while generating ideas for our course designs. I wanted to share it on my blog because I'd never heard of StoryCorps, but I've enjoyed exploring the site.  I think it's an amazing resource that could be used and adapted in just about any classroom; it could also be a great family heritage project for anyone wanting to collect and share family stories.  You can see more animations of the recorded interviews here.

Source: storycorps.org via Jade on Pinterest

The Icing on the Cake: A young woman interviews her mother about their immigration to the U.S. from Mexico (have a tissue handy).

Source: storycorps.org via Jade on Pinterest

Q and A: A boy with Asperger's syndrome interviews his mother about the mysteries of life.

.my first tablet.

So anyone who knows me pretty well is aware that I'm not very technologically advanced - - I mean I can type pretty fast, I can use PC and Mac operating systems -thanks to my job as Writing Center tutor in college- and I know my way around most computer programs - - but I own a military-grade flip-phone that can pretty much only text, using the number pad, and when my guitar students bring in their touch-screen iPods I probably seem like an ancient granny trying to work them.  I sit in class with fellow English grad students who prop up their iPads and tablets while I fumble around with a stack full of printed articles and books.  That being said, I'm very excited to announce that I bought a new Kindle Fire!!!! (yes, I realize the hypocrisy of a previous post...but we all grow and change, right?)

Now before some of you faint in your seats at the thought of me giving up hardcopy books (I have pledged to read the printed word or so says my blog) I did not purchase it for reading; I'll still be sitting in class with a pile of articles and books.  Although it might be smart for my husband and me to go easy on purchasing hardcopy books -we've long run out of shelf room- I didn't purchase it with any plan to read on it (although that doesn't mean I'm going cold-turkey - I might decide to purchase a couple to have handy).  Instead, it will be used in my guitar lessons for playing music videos and looking up chords on the spot! I'm very excited to take it in to my first lessons and let my girls rock out to the music videos of Taylor Swift or Christina Perry (a new favorite for the 10-17 female guitar-playing demographic).

So far I'm very pleased with my purchase (and I just know my husband can't wait to download Angry Birds and read ESPN blogs more conveniently).  I first decided I wanted one when I saw the price - $199 compared to the iPad's $500+ range.  And last week I took my laptop to work to look up a few songs for my students and let them play their guitar with the music videos; they loved it! But I don't want to have to lug my laptop around with me everywhere so this seemed a perfect compromise.

With all this excitement and hype about the tablets I have to say I've bought into it a little bit (begrudgingly so).  I'm making myself feel better by telling myself (the truth) that I bought it for work purposes, even though it seems like such a great way to play!

.work that's not so much like work.

I read this in my devotional the other day and I just love it - - "Work...it should be looked upon -- not as a necessary drudgery...but as a way of life in which the nature of [wo]man should find its proper exercise and delight and so fulfill itself to the glory of God." - - Dorothy Sayers

The old saying, "love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life," is one that I live by and recite to my freshmen English students on a regular basis.  They sit in class, juggling jobs and school and life, desperately trying to figure out what they want to do for the rest of their lives, and I know it can be scary.  Luckily for me, I didn't have to search too hard to find my dream job - teaching.  I started when I was fourteen teaching swimming lessons, then moved on to guitar lessons, and now I teach the correct ways to cite sources in MLA and APA format.   Though it might sound "blah" to some, it is a fabulously perfect fit for me.

But one of the things I'm most thankful for is that I still get to give guitar lessons, teaching young girls to sing and play Taylor Swift and Michelle Branch (etc.) to their hearts' content.  Before Christmas, 11 of my students performed in a recital for their parents and the residents of Bethany Village Nursing Facility.   I have to say I felt a bit like a giddy parent, watching them perform.  Though last quarter was a challenging experience as a freshmen teacher, I realized that I went through it for a reason - to appreciate the other times (like the girls' performance and my students/class this quarter) when I know I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.

.It's the new year already?.

 I can't quite believe how long it's been since I've written on here.  The last post tells me it was mid-September, reminding me just how fast the last few months have gone.  And I have a feeling the next few will be zipping by just as fast.

If I was on a semester schedule at school I could say this is my last semester, but since we're on quarters I'll still have one more to go after the one at present - which I'll be going in to week 3 of 10 this week (see, flying by already).  I'll be graduating in June with an M.A. in English Literature and a Certificate in Women's Studies, searching for an adjunct teaching position at a community college close by - I hope! I've decided I'm just going to take my time in finding a job instead of scrambling around panicking.  I've got a growing number of guitar lessons to see me through the summer if need be anyway.  And Scott, too, is coming up on a new and exciting stage in his Ph.D program.  He's finished with coursework and will begin studying and taking Comps this semester, on top of teaching two general option religion courses.  He'll then begin working on his dissertation with two years paid to complete it.

On January 2nd we celebrated not only two years of wonderful marriage, but two years of successful studies in programs we're both blessed to be a part of.  Graduating this June will be bittersweet for me because I'm both ready to leave and sad to be finished (although my proposal for my independent paper is due next week so about mid-March I might really be ready to get out of all this mess).  But my real reason for being sad is the people - the TAs and professors who have been supportive and helpful every step of the way.  I've met some great people through my program and I'll be sad not to be able to share all the joys and frustrations of being a grad student teaching freshman composition.  I hope and pray I'll end up in a supportive and encouraging environment as a new teacher next year, whether at a private high school or community college.

All that said, this last semester (er...next to last quarter) has started exceedingly well (much better than the growing pains I experienced last quarter).  My class of freshmen are engaged and quite talkative actually, in a good way! And the courses I'm taking, while I felt a bit out of my comfort zone at first, are going really well - "Feminist Theory: Writing the Body" and my first Comp/Rhet class "Teaching Argument: ENG 102."  I'm very excited to be creating another themed class as part of the Teaching 102 course, this time working a theme into the argumentation freshman comp class.  I've decided on Place & Heritage, specifically focusing on the Appalachian culture.  My students will explore the issues, stereotypes, and heritage connected to the place of Appalachia, reflecting on their own cultures and heritage through interviews and readings.  I'm excited to be working on this project, though it seems a bit overwhelming right now, because I have such a connection to Appalachia and I think it'll be great to explore it in the classroom.  My independent paper topic also deals with Appalachia: the cinematic narrative creating a national identity in Muriel Rukeyser's The Book of the Dead, an epic poem depicting the Gauley Bridge Mining Tragedy in West Virginia.

Well I can't end a post without reading suggestions so here's what's been on my bedside table lately (thanks mostly to my husband for giving them to me as Christmas presents):

Mudhouse Sabbath: An Invitation to Life of Spiritual Discipline by Lauren Winner - As a convert from Judaism to Christianity, Winner finds small ways we, as Christians, can connect to our Jewish heritage.

Orange is the New Black: My Year in Women's Prison by Piper Kerman - I'm not sure why but I'm always fascinated by narratives about life in prison, whether it be on TV or in books.  Kerman attended a women's college, came from a good background, but did time for helping transport drugs.

Take This Bread by Sara Miles - Miles grew up in an atheist household, despite her grandparents' involvement in mission work and social activism in the name of God.  Her memoir tells of her conversion to Christianity after a serendipitous communion experience.  Read an excerpt here.

I also just finished the first book of The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins and I can't wait to watch the movie coming out in March!  Until next time...

.The Kite Runner.

Thanks to two of my students from this spring quarter I moved Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner up on my summer reading list, and boy and am I glad I did! I know I'm a bit late in catching on to all the enthusiasm, popularity, and hype it received but it's better late than never, right?  It's been sitting on my bookshelf for far too long because I just hadn't found the time to devote to it (I actually picked up my copy in a FREE BOOKS bin at Scott's school - can't beat that!)  Truth is, it didn't take much time to read because I quite literally couldn't put it down and consumed it in just two days!

Needless to say I highly recommend it as a summer read (if you've not read it already, of course, and if you have I'd love to hear your thoughts on it).  To me, it was so powerfully written because of the honesty of the narrator.  He knew he had done wrong and he is quite unsympathetic for much of the narrative.  I told my husband while we were reading together on the porch, "Gosh, I could just slap him," referring to the narrative, Amir.  And I loved it, too, for the same reason one of my students expressed, "It's filled with wise quotes that stay with you long after you've put down the book."  I couldn't have put it better myself!

The two students I referred to earlier are both originally from Afghanistan and were such joys to work with.  During our one-on-one conferences I felt like I was talking to my peers, rather than students, because of their maturity and understanding of the world.  In one part of the book the narrator says that he feels like a tourist in his own country, and both students mentioned this line as one that stuck out to them as Americans who have since travelled back to Afghanistan and Pakistan, experiencing a similar feeling.  For me, it helped me understand the wars and controversies in the Middle East (if only a little better) because it made it a more personal story, one that affects fathers, sons, brothers, wives, daughters, husbands...

Add it to your reading list - you won't be dissatisfied! But a little word from experience: don't go watch the trailer because it gives a detail away that you'll want to read first.  Although now that I've finished I can't wait to watch the film!

.Visual Analysis.

One of the assignments for our ENG 101 students requires them to write a visual analysis.  I was very excited to begin searching for some visuals for the service-learning class, centered around the African refugee experience/social work/interest.  So here are just a few of the ones I found (I kind of got carried away and I have two whole pages of links, but I'll probably be weeding through some).

Brilliant friends and readers, please give some feedback/analysis of one (or more) of these visuals! I'd be interested in reading what you think about them.

[People in Need ad]

[Keep a Child Alive - this one has already caused quite a bit of controversy]

[Advertisement for End Poverty 2015 campaign]

[Millennium Promise Organization]

[Care.org]

.Who's teaching whom?.

This past week during our weekly "visit/tutoring/growth into better adults," whatever you might want to call it, during our hour of tutoring African refugees, I worked for the second time with a 29-year-old man from Congo who only has one arm (a soldier came into his home and shot him when he was 19).  The last time I worked with him he seemed very distracted and a little frustrated, but I felt much better about our second week together.  What always amazes me about these weekly classes is that as soon as the students walk in, they look for the person they worked with last, so as soon as R walked in the cafeteria he saw me, walked over, greeted me, and begin taking down the chairs for us to work at our table (we've started fist-bumping since he seems not to enjoy hand-shaking, which I like almost more!).

We sat down at a table together and I could tell he was a little worried about something.  It turned out that he had missed work because he was confused about his schedule.  I ensured him that I was sure it would be fine if he just called the place where he works and apologize.  It didn't seem to help much, but we started the night's lesson, which happened to be how to use a phone book.  I'm always amazed at how different things might seem to those who've only been here in "the good 'ol U.S. of A" for short periods of time.  A phone book is something we know from children - we know how to look up the restaurants, doctors' offices, toy stores, and yet this was something he clearly was not comfortable with.  After browsing several categories that would probably never come in handy his phone rang and he proceeded to talk to someone, courteously excusing himself from this "life skill" lesson I was trying to teach.   Before I knew it the phone had been placed near my ear and I was talking to his boss who was hurriedly rambling out his hours for the next two weeks.  I quickly jotted them down and told her that he had promised to try harder in keeping up with his hours. (But honestly, the way she was mumbling the days and times so fast I don't see how he, as an ESL speaker, could understand when I was struggling to keep up!) I don't blame him one bit!

When I gave his phone back I quickly drew boxes with the days of the week, trying desperately to draw something that looked remotely like a calendar.  He immediately turned it around to face him and said, "I like this!"  Aha! Something I could really teach him, how to keep a planner!  If that's not a "life skill," what is?  So I told him how he could mark his hours under the boxes with the days labeled at the top and even mark them off when he was done (ugh! so American - mark off the days so you'll feel like you've accomplished something).

The rest of the time was spent going over traffic signs (because he really wants to get his drivers' license) and making family trees together.  I started finding that if I didn't talk, he would just keep right on talking, telling me about his family, his life in the Congo vs. here (he loves America and American food especially) so I let him talk. He told me about one of the biggest differences he saw between America and the  Congo:"Here, war is soldier and soldier, there they come in at homes...they could come in here" and he gestured to the door.  I shuddered.  He told me how when he was 19 years old a soldier came in his home and shot him and his father - his father didn't survive.  And as if that wasn't enough, it nearly broke my heart when he said, "English is hard.  I need English friends."  He said everyone he's around speaks in another language and his mother wants to speak their language from Africa when they're home.  Then, something amazing happened...

He leaned over and asked, "Do you go to church? Man, I need to go t'church."  Technically, we're not supposed to talk about it with them - we've been warned several times not to try and "convert" them, but I was comforted knowing he was the one who asked.  I told him my husband and I do in fact go to church but that it was pretty far away from where he and his mother live.  So I told him we could come pick him up and take him to a church downtown on Saturday evening since he works on Sundays.  I just couldn't believe how serendipitous this all was.  Before he left he urged me to write down his cell number so I could call and take him to church.  I hope it all works out that we can take him, but either way, I learned so much about him and myself in that hour working with him.

I've been thinking lately how God miraculously places things in our paths so we can be prepared for them later.  I read a book when I was in college, thanks to my mother, called Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust about the genocide in Rwanda, and now I'm working with these refugees who have seen and experienced things like Immaculee, and I honestly don't know if I would have known how to approach this situation, or at least I might not have felt as connected, if I hadn't read about her experience with war coming into her home and neighbors rising up against one another.  I just feel so blessed that these students are a part of my life.

And yet another blessing that I found out today: one of the other students we've been working with went in for a meeting today at our school and got a position in the LEAP program, designed for non-English speakers to take college classes and learn English along the way.  We got an email from our professor saying he was overjoyed and that he kept saying he wouldn't have this opportunity if not for this class.

"Blessed are the poor in spirt, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven...Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth...Blessed are the pure in spirit, for they shall see God..."

.Sex, Drugs, and...

The new MTV show, Skins, has been on my mind a lot this past week (and a topic of conversation in our household).  Because Scott and I both teach freshmen in college, and because the blatant and problematic over-sexualization of college-aged teens (and younger) is important to us, we both try to discuss these issues with our students (although Scott gets to talk to them more about how this contradicts with virtues as Christians).


We were both intrigued by this article on the Huffington Post, written by Cathleen Falsani, called "MTV's Skins: Suffer the Children."  She details the controversy of the show's premise and content which, in addition to the abuse of drugs and alcohol, includes "child pornographic" scenes with "no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire."  We watched the pilot episode together to get a better understanding of the show and gained a clear understanding of the problems from the opening scene: there's a young girl (probably 14-16 years old) who looks literally like a street-walker - torn clothes, running mascara, glazed look and all.  She's barefoot and alone, walking down a suburban middle-class street in the early hours of the morning, motioning to her brother to create a diversion so she can sneak into her house.  Her brother sees her out of the corner of his eye though his attention is lost to the fully naked middle-aged woman across the street, standing in her window - they share mischievous grins before he blasts his stereo so his sister can sneak in unnoticed.  The entirety of the episode deals with the group of friends trying to help one teen lose his virginity on the verge of his 17th birthday.  His best friend even considers letting him have his own girlfriend for the night so he won't be such a weirdo anymore.


I could go into more detail about why all this is problematic for the self-image of teens, but if you can't tell from my description from this opening scene then I suggest watching the show for yourself, if only to fully understand what today's youth is seeing as "normal behavior."  Defenders of the show argue that the same themes reside in such shows as ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager and That 70s Show*, but Skins just portrays it "as is" - more raw and realistic.  I hope the "realism" part isn't true, but I have a feeling it is.  


While, from my own students, I've heard harsh judgements of the present generation and their over-sexed identity and culture as seen through the shows I've already mentioned, as well as Teen Mom, I also hear things like, "I know I shouldn't watch it, but I do anyway..."or "It's stupid, but I think it's funny..." And when told they need to choose a TV show to evaluate and half choose Jersey Shore, I'm not sure exactly what this says about them.  Are they able to discern and make educated decisions about what is acceptable and what is unhealthy for them?  Are they able to see that though these situations are glamorized on TV, they're not the way to live? Can they see the unintentional message presented, at least as far as Skins goes, that these kids have some serious issues? I guess I'll have to wait and see what they say in their papers.


So what does this all mean?  What does it mean for those of us who are teachers and parents or future-parents?  Are these shows similar to those we used to watch as teens or has it gotten worse?  All I know is, I'm having a hard time thinking about the culture I'm going to bring a child into one day, and, like Falsani, I'm deeply concerned for the teens in today's society.  Though I don't want to sound like those people who say, "well when I was a kid..." I don't want to turn a blind eye to these issues either.


Any thoughts?
__
*I've never actually had a problem with That 70s Show, but Falsani's article made me consider it a little more.  Scott's class discussed this at length and came up some pretty good arguments as to why it could be problematic as well.  Either way, I still believe it's not as harmful as some more recent shows.

I spy...a bumper sticker

I saw this delightful bumper sticker last night and it made me very happy:



"Too bad all the people fit to run the world are too busy teaching school."

.feeling a little hypocritical.

Ok, so I'm having a little bit of a hard time writing my papers and teaching at the same time.  I feel like I'm having to shift gears really quickly - like I'm using two different parts of my brain.  When I'm replying to my students' "Mrs. M." letters that they have to write to me each week asking me questions and such, the words flow and I enjoy reflecting on their questions.  However, when I sit down to write my academic papers, I feel like I have nothing at all to say.  I never had to deal with this during my student teaching because I was only taking one class during that time and I only had a couple small papers to write.  And the reason I'm feeling hypocritical is because I've been advising my students to "just start writing" when they get writer's block.  I've been telling them to "free write" about anything.  So in order to free myself from this feeling, I'm taking my own advice and "just writing!"

All the TAs had one-on-one conferences this week and I thought mine went really well.  It was wonderful sitting down with each student and talking to them about their papers.  Since I have been evaluating them on all their writing assignments, I could talk to them about their individual strengths and weaknesses, rather than making it a generalized lesson in class.  I suggest conferences to any teacher who requires students to write papers.  I'm trying to decide how this would work in the high school environment since you can't obviously talk to one person at a time - what would the other students be doing?  (Any suggestions?)

During one of my conferences I found out that one of my students (who wants to be an editor at a publishing company) is a fan of Audrey Niffenegger.  I've talked about Niffenegger's books here before, but today I'm suggesting her new graphic book: The Night Bookmobile. I haven't actually read it all the way through yet, but I did get to skim through the lovely, high gloss pages at a local bookstore in Yellow Springs. If you are a book-lover, you will definitely appreciate the nostalgia of reading in this book. You can visit her website here to view more of her works and art. 

 

.playing "school."

As I had expected, I have been unable to update the blog as much as I would like.  I've never really had any sort of set schedule, so I don't feel too bad about it.  Teaching my freshman Composition class is going quite well.  I have to say that sometimes it feels a little surreal to have my own classroom, my own students, and their homework to take home and grade.

I say "surreal" because when I was little my Granny and Pa had a small storage building beside their house.  It looked like a miniature barn because it was painted red with white trim.  It even had a tiny porch and windows - I called it my "old schoolhouse."  It was where decorations were kept, and where my Pa parked his lawnmower.  There were also small shelves inside that Granny had cleared and placed some of her old school books.  She had old grammar and math primers, handwriting notebooks and old Nancy Drew books.  In the spring, summer, and fall while visiting Granny and Pa, I would slip away to the little red barn and teach (mostly English and Spelling).  I went so far as making up names for my imaginary students, writing them down and giving them grades.  (I realize I'm going out on a limb here admitting these childhood tendencies, but I look back on these memories now with fondness).  I would play school at home too, lining up teddy bears and dolls on my bed and reading to them (showing them the pictures and illustrations, of course).

{clas.ufl.edu}

So sometimes when I enter my classroom now, I feel like I'm just playing "school" in the barn.  I have so much fun getting to know the students, encouraging their writing, and helping them learn new ideas and concepts.  For as long as I've been working toward teaching, I've heard mixed reactions towards teaching, so I know my passion and excitement may not stay forever (although I very much hope it does).  Some teachers get bogged down with the standardized testing or the students' apathy to learning.  I'm sure I will too.  But for now, I'm enjoying my first teaching experience and finally filling the shoes I've been waiting to wear since those "old schoolhouse" days.

Poetry Speaks

I'm really enjoying my grad classes this quarter, and after spending my fall semester in a high school experiencing the wonders of student teaching, I am appreciating my own learning experiences and being in an academic community again.  Sometimes, though, especially when I hear other teachers talking about their classrooms and the activities they are doing, I am eager to get in front of a classroom of my own.  I will soon find out whether I was accepted to be a TA in the English program, but until then I am building my "teaching file" of all the activities I want to do when I have my own English class.  

I would love to incorporate this new book, Poetry Speaks: who I am, featured today on NPR.org.  It includes modern poetry that appeals to teenage kids, while simultaneously presenting them with more "classical" poetry.  It even comes with a CD of poets reading their poems.  Seeing books like this really gets me excited about teaching, and I thought I would share it with my fellow teacher friends!  Have fun in the classroom and I hope to be joining you soon!

Quotes and the "secret" to better teaching

I love collecting quotes from the books I read.  If someone stumbles onto my many journals and diaries, they will be either disappointed or relieved to find mostly quotes.  One of the first gifts my husband gave me was a small notebook that I now keep in my purse to write down books I want to read and quotes that I want to remember forever. 


Over break I was able to do some pleasure reading and I devoured An Arsonists' Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, Push, Through the Looking Glass: Further Adventures & Misadventures into the Realm of Children's Literature three days into break.  I have since then started Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin and am falling in love with her writing style and her creative interpretation of the relationship between Alice Liddell and Charles Dodgson (if you have to look up that name, don't bother going to see the new Alice in Wonderland movie because you don't deserve to be a part of all the hype).


I thought I would include some of the quotes that I collected from "An Arsonists' Guide...":


"Can a story be good only if it produces an effect?  If the effect is a bad one, but intended, has the story done its job? If the story produces an effect other than the intended one, is it then a bad story?  Can a story be said to produce an effect at all?  Should we expect it to?  Can we blame the story for anything?  Can a story actually do anything at all?" 

"Once an English teacher always an English teacher."

"...love is the voice asking, What else? What else? And to those of us who have had love and lost it or thrown it away, then love is the voice that leads us back to love, to see if it might still be ours or if we've lost it for good.  For those of us who've lost if, love is also the thing that makes us speak in aphorisms about love, which is why we try to get love back, so we can stop speaking that way.  Aphorisitically, that is."  

"an old, musty colonial home full of rooms that all looked like studies and not the living and dining and parlor rooms they had probably been designed to be.  Each room had towering, overflowing bookcases, and dim lighting, and the shabby look of neglect and intellectual wear and tear."

"That was his phrase - 'the high ramparts of my defensiveness' - and I remembered it in case I ever decide to build and then describe my own ramparts."

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

My husband often sends me forwarded articles from the New York Times or Yahoo!, mostly about teaching and school-related issues.  One of the most recent articles came from the New York Times and was titled "Building a Better Teacher."  It was from March 7, so I was a little behind on my reading, but last night I read through before bed, hoping to find the magical key to becoming a great teacher.  The answer was found in the last paragraph of the article:

"This record encouraged a belief in some people that good teaching must be purely instinctive, a

kind of magic performed by born superstars. As Jane Hannaway, the director of the Education Policy Center at the Urban Institute and a former teacher, put it to me, successful teaching depends in part on a certain inimitable “voodoo.” You either have it or you don’t. “I think that there is an innate drive or innate ability for teaching,” Sylvia Gist, the dean of the college of education at Chicago State University, said when I visited her campus last year."

Here I was thinking that some enlightening secret would shed light on what teachers were doing wrong, when the end result and conclusion was, teachers are born, not made.  While this could be somewhat comforting to me since I have been teaching swimming and guitar lessons since adolescence, and had a very successful student teaching experience, I think it is sad to think of all the teachers out there (and the students learning from them) whose sole purpose to be there is to coach.  This is a growing problem and it is allowed in places where a great deal of emphasis is placed on sports and not education.

I am also finding that most people want to look at the students in high school as apathetic and unable to learn. Yes students seem like the only things that interest them are found on TV or video games and they only want to sit and text to their friends.  It is a growing problem and it is only getting worse.  However, we can't just sit and snub our noses at them and say they are hopeless and ignorant.  If we do that, we are letting this generation down and not guiding them to become better.  As teachers, we have to keep reminding ourselves that we were once sitting in those same desks trying to learn with all the distractions that come with adolescence and if hopeful, hard-working teachers and parents weren't there to tell us we could be somebody, then we would have ended up a lost, apathetic generation as well.