Friday, November 30, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Thursday
In Lit and Language 11 we tackled chapter 11 of TKM. I think it’s my favorite chapter in the whole book. For those who don’t remember the novel - chapter 11 is where Miss Lafayette Dubose reappears and ridicules Jem and Scout. Atticus encourages them to be strong. He also reminds them that she is a sick old lady and can’t be held responsible for what she says. Scout has already learned to let the insults about Atticus “lawing for niggers” not get to her. But Dubose finally gets to Jem and he lashes her camellia bushes to ribbons with a baton he had bought for Scout.
As punishment (and it really isn’t punishment we find out later), Atticus makes Jem read to Dubose every afternoon (except Sundays) for a month. Only later does the reader realizes this is to help Dubose break her addiction to morphine (and Atticus would have had Jem read to her anyway). While Jem reads (with Scout at his side) Dubose pays attention for a few minutes and then slips away into some kind of stupor. Scout notes, though, after a few weeks, the stupors seem to occur later and later in their reading sessions. Finally, she doesn’t slip into a stupor at all.
It is only after Dubose’s death, which occurs one month after Jem stops reading to her, that Atticus informs the children of her addiction and that she wanted to die “beholdin’ to nothin’ or no one.”
Atticus has two reason for making Jem read to her -- First, to offer her a distraction while she broke her addiction. Second, to show him what true bravery is.
Now I like this last reason the best. I think it’s one reason this chapter is so powerful. Atticus is offering Jem a chance to do what Atticus always tells him - step inside someone else’s shoes and see what the world looks like through their eyes.
Yes, Miss Dubose was a mean, spiteful, cruel, and racist woman, but she had a virtuous side too. Atticus knows that in order for the kids to make it through the trial and to continue to live in Maycomb without resentment or bitterness, he must make them see that people, no matter how rotten or vile, have the potential for goodness inside them.
*****
While looking over my poor, tattered copy of TKM, I found a note from last year in chapter 9 about how Atticus doesn’t want the kids to catch Maycomb’s usual disease (racism). The note was about an incident that related perfectly to this. I was attending one of KoKo’s 6th grade basketball games in Fertile. I was sitting in the bleachers with other parents and grandparents. Kristie was coaching. One of the players - or maybe it was her assistant coach - turned to their parent or grandparent and asked for her to run and get them something to drink. Then the parent/grandparent turned to whoever was sitting next to her and grumbled under her breath, “What color am I?”
I couldn’t believe it. My mouth gaped open.
I know there are pockets of ignorance and hicks around this area, but to say something like that was horrible. Especially when one of her grandkids’ teammates was black!
I just shook my head and told the parent sitting next to me that while rednecks may very well exist, mullets (which the lady was proudly adorning) had gone out 15 years ago. In fact, I was pretty sure that mullet would have been embarrasses to sit atop that hag.
****
Since we lengthened our classes from one quarter to a semester, we are now able to read several novels. Currently, my classes are reading a novel apiece - TKM and Dorian Gray. I forgot how exhausting it is teaching novels. Even though I’ve read them dozens of times, I still struggle to teach them. One would think you could turn them lose to read or work on an assignment and you could get some other work done (my themes and quizzes are piling up), but you can’t.
*****
I’ve been thinking of the novels I read in high school. In 7th grade we read something called “God Bless the Beasts and Children.” In 9th grade we read “The Outsiders” and “Romeo and Juliet” (I know it’s a novel, but it was damn hard). In 10th grade we read the first novel that I felt I really understood in terms of themes and symbols - “Les Mis” -- Ha. No. Not quite. The novel was really “Of Mice and Men.” As a junior we read a short novel called “The Acorn People.” That year I also read “Hamlet” in a humanities class. Then either during my junior or senior year - I think my senior year - we read “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.” Oh yeah, for a book report I read “The Time Machine” my senior year. I read it in what felt like one sitting in our library. It must have been a condensed version, but I got so swept up in the damn thing that I read right through class and study hall. I probably finished it at home - now that I think about it - how could I have finished it in one sitting? Either way, I loved it and devoured it in a matter of hours. We still read it in my science fiction class too.
For six years worth of English classes, that doesn’t seem like much.
****
I finally finished my lesson plan for the MNHS class from this fall. The deadline is December 3. Nothing like waiting until the last minute. But I’ve had the main idea bouncing around my head ever since the class ended. The class focused on the settlement and industrialization of early MN. I was fascinated by the early industries (grain and lumber mills, mining, and the rail roads. I never quite realized how vital these were to the towns that sprang up because of them.
My hometown, Red Lake Falls, sprang up because it straddles two rivers, the Red Lake River and the Clearwater. They join - at a location known as “The Point,” where a mill used to be. Long before I was born, the industries sprang up because of the rivers. There was a large saw mill and a flower mill. There were dams to create electricity. Then the rail roads came through. Elevators sprang up (there were three that I remember, though two were shut down when I was young). A Flax mill sprang up too. From this, Red Lake Falls became a thriving community. Today it’s just barely hanging on.
That was when the lesson plan idea hit me: what if kids were to examine the death of a small town. Take a town close to RLF, Dorothy. This once was a thriving community with an elevator. They didn’t have a river, but the rail road ran right through it. Once that stopped though, the town withered and died. Just off the top of my head, I can think of dozens of towns just like this.
Then I started thinking about the information age and what are the new rail roads, mills, and lumber industries of today? What if students were to try to create a new town? What new industries would they want? Where would an ideal location of a town be? What elements would they want in their community (schools, churches, water parks, and so on)?
The culminating activity for the lesson plan involves students creating an imovie in which they advertise their new town for prospective residents.
So this morning I planned it out, typed it up, and sent it off. So far so good. Now I just have to see if I’ll ever use it.
*****
Teaching is an amazing profession. Sometimes one gets caught up in the day to day frustrations (like the post below about students whining over having to read) that one doesn’t stop to appreciate the small things - that sometimes aren’t really that small.
Prior to Thanksgiving break, I was inundated with several former students emailing me or stopping for assistance with papers or speeches. I was too glad to offer what I could. This included simply reading rough drafts, tweaking a thesis, meeting face to face with a student, and sending another former student essays and a book. I mentioned this to Kristie one evening and she smiled and said, “What a compliment.” Until then, I never thought of it that way. But they were compliments.
Then the Wednesday before break, several stopped in to thank me or just say hi or drop off books and materials. I guess this is another compliment.
Just today a former student, whose name escapes me, stopped in with her first project from welding. Now I haven’t had her in class for a few years, but when she was in class she told me that she wanted to be a welder. Well, jokingly, I told her that girls couldn’t be welders. That was a source of constant argument for us while she was in class. I wasn’t serious, and she knew it. I just liked to argue. Before the class ended, she promised to come back one day with a piece of welding for me to show me that she could weld.
Today was that day.
She turned in her first semester final project. A slab of steel with beads welded all around it. I couldn’t help smiling as she explained to me (and the German teacher, for she ran over and grabbed her to show off to her too) how on one side it was all sloppy looking because she was just learning how to use the arc-welder, but on the other side she mastered it and the workmanship (workwomanship?) is clear. Then she began explaining how her classes are going. While she struggled to write (her ideas were great - she was a voracious reader - but her grammar and sentence structure were elementary level), she obviously has found her niche as she explained the class to us in a totally different technical language than I have ever heard.
That was a great way to end a day.
As punishment (and it really isn’t punishment we find out later), Atticus makes Jem read to Dubose every afternoon (except Sundays) for a month. Only later does the reader realizes this is to help Dubose break her addiction to morphine (and Atticus would have had Jem read to her anyway). While Jem reads (with Scout at his side) Dubose pays attention for a few minutes and then slips away into some kind of stupor. Scout notes, though, after a few weeks, the stupors seem to occur later and later in their reading sessions. Finally, she doesn’t slip into a stupor at all.
It is only after Dubose’s death, which occurs one month after Jem stops reading to her, that Atticus informs the children of her addiction and that she wanted to die “beholdin’ to nothin’ or no one.”
Atticus has two reason for making Jem read to her -- First, to offer her a distraction while she broke her addiction. Second, to show him what true bravery is.
Now I like this last reason the best. I think it’s one reason this chapter is so powerful. Atticus is offering Jem a chance to do what Atticus always tells him - step inside someone else’s shoes and see what the world looks like through their eyes.
Yes, Miss Dubose was a mean, spiteful, cruel, and racist woman, but she had a virtuous side too. Atticus knows that in order for the kids to make it through the trial and to continue to live in Maycomb without resentment or bitterness, he must make them see that people, no matter how rotten or vile, have the potential for goodness inside them.
*****
While looking over my poor, tattered copy of TKM, I found a note from last year in chapter 9 about how Atticus doesn’t want the kids to catch Maycomb’s usual disease (racism). The note was about an incident that related perfectly to this. I was attending one of KoKo’s 6th grade basketball games in Fertile. I was sitting in the bleachers with other parents and grandparents. Kristie was coaching. One of the players - or maybe it was her assistant coach - turned to their parent or grandparent and asked for her to run and get them something to drink. Then the parent/grandparent turned to whoever was sitting next to her and grumbled under her breath, “What color am I?”
I couldn’t believe it. My mouth gaped open.
I know there are pockets of ignorance and hicks around this area, but to say something like that was horrible. Especially when one of her grandkids’ teammates was black!
I just shook my head and told the parent sitting next to me that while rednecks may very well exist, mullets (which the lady was proudly adorning) had gone out 15 years ago. In fact, I was pretty sure that mullet would have been embarrasses to sit atop that hag.
****
Since we lengthened our classes from one quarter to a semester, we are now able to read several novels. Currently, my classes are reading a novel apiece - TKM and Dorian Gray. I forgot how exhausting it is teaching novels. Even though I’ve read them dozens of times, I still struggle to teach them. One would think you could turn them lose to read or work on an assignment and you could get some other work done (my themes and quizzes are piling up), but you can’t.
*****
I’ve been thinking of the novels I read in high school. In 7th grade we read something called “God Bless the Beasts and Children.” In 9th grade we read “The Outsiders” and “Romeo and Juliet” (I know it’s a novel, but it was damn hard). In 10th grade we read the first novel that I felt I really understood in terms of themes and symbols - “Les Mis” -- Ha. No. Not quite. The novel was really “Of Mice and Men.” As a junior we read a short novel called “The Acorn People.” That year I also read “Hamlet” in a humanities class. Then either during my junior or senior year - I think my senior year - we read “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.” Oh yeah, for a book report I read “The Time Machine” my senior year. I read it in what felt like one sitting in our library. It must have been a condensed version, but I got so swept up in the damn thing that I read right through class and study hall. I probably finished it at home - now that I think about it - how could I have finished it in one sitting? Either way, I loved it and devoured it in a matter of hours. We still read it in my science fiction class too.
For six years worth of English classes, that doesn’t seem like much.
****
I finally finished my lesson plan for the MNHS class from this fall. The deadline is December 3. Nothing like waiting until the last minute. But I’ve had the main idea bouncing around my head ever since the class ended. The class focused on the settlement and industrialization of early MN. I was fascinated by the early industries (grain and lumber mills, mining, and the rail roads. I never quite realized how vital these were to the towns that sprang up because of them.
My hometown, Red Lake Falls, sprang up because it straddles two rivers, the Red Lake River and the Clearwater. They join - at a location known as “The Point,” where a mill used to be. Long before I was born, the industries sprang up because of the rivers. There was a large saw mill and a flower mill. There were dams to create electricity. Then the rail roads came through. Elevators sprang up (there were three that I remember, though two were shut down when I was young). A Flax mill sprang up too. From this, Red Lake Falls became a thriving community. Today it’s just barely hanging on.
That was when the lesson plan idea hit me: what if kids were to examine the death of a small town. Take a town close to RLF, Dorothy. This once was a thriving community with an elevator. They didn’t have a river, but the rail road ran right through it. Once that stopped though, the town withered and died. Just off the top of my head, I can think of dozens of towns just like this.
Then I started thinking about the information age and what are the new rail roads, mills, and lumber industries of today? What if students were to try to create a new town? What new industries would they want? Where would an ideal location of a town be? What elements would they want in their community (schools, churches, water parks, and so on)?
The culminating activity for the lesson plan involves students creating an imovie in which they advertise their new town for prospective residents.
So this morning I planned it out, typed it up, and sent it off. So far so good. Now I just have to see if I’ll ever use it.
*****
Teaching is an amazing profession. Sometimes one gets caught up in the day to day frustrations (like the post below about students whining over having to read) that one doesn’t stop to appreciate the small things - that sometimes aren’t really that small.
Prior to Thanksgiving break, I was inundated with several former students emailing me or stopping for assistance with papers or speeches. I was too glad to offer what I could. This included simply reading rough drafts, tweaking a thesis, meeting face to face with a student, and sending another former student essays and a book. I mentioned this to Kristie one evening and she smiled and said, “What a compliment.” Until then, I never thought of it that way. But they were compliments.
Then the Wednesday before break, several stopped in to thank me or just say hi or drop off books and materials. I guess this is another compliment.
Just today a former student, whose name escapes me, stopped in with her first project from welding. Now I haven’t had her in class for a few years, but when she was in class she told me that she wanted to be a welder. Well, jokingly, I told her that girls couldn’t be welders. That was a source of constant argument for us while she was in class. I wasn’t serious, and she knew it. I just liked to argue. Before the class ended, she promised to come back one day with a piece of welding for me to show me that she could weld.
Today was that day.
She turned in her first semester final project. A slab of steel with beads welded all around it. I couldn’t help smiling as she explained to me (and the German teacher, for she ran over and grabbed her to show off to her too) how on one side it was all sloppy looking because she was just learning how to use the arc-welder, but on the other side she mastered it and the workmanship (workwomanship?) is clear. Then she began explaining how her classes are going. While she struggled to write (her ideas were great - she was a voracious reader - but her grammar and sentence structure were elementary level), she obviously has found her niche as she explained the class to us in a totally different technical language than I have ever heard.
That was a great way to end a day.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Wednesday
Some good news finally - after gaining two pounds last week, I dropped one pound this week. Given how terribly much I ate over the holiday, that’s not bad at all. I finally got my rear in grea and went running - 20 minutes last night. I just have to get back into my routine. My really fat pants are at the bottom of my closet and I don’t want to have to dig them out. Yet, I don’t want to split my current slacks in class either.
*****
I think this class of juniors is enjoying TKM more than any I have had in awhile. This morning while taking attendance I overheard one kid wondering about the title. “I want to know what is up with the mockingird. They haven’t killed anything in the novel yet. That’s the worst title I’ve ever heard.” And this was before I had even started class. It’s the little things like that that can pick my day up.
This too is the first class that is getting the subtle humor in the novel. I actually had a few students chuckle when Scout asks Jack to “pass the damn ham” (my favorite line in all of literature). Others laughed when she beat the snot out of Francis. A few laughed even when Scout roared at Jack - when he was spanking her - that she hated him and hoped he died tomorrow.
However, I have several students who miss large chunks of time - some up to three days per week. They are behind on the reading, and because of their absences - are frustrated because we are so far ahead. The solution - come to damn school.
******
Today we finished “The Picture of Dorian Gray” in 12th grade English. The kids have had it with the novel, and I have had it with them having had it with the novel. I passed it out and my OCD student (see the post somewhere below) lamented how boring it was and how it was never going to make a difference in her life. She is the type who if you let them whine, she will whine forever.
So I nipped it in the bud.
“You think you’re going to last a week at Concordia with that effort?” I asked. A few weeks ago I finished writing a brief letter of recommendation for her. “At the very least, reading makes you smarter. You don’t want to be dumb all your life do you?”
“You’re mean!” she said.
I smilled and continued to hand out the final two chapters of the novel.
She came around and began asking questions to make up for her foolishness earlier. After then years of this, I have no time for whining or apathy. I used to launch into a diatribe about the benefits of learning and how important it is to students to love reading and to develop higher order thinking skills. I still believe that. I just don’t waste my breath on it anymore.
I just insult them. It has a better effect. When I used to lecture them on the benefits of learning, the eyes gloss over and they mentally dose off. Insulting them pisses them off. I can work with that. At least it gets their blood flowing.
Soon they realize their whining and apathy will only result in their ridicule. Eventually, they keep their mouths shut and do the work. Maybe I should try and reason with them, but when a teenager starts to whine, all my diplomatic ability vanishes.
I don’t bother with the lecture anymore because, hey, most won’t read another novel in their lives. I’ve resigned myself to that realization. Some will just squander their years at a job and going home to watch TV. No more higher order thinking skills. I can only present the knowledge and skills in as appetizing fashion as possible. They have to decide to grab something off the tray. If not, maybe I can shame them into it somehow.
I’m not above that.
****
The day is done and it’s time to go home and shovel some snow. I’m actually looking forward to it. I doubt that I’ll think the same way come February.
*****
I think this class of juniors is enjoying TKM more than any I have had in awhile. This morning while taking attendance I overheard one kid wondering about the title. “I want to know what is up with the mockingird. They haven’t killed anything in the novel yet. That’s the worst title I’ve ever heard.” And this was before I had even started class. It’s the little things like that that can pick my day up.
This too is the first class that is getting the subtle humor in the novel. I actually had a few students chuckle when Scout asks Jack to “pass the damn ham” (my favorite line in all of literature). Others laughed when she beat the snot out of Francis. A few laughed even when Scout roared at Jack - when he was spanking her - that she hated him and hoped he died tomorrow.
However, I have several students who miss large chunks of time - some up to three days per week. They are behind on the reading, and because of their absences - are frustrated because we are so far ahead. The solution - come to damn school.
******
Today we finished “The Picture of Dorian Gray” in 12th grade English. The kids have had it with the novel, and I have had it with them having had it with the novel. I passed it out and my OCD student (see the post somewhere below) lamented how boring it was and how it was never going to make a difference in her life. She is the type who if you let them whine, she will whine forever.
So I nipped it in the bud.
“You think you’re going to last a week at Concordia with that effort?” I asked. A few weeks ago I finished writing a brief letter of recommendation for her. “At the very least, reading makes you smarter. You don’t want to be dumb all your life do you?”
“You’re mean!” she said.
I smilled and continued to hand out the final two chapters of the novel.
She came around and began asking questions to make up for her foolishness earlier. After then years of this, I have no time for whining or apathy. I used to launch into a diatribe about the benefits of learning and how important it is to students to love reading and to develop higher order thinking skills. I still believe that. I just don’t waste my breath on it anymore.
I just insult them. It has a better effect. When I used to lecture them on the benefits of learning, the eyes gloss over and they mentally dose off. Insulting them pisses them off. I can work with that. At least it gets their blood flowing.
Soon they realize their whining and apathy will only result in their ridicule. Eventually, they keep their mouths shut and do the work. Maybe I should try and reason with them, but when a teenager starts to whine, all my diplomatic ability vanishes.
I don’t bother with the lecture anymore because, hey, most won’t read another novel in their lives. I’ve resigned myself to that realization. Some will just squander their years at a job and going home to watch TV. No more higher order thinking skills. I can only present the knowledge and skills in as appetizing fashion as possible. They have to decide to grab something off the tray. If not, maybe I can shame them into it somehow.
I’m not above that.
****
The day is done and it’s time to go home and shovel some snow. I’m actually looking forward to it. I doubt that I’ll think the same way come February.
God + War ?
I just received an email called “Angel Decoys.” It contained pictures of an American bomber releasing flares to distract heat seeking missiles. After the flares are released, a smoke cloud encircles the aircraft. Given the drafts around the plane, the cloud soon takes shape of an angel. The pictures are quite beautiful.
But that is the problem. How can one find beauty in a war? I find it simply ludicrous to try and justify our purpose in a war with our religious beliefs. Now I support our troops and all the other politically correct things to say. Freedom isn’t free, right? But I cringe when those - often Republicans - spread their pro-war/religious propaganda.
I won’t pretend to understand all of the complex factors that lead humans to make war against each other. But I do know when I see a linking of religion and war, I get sick to my stomach.
WWJD, right? I don’t see Jesus dropping napalm or bombs . Do you?
I’m far from the first to think such connections is, well, ungodly.
Here is Bob Dylan’s wonderfully ironic - “With God on Our Side”
Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.
Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.
Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.
Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.
When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.
I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.
But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.
In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.
So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.
Or better yet - Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer”
It was a time of great exulting and excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest depths of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast doubt upon its righteousness straight way got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came – next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams – visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! – then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation: "God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!"
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory – An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there, waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside – which the startled minister did – and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said: "I come from the Throne – bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import – that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of – except he pause and think.
"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two – one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this – keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
"You have heard your servant's prayer – the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it – that part which the pastor – and also you in your hearts – fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory – must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them – in spirit – we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with hurricanes of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."
[After a pause.]
"Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits."
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
I couldn’t help but think of this wonderfully ironic last line when I saw a supposed smoke “angel” hovering around a B52 bomber. What exactly does a B52 do? It’s not dropping supplies or famine relief. Again, I see those pictures and think not of God or Angels or anything holy at all. How could one?
***
I won’t try to say that I understand anything but Islam (or Christianity for that matter), but whenever I see an Islamic extremist shouting and carrying on, I can’t help but recall the images of Christians bombing abortion clinics or fainting and writhing at revivals.
I think my grandmother got it right decades ago. She got wind that my brother was interested in the military. So when Mom and Dad were conveniently gone, she brought over a folder of images culled from Life magazine showing the horrors of war. She made my brother look through them. The point was driven home. My dad, a devout Republican at the time, was angry at my grandmother (a lifelong Democrat). But Kevin never thought about the military again. I often wonder just how big of an impact this had on him, for he is quite liberal in his beliefs even today.
War is horrible. I had this point driven home when I saw the first minute or so of Fahrenheit 911 and saw a child with his scalp burned off. Seeing that kid writhing in pain and screaming didn’t turn me against the war (I voted for Bush the first time), but it dispelled any type of notion of a ‘good’ or ‘justified’ war. I know American kids were writhing in pain at funerals across the country for those who died when the World Trade Towers collapsed. Does seeing the poor Afghani boy make me feel any better? No. But we went to war to stomp out the Taliban. I have no problem with that. I just can’t believe God, our’s, their’s, whoever's, would condone it. More people have been killed in the name of Jesus than have ever been saved by Him, right?
But that is the problem. How can one find beauty in a war? I find it simply ludicrous to try and justify our purpose in a war with our religious beliefs. Now I support our troops and all the other politically correct things to say. Freedom isn’t free, right? But I cringe when those - often Republicans - spread their pro-war/religious propaganda.
I won’t pretend to understand all of the complex factors that lead humans to make war against each other. But I do know when I see a linking of religion and war, I get sick to my stomach.
WWJD, right? I don’t see Jesus dropping napalm or bombs . Do you?
I’m far from the first to think such connections is, well, ungodly.
Here is Bob Dylan’s wonderfully ironic - “With God on Our Side”
Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.
Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.
Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.
Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.
When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.
I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.
But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.
In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.
So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.
Or better yet - Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer”
It was a time of great exulting and excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest depths of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast doubt upon its righteousness straight way got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came – next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams – visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! – then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation: "God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!"
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory – An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there, waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside – which the startled minister did – and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said: "I come from the Throne – bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import – that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of – except he pause and think.
"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two – one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this – keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
"You have heard your servant's prayer – the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it – that part which the pastor – and also you in your hearts – fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory – must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them – in spirit – we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with hurricanes of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."
[After a pause.]
"Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits."
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
I couldn’t help but think of this wonderfully ironic last line when I saw a supposed smoke “angel” hovering around a B52 bomber. What exactly does a B52 do? It’s not dropping supplies or famine relief. Again, I see those pictures and think not of God or Angels or anything holy at all. How could one?
***
I won’t try to say that I understand anything but Islam (or Christianity for that matter), but whenever I see an Islamic extremist shouting and carrying on, I can’t help but recall the images of Christians bombing abortion clinics or fainting and writhing at revivals.
I think my grandmother got it right decades ago. She got wind that my brother was interested in the military. So when Mom and Dad were conveniently gone, she brought over a folder of images culled from Life magazine showing the horrors of war. She made my brother look through them. The point was driven home. My dad, a devout Republican at the time, was angry at my grandmother (a lifelong Democrat). But Kevin never thought about the military again. I often wonder just how big of an impact this had on him, for he is quite liberal in his beliefs even today.
War is horrible. I had this point driven home when I saw the first minute or so of Fahrenheit 911 and saw a child with his scalp burned off. Seeing that kid writhing in pain and screaming didn’t turn me against the war (I voted for Bush the first time), but it dispelled any type of notion of a ‘good’ or ‘justified’ war. I know American kids were writhing in pain at funerals across the country for those who died when the World Trade Towers collapsed. Does seeing the poor Afghani boy make me feel any better? No. But we went to war to stomp out the Taliban. I have no problem with that. I just can’t believe God, our’s, their’s, whoever's, would condone it. More people have been killed in the name of Jesus than have ever been saved by Him, right?
In Defense of the Five Paragraph Theme
I couldn’t help but notice the “In Defense of the Five Paragraph Theme” article in the newest English Journal. This is the second time in three years. One of my colleagues was giving me a hard time about it because she knows how I loathe the form (though, my College Comp kids are now writing them – well, their own voiceful versions of the five paragraph theme). I guess it is a good sign that the article is there, for it implies that the five paragraph theme needs to be defending, which must mean that it is coming under attack. And that’s a good thing.
I’ll spare my readers another diatribe (hey, that’s the second time I’ve used that word today) on this topic. I’m a broken record when it comes to that. But it got me fired up enough to dig out (well, actually I did a quick search on my MacBook) an old essay I wrote for my first real bonafide graduate level research paper. Initially, the final draft was in a ‘researchy’ format. But I had enough left over that I thought I’d have a little fun with what I had learned and I wrote a familiar essay. The familiar turned out to be better than the research paper. It’s a wonder what voice and personality can do.
A Familiar Essay: A Ride Through the Thesis/Support Patch
I have come to an amusing analogy between an experience I had as a young boy and my current profession as a composition teacher.
In the summer of 1984 my father bought a 160-acre farm ten miles from town, and to my eternal misery, he moved us, which included my father, mother, and me, there. The land on the edges of our new farm was fenced off into alfalfa and wheat fields. The rest was a withering pasture comprised of thirsty grass, vast forests of thistles, and countless craters of striped gopher mounds.
One day in late June, I was helping my dad grease our John Deer "A" before we took it to mow alfalfa, when a strange green truck pulled into our yard. A peculiar little man got out and approached us. He had a long, white beard that would have reached to his waist had it not been so windy. Instead it flowed horizontally from his chin. My dad went to see what he wanted while I quickly finished greasing the tractor.
When I was done, I peered up and noticed my dad leaning against the side of the man's truck with one hand tucked in the lone back pocket of his tattered Levi's. "Yes," I thought. This was promising. Dad was in his "visiting" stance. The man too was propped up against the side of the truck. This had the makings of a real jaw session. As I plotted my escape, I noticed that the driver's side door had a square yellow plaque on it with "State of MN" stenciled on it in square black lettering.
So I crept over to a shed on the other side of the truck, feigning that I was looking for a tube of grease. Had Dad not been so wrapped up in whatever they were talking about, he would have recognized this ploy right away and cast me out to the field to mow. I was in luck. Dad was wholly engrossed in the conversation. It was going to be a real jaw session indeed, for I was able to effortlessly slip around the shed and dash toward the house. Within five minutes I was in a T-shirt and cut off jogging pants, lying on my bed with Def Leppard on the stereo and Stephen King's The Tommyknockers in my hands.
Eventually, Dad beckoned me back to work, and we mowed the 60-acre alfalfa field later that day. Over the clatter of the blades, Dad explained to me that the visitor was the state "weed inspector."
"There's no pot around here!" I shouted over the chugging tractor and the racing blades slicing down the alfalfa.
"No. He inspects wild weeds like . . . " and my dad began rattling off names of plants that I had never heard of before, like "leafy" something and something "spurge" or maybe it was "leafy spurge." Then my dad explained to me that the "weed" inspector also warned him about the thistles. Amidst the withering grass, the thistles battled the gophers for supremacy of our pasture.
I had encountered them several times on my three wheeler. In fact, my favorite thing to do when my friends from town visited was to rev up my three wheeler and take them through a thistle patch. I, of course, would lift my legs up onto the front fender and race through the thick patches. My friends would be caught unaware and scream as the thistles tore and gouged their legs. They would beat on my back and vainly try to raise their legs out of the way. However, that was impossible for they would have to lift their legs up and forward, which would bring them only deeper into the thistles as they whizzed by scraping the gas tank, my friend's legs, and the rear plastic fenders before going under the tires. I would roar the whole time until my sides ached.
My dad said the state inspector warned that if we didn't spray the thistles, they would literally storm the entire farm. Of course, my dad was not about to buy into any such type of conspiracy theory. After all, he adamantly believed Lee Harvey Oswald really shot Kennedy and that Area 51 was actually just a military base. Plus, there was no way my dad was going to pay the state to fly a plane over and douse the thistles with weed killer.
So he informed me that once we were done mowing the alfalfa, we were going to cut down the thistles. This, of course, was only a temporary solution since the roots would still be intact and the thistles would simply grow back again later in the summer, germinate, and then lie dormant over the winter. But Dad didn't seem too concerned up about that.
After mowing the alfalfa, we made one good sweep through the thistles when something wonderful happened. The far end of the mower dug into a gopher's mound and snapped the drive shaft that ran the mower. Wonderful. It was around six in the evening and both of our stomachs were growling, and the last thing I wanted to do was spend the entire evening mowing thistles.
Unfortunately as we pulled into the yard, Dad said "I want you to come with me out to the quonset."
Uh-oh. The quonset was my dad's laboratory, so to speak. From there he hatched all of his crazy ideas to keep me busy while he was gone.
I trailed him to the quonset in the dark part of the evening when our yard light turned on and illuminated everything in fake yellow light. He entered the quonset, rummaged around, and emerged with what looked like a wooden stick with some blue, twisted and jagged metal on the bottom.
"What is that?" I asked.
"It's an old fashioned sickle.”
Oh no. I could tell right away what he had planned: Kurt vs. the thistles.
"Dad, I won't be able to get them all. Dad, they'll just regrow. Dad, why don't we wait until the mower is fixed. Dad, then I'll gladly mow them down next week. Dad . . ."
But Dad wasn't having any of it. And so began my battle with the thistles. I spent many scorching July and August afternoons with my walkman stuffed into the back pocket of my jeans teeing off, literally, with the weed whacker, for it was little more than a wooden shafted golf club. Instead of a club at the end, though, this thing had a flimsy row of metal teeth. Part golf club; part saw.
The thistles had no natural enemies in our pasture. Our herd of 500 sheep sure didn't eat them. If Rambo was a plant, he would be a thistle. They had organized themselves into great, dense battalions around the pasture. Sometimes they were so tightly clustered that it was hard for me to cut a path through them. Despite their best efforts to defend themselves, it became my personal mission to drive the invaders from our land.
Over 10 years later, the thistles did indeed take over much of our farm, despite my valiant efforts. My dad finally relented and paid a local crop duster to drop the herbicide bomb on them.
I failed miserably in my stand against the thistles. In fact, by chopping them down when they were ripe and blooming, I unwittingly helped spread them. Their spores would catch the rare breezes and float across our land. But I didn't know any better then. I was just doing my job.
Now, what does that experience have to do with teaching English, specifically teaching composition? Well, a lot actually.
In composition there is an entity much like the thistle. It can invade an area and populate and choke out all of the good land. Likewise, it will serve as a nuisance, both literally and figuratively, for both the landholder and any one unlucky enough to come across it without adequate protection.
This entity is the five-paragraph theme.
Okay, to stretch this metaphor to greater lengths, I stepped into my first Communications class with a curriculum that included writing a four-page research paper. "No big deal," I unwittingly thought. I'm sure that is exactly what my dad thought when he saw the first thistles sprouting up too.
Before I knew it, we were three weeks into the research paper. It was only later in my teaching career that I realized I was unwittingly spreading the spores across my classroom. I infested my students with such statements as, "your thesis must have three aspects and it must come at the end of your introduction" and "each of your corresponding supporting paragraphs must have a topic sentence that correlates to an individual aspect stated in your thesis" and "you must use at least one direct quote and one paraphrase in each of your supporting paragraphs too" and "your conclusion should restate your thesis" and "your final page will be your works cited," and "you must include an outline that corresponds to your research paper's form." I thought, egads, that I was teaching my poor students how to write, just as I thought I was doing some good hacking away at the thistles 10 years earlier.
It is only now that I can see what the thesis/support paper really is: a rampant, parasitic creature that, instead of choking off quality pasture land and invading crops, chokes off a writer's voice and invades genuine writing.
The final straw for my dad with the thistles occurred when he was going to break open an alfalfa bail and feed it to some sheep. The bail erupted and instead of sprinkling alfalfa leaves into the trough, it spewed thistles in Dad’s face. The bail, in the guise of alfalfa, secretly housed a thistle. Somehow the thistles had breached his beloved alfalfa fields.
The final straw for me with the thesis/support theme occurred when I sat down to grade my Communications class's final personal essays. We had gotten the research paper out of the way earlier in the year, so I was really looking forward to these personal essays. I expected to encounter some interesting perspectives and genuine experience and, maybe even some shocking incidents. Instead the essays blew up in my face, exposing the five paragraph themes that lurked at their core. Instead of feeling free to write in some of the other forms we covered, my students had become overrun by the thesis/support form. Imagine instead of reading a lively narrative essay on a student's first deer hunt as a rite of passage, one gets a bland introduction concluding with "I learned three important lessons from my first deer hunt: how to work with others, how to trust myself, and how to take pride in a job well done" as its thesis. There is nothing more distressing for a composition teacher (at least a good one) to expect some lively exploratory essays and only to find out that they are themes in disguise. Somehow the thesis had breached my beloved teaching of the exploratory and personal writing.
Now it has become my personal mission to, if not eradicate, at least return the balance to my classroom between the 'theme' papers and the familiar essays. The task is a daunting one. While thistles can creep up and infest acre upon acre if unchecked, so can thesis/support papers. In The Essay, Paul Heilker, notes a study done by Russel K. Durst in which Durst discovered that once students learned the thesis/support paper form "'they tended to rely on the thesis/support structure almost exclusively in their English critical writing'" and "Ninety percent of the student texts in his sample were organized this way, students using the thesis/support form to structure literary analysis, autobiographical, informative, and argumentative compositions, and even writing outside of the English class." Furthermore, "the students in this study 'were almost totally faithful to the thesis/support [form] in their high school English writing, using it in virtually all of their [papers] from ninth grade on'" (2-3). If that doesn't reveal the frightening reality of a full blown infestation problem, I don’t know what else can.
It is my responsibility to try to cure my students of this blight. I plan to douse them with the familiar/exploratory/personal essay. Willaim Zeiger notes in his report “The Exploratory Essay: Enfranchising the Spiri of Inquiry in College Composition” that composition teachers need to begin exposing their students to familiar essays that foster ruminitive thinking and writing. This introduces students to the inquiry process of writing, which is often neglected at the univerisyt and high school levels. Instead teachers tend to solely expose their students to the demonstrative or expository process of writing, which involves producing thesis/support papers.
I will hack away at the backward thesis inspired demonstrative form of the research paper and plant the open and exploratory form of the familiar essay in its place, or at least next to it.
Will I be able to totally expunge my classroom of the thesis/support form? No. Instead I will teach them to use the familiar essay to foster the process of inquiry first. Then I will teach them how to apply what they have discovered to the demonstrative or expository process that has come to choke out the exploratory process in English classrooms at both high schools and universities.
I will also keep the thesis/support paper around because it is a viable writing form, not the only writing form as most seem to think. Even if I had been able to destroy all of the thistles, I still would have kept a few around for variety. They are a viable life form after all.
And maybe, just maybe if we hit a lull in my classroom, I can rev up my three wheeler and take my students screaming on a ride through the thesis/support patch. Maybe that will teach them a lesson.
I’ll spare my readers another diatribe (hey, that’s the second time I’ve used that word today) on this topic. I’m a broken record when it comes to that. But it got me fired up enough to dig out (well, actually I did a quick search on my MacBook) an old essay I wrote for my first real bonafide graduate level research paper. Initially, the final draft was in a ‘researchy’ format. But I had enough left over that I thought I’d have a little fun with what I had learned and I wrote a familiar essay. The familiar turned out to be better than the research paper. It’s a wonder what voice and personality can do.
A Familiar Essay: A Ride Through the Thesis/Support Patch
I have come to an amusing analogy between an experience I had as a young boy and my current profession as a composition teacher.
In the summer of 1984 my father bought a 160-acre farm ten miles from town, and to my eternal misery, he moved us, which included my father, mother, and me, there. The land on the edges of our new farm was fenced off into alfalfa and wheat fields. The rest was a withering pasture comprised of thirsty grass, vast forests of thistles, and countless craters of striped gopher mounds.
One day in late June, I was helping my dad grease our John Deer "A" before we took it to mow alfalfa, when a strange green truck pulled into our yard. A peculiar little man got out and approached us. He had a long, white beard that would have reached to his waist had it not been so windy. Instead it flowed horizontally from his chin. My dad went to see what he wanted while I quickly finished greasing the tractor.
When I was done, I peered up and noticed my dad leaning against the side of the man's truck with one hand tucked in the lone back pocket of his tattered Levi's. "Yes," I thought. This was promising. Dad was in his "visiting" stance. The man too was propped up against the side of the truck. This had the makings of a real jaw session. As I plotted my escape, I noticed that the driver's side door had a square yellow plaque on it with "State of MN" stenciled on it in square black lettering.
So I crept over to a shed on the other side of the truck, feigning that I was looking for a tube of grease. Had Dad not been so wrapped up in whatever they were talking about, he would have recognized this ploy right away and cast me out to the field to mow. I was in luck. Dad was wholly engrossed in the conversation. It was going to be a real jaw session indeed, for I was able to effortlessly slip around the shed and dash toward the house. Within five minutes I was in a T-shirt and cut off jogging pants, lying on my bed with Def Leppard on the stereo and Stephen King's The Tommyknockers in my hands.
Eventually, Dad beckoned me back to work, and we mowed the 60-acre alfalfa field later that day. Over the clatter of the blades, Dad explained to me that the visitor was the state "weed inspector."
"There's no pot around here!" I shouted over the chugging tractor and the racing blades slicing down the alfalfa.
"No. He inspects wild weeds like . . . " and my dad began rattling off names of plants that I had never heard of before, like "leafy" something and something "spurge" or maybe it was "leafy spurge." Then my dad explained to me that the "weed" inspector also warned him about the thistles. Amidst the withering grass, the thistles battled the gophers for supremacy of our pasture.
I had encountered them several times on my three wheeler. In fact, my favorite thing to do when my friends from town visited was to rev up my three wheeler and take them through a thistle patch. I, of course, would lift my legs up onto the front fender and race through the thick patches. My friends would be caught unaware and scream as the thistles tore and gouged their legs. They would beat on my back and vainly try to raise their legs out of the way. However, that was impossible for they would have to lift their legs up and forward, which would bring them only deeper into the thistles as they whizzed by scraping the gas tank, my friend's legs, and the rear plastic fenders before going under the tires. I would roar the whole time until my sides ached.
My dad said the state inspector warned that if we didn't spray the thistles, they would literally storm the entire farm. Of course, my dad was not about to buy into any such type of conspiracy theory. After all, he adamantly believed Lee Harvey Oswald really shot Kennedy and that Area 51 was actually just a military base. Plus, there was no way my dad was going to pay the state to fly a plane over and douse the thistles with weed killer.
So he informed me that once we were done mowing the alfalfa, we were going to cut down the thistles. This, of course, was only a temporary solution since the roots would still be intact and the thistles would simply grow back again later in the summer, germinate, and then lie dormant over the winter. But Dad didn't seem too concerned up about that.
After mowing the alfalfa, we made one good sweep through the thistles when something wonderful happened. The far end of the mower dug into a gopher's mound and snapped the drive shaft that ran the mower. Wonderful. It was around six in the evening and both of our stomachs were growling, and the last thing I wanted to do was spend the entire evening mowing thistles.
Unfortunately as we pulled into the yard, Dad said "I want you to come with me out to the quonset."
Uh-oh. The quonset was my dad's laboratory, so to speak. From there he hatched all of his crazy ideas to keep me busy while he was gone.
I trailed him to the quonset in the dark part of the evening when our yard light turned on and illuminated everything in fake yellow light. He entered the quonset, rummaged around, and emerged with what looked like a wooden stick with some blue, twisted and jagged metal on the bottom.
"What is that?" I asked.
"It's an old fashioned sickle.”
Oh no. I could tell right away what he had planned: Kurt vs. the thistles.
"Dad, I won't be able to get them all. Dad, they'll just regrow. Dad, why don't we wait until the mower is fixed. Dad, then I'll gladly mow them down next week. Dad . . ."
But Dad wasn't having any of it. And so began my battle with the thistles. I spent many scorching July and August afternoons with my walkman stuffed into the back pocket of my jeans teeing off, literally, with the weed whacker, for it was little more than a wooden shafted golf club. Instead of a club at the end, though, this thing had a flimsy row of metal teeth. Part golf club; part saw.
The thistles had no natural enemies in our pasture. Our herd of 500 sheep sure didn't eat them. If Rambo was a plant, he would be a thistle. They had organized themselves into great, dense battalions around the pasture. Sometimes they were so tightly clustered that it was hard for me to cut a path through them. Despite their best efforts to defend themselves, it became my personal mission to drive the invaders from our land.
Over 10 years later, the thistles did indeed take over much of our farm, despite my valiant efforts. My dad finally relented and paid a local crop duster to drop the herbicide bomb on them.
I failed miserably in my stand against the thistles. In fact, by chopping them down when they were ripe and blooming, I unwittingly helped spread them. Their spores would catch the rare breezes and float across our land. But I didn't know any better then. I was just doing my job.
Now, what does that experience have to do with teaching English, specifically teaching composition? Well, a lot actually.
In composition there is an entity much like the thistle. It can invade an area and populate and choke out all of the good land. Likewise, it will serve as a nuisance, both literally and figuratively, for both the landholder and any one unlucky enough to come across it without adequate protection.
This entity is the five-paragraph theme.
Okay, to stretch this metaphor to greater lengths, I stepped into my first Communications class with a curriculum that included writing a four-page research paper. "No big deal," I unwittingly thought. I'm sure that is exactly what my dad thought when he saw the first thistles sprouting up too.
Before I knew it, we were three weeks into the research paper. It was only later in my teaching career that I realized I was unwittingly spreading the spores across my classroom. I infested my students with such statements as, "your thesis must have three aspects and it must come at the end of your introduction" and "each of your corresponding supporting paragraphs must have a topic sentence that correlates to an individual aspect stated in your thesis" and "you must use at least one direct quote and one paraphrase in each of your supporting paragraphs too" and "your conclusion should restate your thesis" and "your final page will be your works cited," and "you must include an outline that corresponds to your research paper's form." I thought, egads, that I was teaching my poor students how to write, just as I thought I was doing some good hacking away at the thistles 10 years earlier.
It is only now that I can see what the thesis/support paper really is: a rampant, parasitic creature that, instead of choking off quality pasture land and invading crops, chokes off a writer's voice and invades genuine writing.
The final straw for my dad with the thistles occurred when he was going to break open an alfalfa bail and feed it to some sheep. The bail erupted and instead of sprinkling alfalfa leaves into the trough, it spewed thistles in Dad’s face. The bail, in the guise of alfalfa, secretly housed a thistle. Somehow the thistles had breached his beloved alfalfa fields.
The final straw for me with the thesis/support theme occurred when I sat down to grade my Communications class's final personal essays. We had gotten the research paper out of the way earlier in the year, so I was really looking forward to these personal essays. I expected to encounter some interesting perspectives and genuine experience and, maybe even some shocking incidents. Instead the essays blew up in my face, exposing the five paragraph themes that lurked at their core. Instead of feeling free to write in some of the other forms we covered, my students had become overrun by the thesis/support form. Imagine instead of reading a lively narrative essay on a student's first deer hunt as a rite of passage, one gets a bland introduction concluding with "I learned three important lessons from my first deer hunt: how to work with others, how to trust myself, and how to take pride in a job well done" as its thesis. There is nothing more distressing for a composition teacher (at least a good one) to expect some lively exploratory essays and only to find out that they are themes in disguise. Somehow the thesis had breached my beloved teaching of the exploratory and personal writing.
Now it has become my personal mission to, if not eradicate, at least return the balance to my classroom between the 'theme' papers and the familiar essays. The task is a daunting one. While thistles can creep up and infest acre upon acre if unchecked, so can thesis/support papers. In The Essay, Paul Heilker, notes a study done by Russel K. Durst in which Durst discovered that once students learned the thesis/support paper form "'they tended to rely on the thesis/support structure almost exclusively in their English critical writing'" and "Ninety percent of the student texts in his sample were organized this way, students using the thesis/support form to structure literary analysis, autobiographical, informative, and argumentative compositions, and even writing outside of the English class." Furthermore, "the students in this study 'were almost totally faithful to the thesis/support [form] in their high school English writing, using it in virtually all of their [papers] from ninth grade on'" (2-3). If that doesn't reveal the frightening reality of a full blown infestation problem, I don’t know what else can.
It is my responsibility to try to cure my students of this blight. I plan to douse them with the familiar/exploratory/personal essay. Willaim Zeiger notes in his report “The Exploratory Essay: Enfranchising the Spiri of Inquiry in College Composition” that composition teachers need to begin exposing their students to familiar essays that foster ruminitive thinking and writing. This introduces students to the inquiry process of writing, which is often neglected at the univerisyt and high school levels. Instead teachers tend to solely expose their students to the demonstrative or expository process of writing, which involves producing thesis/support papers.
I will hack away at the backward thesis inspired demonstrative form of the research paper and plant the open and exploratory form of the familiar essay in its place, or at least next to it.
Will I be able to totally expunge my classroom of the thesis/support form? No. Instead I will teach them to use the familiar essay to foster the process of inquiry first. Then I will teach them how to apply what they have discovered to the demonstrative or expository process that has come to choke out the exploratory process in English classrooms at both high schools and universities.
I will also keep the thesis/support paper around because it is a viable writing form, not the only writing form as most seem to think. Even if I had been able to destroy all of the thistles, I still would have kept a few around for variety. They are a viable life form after all.
And maybe, just maybe if we hit a lull in my classroom, I can rev up my three wheeler and take my students screaming on a ride through the thesis/support patch. Maybe that will teach them a lesson.
Ironic
Now we know what just about every species on earth must think about us and what we have done to their world.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071128/ap_on_sc/rat_island;_ylt=AmjdXvcGCEWyspGriXEnxTSs0NUE
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071128/ap_on_sc/rat_island;_ylt=AmjdXvcGCEWyspGriXEnxTSs0NUE
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Tuesday's ramblings
Why is it that my week always seems to go so much better after the Bengals win on Sunday? It’s amazing how something as meaningless as football can have such an impact on my mood. As a kid I would get absolutely sick to my stomach when the Bengals lost. I don’t get that hung up on it anymore, but Mondays are so much nicer after a victory.
Dad was a devoted Vikings fan (I was for one season - 1987. The previous year the Bengals made the playoffs but lost to the Jets. So I hopped on the Vikes bandwagon after the Bengals did miserable. I might have stayed a Vikes fan - they crushed the 49ers in SF (behind Anthony Carter’s recording setting performance), then they crushed the Saints to set up the NFC title game in Washington. But Darren Nelson dropped a sure touchdown pass and the Vikes choked. I figured I the Bengals disappointed me just as much, so I went back to the Bengals (and they came within a miracle Joe Montana 93 yard last minute touchdown drive of winning the Super Bowl the following year).
Dad would spend 3 hours inside (something Dad was loathe to do, especially on brisk fall days when there was so much to get done) cheering on the Vikes. He spent about 2.5 of those hours in pure bliss. But the Vikes would inevitably squander the game away and Dad would then go out to work off his anger. It’s funny how a silly game can impact someone’s mood.
Look at Chicago’s win on Sunday. Denver had the game firmly in hand. But in the span of two minutes, Chicago pulled it out. I can’t imagine any happy Denver fans for the next few days. Unfortunately, I’ve been there many, many times.
I guess that’s why I love the NFL draft so damn much. Hope springs eternal. Even for the Bengals. For the Vikes? I’m not so sure. I guess one can never give up hope. Even the Packers have turned things around after two or three years of some wretched football.
****
Today in Lit and Language 11, we came across this line from TKM - “This time we aren’t fighting the Yankees, we’re fighting our friends. But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they’re still our friends and this is still our home.” I couldn’t help but think of my Lit and Lang 12 class. Like Atticus, I’m set to fight a battle (teaching boring old British Lit) to some very reluctant learners. (I am just thankful that I am teaching this class now and not before the end of the year when the seniors shut down - in March) I don’t resent them because they don’t want to learn. I could easily do that, but I don’t. I simply have to remind myself of what I was like when I was 17. By no means was I a model student.
I made it through high school with a solid B average. But when it came down to it, if it meant studying for a test or reading part of a novel or going out with friends or watching a football game, I always chose the latter. So how can I expect anything different from my seniors?
I could let my frustration eat me alive, but that would just make this unbearable. Instead, I’ve conceded some to my seniors. I have mixed up our reading schedule of “Dorian Gray.” I have concocted several tech savvy ideas to get them out of their desks and onto the computers. We have listened via itunes to several chapters. I let them read silently and in groups. Today I read to them. Some tuned out and drifted off. So be it.
While I don’t do a lot right as a teacher, one thing I do try to nail is relating esoteric, well, from the student’s points of view anyway, to their lives. This was one reason I so loved the group who did a satire of a country music song. It totally made fun of the current trend in over sentimental country music.
“Dorian Gray” is no exception. There is so much in there that is perfectly applicable to our lives today. For example, as I was reading to the students, we came to the line (and I’m paraphrasing here) “Each man has heaven and hell inside him.” Caught in the moment, and abandoning my train of thought, I rummaged around my desk for the recent issue of “Time” - with its headline “What Makes Us Good/Evil” with its picture of a brain and a picture of Gandhi on one side and Hitler on another. I think tomorrow my seniors will do a bit of good old fashioned writing to explore what they think about this some more. Or I might have them compile a list of stories from the internet dealing with the human propensity for good/evil. Or I might have them create a podcast or imovie.
The above quote from TKM also reminds me of my discipline policies. I never hold anything against a student. Well, I try not to anyway. I may rip into them at the beginning of class and then compliment them on an essay by the end of the class. Like a good cornerback, sometimes a teacher has to have a short memory.
*****
It’s that time of year again. Tonight Kristie and I take in the first girl’s basketball game of the season. In fact, mid quarter for second quarter is not so far away.
Dad was a devoted Vikings fan (I was for one season - 1987. The previous year the Bengals made the playoffs but lost to the Jets. So I hopped on the Vikes bandwagon after the Bengals did miserable. I might have stayed a Vikes fan - they crushed the 49ers in SF (behind Anthony Carter’s recording setting performance), then they crushed the Saints to set up the NFC title game in Washington. But Darren Nelson dropped a sure touchdown pass and the Vikes choked. I figured I the Bengals disappointed me just as much, so I went back to the Bengals (and they came within a miracle Joe Montana 93 yard last minute touchdown drive of winning the Super Bowl the following year).
Dad would spend 3 hours inside (something Dad was loathe to do, especially on brisk fall days when there was so much to get done) cheering on the Vikes. He spent about 2.5 of those hours in pure bliss. But the Vikes would inevitably squander the game away and Dad would then go out to work off his anger. It’s funny how a silly game can impact someone’s mood.
Look at Chicago’s win on Sunday. Denver had the game firmly in hand. But in the span of two minutes, Chicago pulled it out. I can’t imagine any happy Denver fans for the next few days. Unfortunately, I’ve been there many, many times.
I guess that’s why I love the NFL draft so damn much. Hope springs eternal. Even for the Bengals. For the Vikes? I’m not so sure. I guess one can never give up hope. Even the Packers have turned things around after two or three years of some wretched football.
****
Today in Lit and Language 11, we came across this line from TKM - “This time we aren’t fighting the Yankees, we’re fighting our friends. But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they’re still our friends and this is still our home.” I couldn’t help but think of my Lit and Lang 12 class. Like Atticus, I’m set to fight a battle (teaching boring old British Lit) to some very reluctant learners. (I am just thankful that I am teaching this class now and not before the end of the year when the seniors shut down - in March) I don’t resent them because they don’t want to learn. I could easily do that, but I don’t. I simply have to remind myself of what I was like when I was 17. By no means was I a model student.
I made it through high school with a solid B average. But when it came down to it, if it meant studying for a test or reading part of a novel or going out with friends or watching a football game, I always chose the latter. So how can I expect anything different from my seniors?
I could let my frustration eat me alive, but that would just make this unbearable. Instead, I’ve conceded some to my seniors. I have mixed up our reading schedule of “Dorian Gray.” I have concocted several tech savvy ideas to get them out of their desks and onto the computers. We have listened via itunes to several chapters. I let them read silently and in groups. Today I read to them. Some tuned out and drifted off. So be it.
While I don’t do a lot right as a teacher, one thing I do try to nail is relating esoteric, well, from the student’s points of view anyway, to their lives. This was one reason I so loved the group who did a satire of a country music song. It totally made fun of the current trend in over sentimental country music.
“Dorian Gray” is no exception. There is so much in there that is perfectly applicable to our lives today. For example, as I was reading to the students, we came to the line (and I’m paraphrasing here) “Each man has heaven and hell inside him.” Caught in the moment, and abandoning my train of thought, I rummaged around my desk for the recent issue of “Time” - with its headline “What Makes Us Good/Evil” with its picture of a brain and a picture of Gandhi on one side and Hitler on another. I think tomorrow my seniors will do a bit of good old fashioned writing to explore what they think about this some more. Or I might have them compile a list of stories from the internet dealing with the human propensity for good/evil. Or I might have them create a podcast or imovie.
The above quote from TKM also reminds me of my discipline policies. I never hold anything against a student. Well, I try not to anyway. I may rip into them at the beginning of class and then compliment them on an essay by the end of the class. Like a good cornerback, sometimes a teacher has to have a short memory.
*****
It’s that time of year again. Tonight Kristie and I take in the first girl’s basketball game of the season. In fact, mid quarter for second quarter is not so far away.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Monday
I’m going to pay the price this week for not bringing anything - and I mean anything - home for work over the Thanksgiving break. Of course, that might explain why Kristie and I were so bored at times. But it was a break and I needed some rest and relaxation.
Kristie’s father, Ed, his wife, Laurie, and her uncle, Donnie came over. We had a blast. Kristie didn’t get home until 5:30, so I had to entertain them. It was no problem at all. Donnie is a near genius, so we decided to play Casey’s “American History Trivia.” Donnie slaughtered us. If I ever make it to “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” he is going to be one of my life lines.
Later two of Casey’s friends came over. Then Kristie made it home. We had a packed house. I made lasagna and fed everyone. While I was making it, we decided to play Monopoly. We had the choice between Star Wars Monopoly and Modern Day Monopoly (it’s an updated version. I think lowest bill is a thousand the the highest is five million). The last time Ed was over we played Monopoly too (which is a minor miracle, Kristie says, because when they were young he hated playing games - most likely because Kristie and her siblings are uber-competitive. There’ a reason her bog is titled “alphafemale.”) Last year, I had the misfortune of never landing on any property I made two full trips around the board (collecting two million every time I passed go - now that I think about it, I landed on free parking, so I collected about 15 million from the kitty) and never landed on any property. By the time I finally landed on property, everything else was taken! I went from the richest player to the poorest in a matter of half a dozen shakes of the dice. I was out before an hour passed.
Since I had to check on the meal periodically, I let Casey’s friend play for me. I have to admit I had a hidden agenda here: watching the LSU vs. Arkansas game (an SEC classic that was only decided after 4 OTs. The Razorbacks came out on top 50-48.)
After dinner and plenty of visiting, I was able to redeem myself some when we finished the night with Trivial Pursuit (the DVD version of the game). My formerly useless knowledge of ‘80s heavy metal came in quite handy. Not only did I nail the cover of Iron Maiden’s 1980 classic “The Number of the Beast,” but I also won the game by knowing that Vince Neil, singer of Motley Crue, drove drunk and killed the drummer of Hanoi Rocks. I was quite pleased with myself. It was not quite the same as Donnie’s impressive knowledge - which is the largest river in North America, which is the largest of the Florida Islands, all of the presidents who died serving terms, what Vermont’s nickname is, and the entire cabinet for Jimmy Carter! But I’ll take a win when I can get it. By the way, on Saturday Kristie absolutely slaughtered me it two games of Scrabble.
I did a ‘no-no’ in the teaching ranks. I assigned homework (that’s not the no-no). I also gave those who completed the homework an extrinsic reward (that’s the no-no): they were exempt from today’s quiz. Plus, I told each student that they earned 100 heart points (I stole this idea from a former science teacher who used to give these out. I don’t know that they count toward anything - mine don’t. But it sounds nice anyway). I even had one student read up to Ch 10 in TKM. I told him that he earned himself a permanent spot in my Cool Book.
About 1/3 of the class had the homework assignment done. I really was expecting less than that. Overall, they seem to be enjoying TKM. I certainly am - even if it’s the 75th time I’ve read it.
In fact, I’m convinced all of my life is relatable to the novel. This is the first time I’ve read the novel with Dad gone. His spirit lives in the southern traditions and antics of the characters. When I read about Scout always knowing how to read, I am reminded of how Kristie’s aunt, an elementary school teacher and principal, had Kristie reading well before school. In fact, she had Kristie reading the first grade textbook before she was even in first grade. When Kristie got to first grade, and the teacher handed the book out to the class, Kristie raised her hand and declared, “I’ve already read this.” Ha. Could you imagine?
When I read about mean old Burress Ewell, I am reminded of my own real life version of him in my senior English class. Like the Ewells of Maycomb, I have a separate set of rules of my real life Burress. If he sleeps in class, I don’t wake him. If he comes late, I don’t hassle him. If he needs to leave for an errand, I let him. Most of my students aren’t allowed these luxuries. Because I can do something with them. Or rather, they want to learn and take something away from this class. My Burress is just biding him time. I am too.
My copy of TKM is in tatters. But I would never part with it. It’s one novel that I wouldn’t loan out. I have to many memories scribbled in the margins. One day its molecules will just cease to retain the properties of a solid and simply disintegrate, but until then, I don’t let that baby out of sight.
One dilemma I briefly had with the text was its use of “N” word. I don’t make a big deal out of it - although I do not read the word aloud when reading from the book to the class. I hate that word and won’t give it any time. The same is true with other bad words in the stories or novels we read. If there is an “F” word (as is the case with “The Things They Carried”), I don’t read it aloud.
This time, though, I have an African American student in class. I thought about asking him about the word, but then if he said he had a problem with it, what was I going to do? Not read the book? That’s not an option. Go through every copy and white it out (how’s that for irony?) - no way. Then I began to think that maybe my bringing up the word to this student was even empowering it. The truth is I don’t think of him as black. I really don’t. I had a hispanic student last year who helped us translate a line from the film “Training Day.” It hadn’t even occurred to me to ask her. I didn’t see her as hispanic. Just as a student. This might be good; it might be bad.
The only thing I ever advised the students on was that this novel is set in the deep south during a very controversial time. That’s part of the novel’s power. I can’t blame Harper Lee for using authentic language to illustrated that aspect of the novel. You could walk into Kristie’s former place of employment and hear that word uttered 50 times before noon. That’s why this novel is still relevant and why I didn’t make a big issue of the world. If it’s a problem, we’ll deal with it then. And when we come to the word, we’ll deal with it then. But that has become a key part of the novel too - just like the themes and characters and events.
******
Here’s one to go with “I before you except after me.” Some students were discussing Sybil Vane’s fate from “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” One girl stated, “She OCD” on drugs! Ha. One of her friends explained to her that it was just “OD’ not “OCD.”
“What is that something that happens on the OC?” one of the guys quipped.
This was the same student who last year in class, after reading a story, chimed in to our class discussion with, “Now I get it. She was on heroine. No wonder I couldn’t understand the story.”
I had to explain to her that we were talking about a “heroin” as in a female hero, not the drug.
So I said, “Maybe Sybil OCD on heroine!” Those from last year got a good laugh out of that.
It is just one of those days.
****
I don’t know if this is a compliment or not - two guys said they were coming back from Fargo and saw the sign for the town “Reynolds.” Today they said, “Hey, we nearly stopped and got the town sign from Reynolds for you Mr. Reynolds.” I don’t know how administration would look upon me adorning my walls with stolen property. But it made me laugh and shake my head nonetheless.
Kristie’s father, Ed, his wife, Laurie, and her uncle, Donnie came over. We had a blast. Kristie didn’t get home until 5:30, so I had to entertain them. It was no problem at all. Donnie is a near genius, so we decided to play Casey’s “American History Trivia.” Donnie slaughtered us. If I ever make it to “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” he is going to be one of my life lines.
Later two of Casey’s friends came over. Then Kristie made it home. We had a packed house. I made lasagna and fed everyone. While I was making it, we decided to play Monopoly. We had the choice between Star Wars Monopoly and Modern Day Monopoly (it’s an updated version. I think lowest bill is a thousand the the highest is five million). The last time Ed was over we played Monopoly too (which is a minor miracle, Kristie says, because when they were young he hated playing games - most likely because Kristie and her siblings are uber-competitive. There’ a reason her bog is titled “alphafemale.”) Last year, I had the misfortune of never landing on any property I made two full trips around the board (collecting two million every time I passed go - now that I think about it, I landed on free parking, so I collected about 15 million from the kitty) and never landed on any property. By the time I finally landed on property, everything else was taken! I went from the richest player to the poorest in a matter of half a dozen shakes of the dice. I was out before an hour passed.
Since I had to check on the meal periodically, I let Casey’s friend play for me. I have to admit I had a hidden agenda here: watching the LSU vs. Arkansas game (an SEC classic that was only decided after 4 OTs. The Razorbacks came out on top 50-48.)
After dinner and plenty of visiting, I was able to redeem myself some when we finished the night with Trivial Pursuit (the DVD version of the game). My formerly useless knowledge of ‘80s heavy metal came in quite handy. Not only did I nail the cover of Iron Maiden’s 1980 classic “The Number of the Beast,” but I also won the game by knowing that Vince Neil, singer of Motley Crue, drove drunk and killed the drummer of Hanoi Rocks. I was quite pleased with myself. It was not quite the same as Donnie’s impressive knowledge - which is the largest river in North America, which is the largest of the Florida Islands, all of the presidents who died serving terms, what Vermont’s nickname is, and the entire cabinet for Jimmy Carter! But I’ll take a win when I can get it. By the way, on Saturday Kristie absolutely slaughtered me it two games of Scrabble.
I did a ‘no-no’ in the teaching ranks. I assigned homework (that’s not the no-no). I also gave those who completed the homework an extrinsic reward (that’s the no-no): they were exempt from today’s quiz. Plus, I told each student that they earned 100 heart points (I stole this idea from a former science teacher who used to give these out. I don’t know that they count toward anything - mine don’t. But it sounds nice anyway). I even had one student read up to Ch 10 in TKM. I told him that he earned himself a permanent spot in my Cool Book.
About 1/3 of the class had the homework assignment done. I really was expecting less than that. Overall, they seem to be enjoying TKM. I certainly am - even if it’s the 75th time I’ve read it.
In fact, I’m convinced all of my life is relatable to the novel. This is the first time I’ve read the novel with Dad gone. His spirit lives in the southern traditions and antics of the characters. When I read about Scout always knowing how to read, I am reminded of how Kristie’s aunt, an elementary school teacher and principal, had Kristie reading well before school. In fact, she had Kristie reading the first grade textbook before she was even in first grade. When Kristie got to first grade, and the teacher handed the book out to the class, Kristie raised her hand and declared, “I’ve already read this.” Ha. Could you imagine?
When I read about mean old Burress Ewell, I am reminded of my own real life version of him in my senior English class. Like the Ewells of Maycomb, I have a separate set of rules of my real life Burress. If he sleeps in class, I don’t wake him. If he comes late, I don’t hassle him. If he needs to leave for an errand, I let him. Most of my students aren’t allowed these luxuries. Because I can do something with them. Or rather, they want to learn and take something away from this class. My Burress is just biding him time. I am too.
My copy of TKM is in tatters. But I would never part with it. It’s one novel that I wouldn’t loan out. I have to many memories scribbled in the margins. One day its molecules will just cease to retain the properties of a solid and simply disintegrate, but until then, I don’t let that baby out of sight.
One dilemma I briefly had with the text was its use of “N” word. I don’t make a big deal out of it - although I do not read the word aloud when reading from the book to the class. I hate that word and won’t give it any time. The same is true with other bad words in the stories or novels we read. If there is an “F” word (as is the case with “The Things They Carried”), I don’t read it aloud.
This time, though, I have an African American student in class. I thought about asking him about the word, but then if he said he had a problem with it, what was I going to do? Not read the book? That’s not an option. Go through every copy and white it out (how’s that for irony?) - no way. Then I began to think that maybe my bringing up the word to this student was even empowering it. The truth is I don’t think of him as black. I really don’t. I had a hispanic student last year who helped us translate a line from the film “Training Day.” It hadn’t even occurred to me to ask her. I didn’t see her as hispanic. Just as a student. This might be good; it might be bad.
The only thing I ever advised the students on was that this novel is set in the deep south during a very controversial time. That’s part of the novel’s power. I can’t blame Harper Lee for using authentic language to illustrated that aspect of the novel. You could walk into Kristie’s former place of employment and hear that word uttered 50 times before noon. That’s why this novel is still relevant and why I didn’t make a big issue of the world. If it’s a problem, we’ll deal with it then. And when we come to the word, we’ll deal with it then. But that has become a key part of the novel too - just like the themes and characters and events.
******
Here’s one to go with “I before you except after me.” Some students were discussing Sybil Vane’s fate from “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” One girl stated, “She OCD” on drugs! Ha. One of her friends explained to her that it was just “OD’ not “OCD.”
“What is that something that happens on the OC?” one of the guys quipped.
This was the same student who last year in class, after reading a story, chimed in to our class discussion with, “Now I get it. She was on heroine. No wonder I couldn’t understand the story.”
I had to explain to her that we were talking about a “heroin” as in a female hero, not the drug.
So I said, “Maybe Sybil OCD on heroine!” Those from last year got a good laugh out of that.
It is just one of those days.
****
I don’t know if this is a compliment or not - two guys said they were coming back from Fargo and saw the sign for the town “Reynolds.” Today they said, “Hey, we nearly stopped and got the town sign from Reynolds for you Mr. Reynolds.” I don’t know how administration would look upon me adorning my walls with stolen property. But it made me laugh and shake my head nonetheless.
Quotes
One assignment my seniors are working on is analyzing a list of quotes from Oscar Wilde. Some come from the novel we’re reading (The Picture of Dorian Gray) and others come from his life and other works.
Here are my favorites --
“I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.”
-- For some reason, this quote comes to mind whenever I watch the news.
“It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.”
-- Wilde would have been delighted with our society then. It seems to me that there is precious little else in our society today other than useless information. (And why am I hearing Andy Rooney’s voice in the back of my head right now? Serves me right for downloading his concluding pieces from 60 Minutes to my ipod last week.) I mean how can one devote time to watching (or reading about it anyway) what happens on the red carpet at some awards ceremony? Or spend a weekend watching a marathon of reality TV? I think of this whenever I see the commercials for the new series “The Real Housewives of Orange County.” Who cares. Now I’m not above this. I spend hours upon hours reading my pre-season football magazines and visiting espn.com. The useless information has gotten me too.
“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.”
-- This reminds me of those rare propaganda emails glorifying the slaughter in Iraq. The most disturbing was a video depicting our military dispatching a terrorist on the ground via a helicopter. The terrorist or insurgent was reduced to a glowing puddle seen on the infrared camera. This kind of patriotism is pure idiocy to me. (See my Einstein quote below too).
“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.”
-- Now this one hits close to home. Recently, we moved Gail out of her trailer home. Before that we had to take inventory of all the stuff in my father’s sheds on the farm. In both cases, I was amazed at all of the crap one can accumulate over the years. In Gail’s case, she took exception to use treating her possessions as junk. They might seem that way to us, but, we should have remembered, they were anything but that to her. The same was true with all my father’s crap. He had countless cases of used oil containers and filters. He stored everything! Whatever Mom threw out, he must have stashed away in his sheds. Again, I thought this was all junk, but – for whatever reason – they were treasures to Dad. Which makes me wonder – what will my children think of all the stuff I collect and horde?
“We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.”
-- Truer words were never spoken about education. It’s funny how little has changed in over a century.
“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”
-- I like this. Probably because I spend too much of my time trying to get kids to remember things rather than getting them to grow. When I read a poem and am shaken to my core, how can I possibly pass that along to my students? I can try to re-create my reaction. I can model it for them, but how do I possibly transfer my reaction to them? I guess my only hope is to offer them a wide variety of chances to have their own reaction and experience to a piece of literature. Then I try to get the hell out of the way so they can do the learning on their own without me mouthing it up too much.
“Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.”
-- If I ever presented to teachers at a beginning of the year in-service, I would begin with this quote. I would address it to the morons (usually coaches and veteran teachers) sitting in back gabbing all the time or nodding off.
“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”
-- I imagine this is true for both my students and me.
“These days man knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing.”
-- I think again of all the crap Gail and Dad compiled. Most of it was not worth much. But emotionally could one even put a value on it? Just today my dear friend Sharon was showing off the quilts she had made from shirts that had belonged to her late husband, Don. She is going to give them as Christmas presents. When I saw them, I could only think about how I wish we had done that with all of Dad’s old flannel shirts. Instead we donated them to the Salvation Army, which is fine. But what a great way to preserve a piece of Dad! Really, the shirts were worth pennies. But the memories stored in the colors and textures of that fabric was priceless.
Here are my favorites --
“I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.”
-- For some reason, this quote comes to mind whenever I watch the news.
“It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.”
-- Wilde would have been delighted with our society then. It seems to me that there is precious little else in our society today other than useless information. (And why am I hearing Andy Rooney’s voice in the back of my head right now? Serves me right for downloading his concluding pieces from 60 Minutes to my ipod last week.) I mean how can one devote time to watching (or reading about it anyway) what happens on the red carpet at some awards ceremony? Or spend a weekend watching a marathon of reality TV? I think of this whenever I see the commercials for the new series “The Real Housewives of Orange County.” Who cares. Now I’m not above this. I spend hours upon hours reading my pre-season football magazines and visiting espn.com. The useless information has gotten me too.
“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.”
-- This reminds me of those rare propaganda emails glorifying the slaughter in Iraq. The most disturbing was a video depicting our military dispatching a terrorist on the ground via a helicopter. The terrorist or insurgent was reduced to a glowing puddle seen on the infrared camera. This kind of patriotism is pure idiocy to me. (See my Einstein quote below too).
“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.”
-- Now this one hits close to home. Recently, we moved Gail out of her trailer home. Before that we had to take inventory of all the stuff in my father’s sheds on the farm. In both cases, I was amazed at all of the crap one can accumulate over the years. In Gail’s case, she took exception to use treating her possessions as junk. They might seem that way to us, but, we should have remembered, they were anything but that to her. The same was true with all my father’s crap. He had countless cases of used oil containers and filters. He stored everything! Whatever Mom threw out, he must have stashed away in his sheds. Again, I thought this was all junk, but – for whatever reason – they were treasures to Dad. Which makes me wonder – what will my children think of all the stuff I collect and horde?
“We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.”
-- Truer words were never spoken about education. It’s funny how little has changed in over a century.
“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”
-- I like this. Probably because I spend too much of my time trying to get kids to remember things rather than getting them to grow. When I read a poem and am shaken to my core, how can I possibly pass that along to my students? I can try to re-create my reaction. I can model it for them, but how do I possibly transfer my reaction to them? I guess my only hope is to offer them a wide variety of chances to have their own reaction and experience to a piece of literature. Then I try to get the hell out of the way so they can do the learning on their own without me mouthing it up too much.
“Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.”
-- If I ever presented to teachers at a beginning of the year in-service, I would begin with this quote. I would address it to the morons (usually coaches and veteran teachers) sitting in back gabbing all the time or nodding off.
“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”
-- I imagine this is true for both my students and me.
“These days man knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing.”
-- I think again of all the crap Gail and Dad compiled. Most of it was not worth much. But emotionally could one even put a value on it? Just today my dear friend Sharon was showing off the quilts she had made from shirts that had belonged to her late husband, Don. She is going to give them as Christmas presents. When I saw them, I could only think about how I wish we had done that with all of Dad’s old flannel shirts. Instead we donated them to the Salvation Army, which is fine. But what a great way to preserve a piece of Dad! Really, the shirts were worth pennies. But the memories stored in the colors and textures of that fabric was priceless.
Snow
Late this afternoon I stood in our kitchen and watched the snow fall. It was beautiful. I lamented over the weekend how horrible it would have been for me as a kid to have gone this long without snow. We lived across the street from a great hill, perfect for sledding.
Of course, Kristie didn't appreciate the snow as she had to try to make it home from UND in blizzard conditions. Not good.
Of course, Kristie didn't appreciate the snow as she had to try to make it home from UND in blizzard conditions. Not good.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Black Friday
Thanksgiving was wonderful. Kristie made an excellent meal. KoKo, Casey, Gail, and I (plus Kristie, of course) eat it. Then we played American History Trivia - at Casey's request - and were all thoroughly squashed by Kristie. In fact, she has never lost at a game of American History Trivia. Actually, we began playing while the turkey was still cooking and Casey jumped out to a large lead. However, we paused to have our dinner and then resumed playing. That was when Kristie left us all in the dust.
After eating way tooooo much. I plopped on the couch for some football while Kristie and KoKo hung Christmas decorations. Our house is in full holiday mode now. They both did a wonderful job this year.
The only debate is what to do about a Christmas tree. Currently we have the skirting down around a small fiber optic tree. Of course, it took Mischa all of 30 seconds to tackle it once it was set up. And that's the reason we don't have last year's tree up. The cats demolished it. We should have known we were in for some trouble when two years ago Einstein had a habit of crawling into the tree and laying in it. One night we were watching TV and saw the lights flicker briefly. Then Einer shot out of the tree in a ball of fur and fury. Upon further investigation, we learned that he bit into one of the cords supplying juice to a string of lights. And you thought that scene from "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" was all fictional?
After that section of lights was removed and thrown away - as well as several bulbs, we swore to get a different tree the following year. Well, that didn't happen. But we did tie the tree to our banister to keep it from toppling over. Einer and Mischa were still fascinated by the bulbs and nearly toppled the tree on several occasions. Last year when we took down the decorations, the tree was chucked.
This year we are without a tree so far. I think we're all pulling for a real tree, but Kristie has a fear that one of the cats will pee in it. At this point, nothing surprises me with these guys.
After all, even the little fiber optic tree didn't last long on the floor - it's now safely out of reach on top of the home entertainment cabinet.
****
Here is a piece I wrote last year for an assignment on tone and humor for my College Comp class. It deals with Black Friday and all the shopping insanity that is taking place even now as I type this.
I got the idea while Kristie related how her Shannon, Kristie's best friend's husband, was sent out into the madness of Black Friday one early morning. I don't know what sales were so great or toy needed so desperately that the poor man had to face the horde of shoppers at the crack of dawn, but Kristie told us how Shannon got caught up in all the insanity as the doors opened. He found himself screaming and running along with all the other shoppers.
This is what I came up with.
No One Gets Out of Here Alive
It’s The Morning After. No I don’t mean the pill. Nor do I mean that old nuclear holocaust film from the early 80s. This is the real crisis. It’s the Morning after Thanksgiving. The busiest shopping day of the year. It’s 4:30 and I’m stuck in what appears to be a mosh pit. If I was 30 yards from the stage with Metallica or Korn playing, I’d say this was a mosh pit. But since I’m 30 yards from the doors to Target, I’d say I’m nuts.
Worse than being up at this hour of the morning (and believe me I’m not the first here - which explains why I’m 30 yards away from the Target entrance and, believe me, this might be the Morning After but there are some here who look like they have been lined up since the Day Before), worse than being up and out in 24 degree late November weather, worse than being up and out and in this mosh pit of grandmothers, granddaughters, mothers, and daughters, is the fact that there are more grandmothers, granddaughters, mothers, and daughters piled in behind me. So I couldn’t even get out if I wanted. I’m a prisoner. For an instant I entertain the thought of crying for help and pretending to faint, as I once did when Metallica played in the Allerus. The fans in the pit just hoisted me up and surfed me toward the stage where the security guards grabbed me and ushered me to safety. But here I wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d rather trample me with their heels, canes, and walkers than lift me up and out of here.
The old bitty trapped next to me has been plotting my demise since I’d tried to make small talk with her an hour ago.
“How are you tonight, uh, I mean this morning,” I asked the lady next to me as I alternately stomped my feet and blew steamy breath into my cupped hands.
“Don’t yap at me sunny,” the old lady said. Her breath took form and floated away. “I learned long ago not to let compassion get in the way of a bargain,” she snapped at me like a chiwawa on PCP.
“Excuse me Ma’am?” I asked shocked.
“I don’t have time for emotion. You start talking. Then you get to know someone. Next thing you know, you’re inside the store and you’re about to reach for that just released Christmas sweater. You know the one with the kittens playing with the green and black yarn around the Christmas tree with that fine embroidery on the front. Then your so called ‘friend,” the one you trusted with the top secret info, is pushing you out of the way to snare the last large one of the rack,” she said.
I could only stare, aware only of the cold air flooding into my mouth, which had to be hanging down somewhere around my knees.
“So quit the small talk sonny,” she finished. Just to make sure she didn’t divulge any pertinent information, she plucked her dentures out and stashed them in her purse, which she snapped shut and clutched in front of her chest as if it were bullet proof.
No one gets out of here alive, flashed through my mind. I was a dead man. Not only that but I was the only man - alive or dead - in the crowd. I am a goner.
Just then the doors opened . . .
****
I think I'll stick to my Day After tradition - watching some of the MN Prep Bowl and taking in Colorado vs. Nebrasks. Then Kristie's father, his wife, and brother are coming over. Which reminds me. I have a lot of work to do before then . . . Happy Black Friday!
After eating way tooooo much. I plopped on the couch for some football while Kristie and KoKo hung Christmas decorations. Our house is in full holiday mode now. They both did a wonderful job this year.
The only debate is what to do about a Christmas tree. Currently we have the skirting down around a small fiber optic tree. Of course, it took Mischa all of 30 seconds to tackle it once it was set up. And that's the reason we don't have last year's tree up. The cats demolished it. We should have known we were in for some trouble when two years ago Einstein had a habit of crawling into the tree and laying in it. One night we were watching TV and saw the lights flicker briefly. Then Einer shot out of the tree in a ball of fur and fury. Upon further investigation, we learned that he bit into one of the cords supplying juice to a string of lights. And you thought that scene from "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" was all fictional?
After that section of lights was removed and thrown away - as well as several bulbs, we swore to get a different tree the following year. Well, that didn't happen. But we did tie the tree to our banister to keep it from toppling over. Einer and Mischa were still fascinated by the bulbs and nearly toppled the tree on several occasions. Last year when we took down the decorations, the tree was chucked.
This year we are without a tree so far. I think we're all pulling for a real tree, but Kristie has a fear that one of the cats will pee in it. At this point, nothing surprises me with these guys.
After all, even the little fiber optic tree didn't last long on the floor - it's now safely out of reach on top of the home entertainment cabinet.
****
Here is a piece I wrote last year for an assignment on tone and humor for my College Comp class. It deals with Black Friday and all the shopping insanity that is taking place even now as I type this.
I got the idea while Kristie related how her Shannon, Kristie's best friend's husband, was sent out into the madness of Black Friday one early morning. I don't know what sales were so great or toy needed so desperately that the poor man had to face the horde of shoppers at the crack of dawn, but Kristie told us how Shannon got caught up in all the insanity as the doors opened. He found himself screaming and running along with all the other shoppers.
This is what I came up with.
No One Gets Out of Here Alive
It’s The Morning After. No I don’t mean the pill. Nor do I mean that old nuclear holocaust film from the early 80s. This is the real crisis. It’s the Morning after Thanksgiving. The busiest shopping day of the year. It’s 4:30 and I’m stuck in what appears to be a mosh pit. If I was 30 yards from the stage with Metallica or Korn playing, I’d say this was a mosh pit. But since I’m 30 yards from the doors to Target, I’d say I’m nuts.
Worse than being up at this hour of the morning (and believe me I’m not the first here - which explains why I’m 30 yards away from the Target entrance and, believe me, this might be the Morning After but there are some here who look like they have been lined up since the Day Before), worse than being up and out in 24 degree late November weather, worse than being up and out and in this mosh pit of grandmothers, granddaughters, mothers, and daughters, is the fact that there are more grandmothers, granddaughters, mothers, and daughters piled in behind me. So I couldn’t even get out if I wanted. I’m a prisoner. For an instant I entertain the thought of crying for help and pretending to faint, as I once did when Metallica played in the Allerus. The fans in the pit just hoisted me up and surfed me toward the stage where the security guards grabbed me and ushered me to safety. But here I wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d rather trample me with their heels, canes, and walkers than lift me up and out of here.
The old bitty trapped next to me has been plotting my demise since I’d tried to make small talk with her an hour ago.
“How are you tonight, uh, I mean this morning,” I asked the lady next to me as I alternately stomped my feet and blew steamy breath into my cupped hands.
“Don’t yap at me sunny,” the old lady said. Her breath took form and floated away. “I learned long ago not to let compassion get in the way of a bargain,” she snapped at me like a chiwawa on PCP.
“Excuse me Ma’am?” I asked shocked.
“I don’t have time for emotion. You start talking. Then you get to know someone. Next thing you know, you’re inside the store and you’re about to reach for that just released Christmas sweater. You know the one with the kittens playing with the green and black yarn around the Christmas tree with that fine embroidery on the front. Then your so called ‘friend,” the one you trusted with the top secret info, is pushing you out of the way to snare the last large one of the rack,” she said.
I could only stare, aware only of the cold air flooding into my mouth, which had to be hanging down somewhere around my knees.
“So quit the small talk sonny,” she finished. Just to make sure she didn’t divulge any pertinent information, she plucked her dentures out and stashed them in her purse, which she snapped shut and clutched in front of her chest as if it were bullet proof.
No one gets out of here alive, flashed through my mind. I was a dead man. Not only that but I was the only man - alive or dead - in the crowd. I am a goner.
Just then the doors opened . . .
****
I think I'll stick to my Day After tradition - watching some of the MN Prep Bowl and taking in Colorado vs. Nebrasks. Then Kristie's father, his wife, and brother are coming over. Which reminds me. I have a lot of work to do before then . . . Happy Black Friday!
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
The Holidays are Here
I see that my last blog was from last week. It's not that I've been lazy. It's that we've been busy. Ever since we went to the Russain Nutcracker two weeks ago, things have been a blur. Two days after that it was the Taste of the Holidays. Then it was shopping trips to Grand Forks. In fact, that was how we spent last weekend.
And I loved every second of it.
I usually get surprised looks when I explain how I love to shop. But it's true.
Growing up the best time of the year was our annual trip to Grand Forks for Christmas shopping. When I was a child, the mall, decked out in full Holiday regalia, Santa, mechanical dancing bears, the lights and elves, the music, and the people. It was hypnotic. And I soaked it all up.
I really started to appreciate and take part in the shopping (rather than just tagging along and never daring to venture out of reach of Mom or Dad) when I entered high school. Heading to Grand Forks meant hopping in Dad's battered old blue Chevy Silverado (Dad drove, Mom sat in the middle, and I usually listened to my headphones on the passenger side) and turning west on Highway 2. Once in Grand Forks, we'd take Gateway Drive out to a little old truck stop. There we'd have breakfast or an early lunch. Once that was over, we hit the interstate and took that south to Columbia. Once we turned on to Columbia, the anxiety began to build. I knew we were there. As a kid, I was part of enough breakdowns and wrong turns to never feel too reassured about anything. Dad always used to like to joke about how once he took the wrong turn trying to get fireworks. We headed out on the interstate. I vaguely recall it now. But he loved to remind me how frustrated I got when we headed farther and farther away. Apparently, I hadn't yet realized you can't find a quick turn off road on an interstate and have to wait for an actual exit. And in North Dakota, the exits, like the towns, are often few and far between (Kristie and I discovered this yet again last month when we helped Gail move out of her trailer house. We were driving the Uhaul to Mayville. However, we missed the exit and had to drive roughly 20 miles to find the next exit).
Once we turned onto Columbia though, I knew we had it made. You gotta love any road named after a mall. And, for me, that was what Christmas really was all about: the mall. What a place. For a kid who spent 95% of his time on a 120 acre farm feeding sheep, baling hay, and cooped up in his room, the mall was the greatest place on earth. (Hey, I even got excited over a trip to Crookston, which meant a trip to Hugos for groceries - and several heavy metal magazines and maybe even a cheap novel - and, if I was lucky, a trip to Pamida for a cassette or another cheap novel). It seemed like there were hundreds of stores -- all within walking distance.
Once I was in high school, Mom and Dad turned me loose to do my own shopping. I could have spent a whole week there. I stopped carrying so much about all the Christmas decorations. Instead I burried myself deep in B Dalton or one of the music stores. There was also the customary trip over to Spencers. This usually netted me several magazines, books, cassettes, T-shirts, and posters.
Last Saturday was not that much different. Fast forward 20 years, and I still found myself turned loose on the mall. Only this time I didn't spend much time shopping for myself. I had Kristie to shop for. KoKo and Casey are relatively easy to shop for. Well, Kristie is too, but there was a lot to do.
Like a young kid again, this time I savored the Christmas decorations and the music. I found myself longing for that old trip to the mall with Mom and Dad where I was too scared to venture far beyond their reach. I would wallow in that protection now. But it's gone. As are they. But in a bit of a tribute to them, I found Macy's Christmas section and searched for a little Christmas decoration in honor of them. I found the perfect one. It was an ornament in the shape of a Christmas tree with an oval picture in the middle. It was perfect.
Mom was a big Christmas decorator and would have loved it.
All those years ago, Mom, Dad, and I would stop at the old A&W on the way home for supper. Then we'd venture back in the dark, crammed together with the packages that were too light to set in back. At the time, I'd have my headphones on and be a million miles away. But what I wouldn't give to cram myself back into that cab for one last ride.
Thank God for Kristie and the kids. We now have new traditions to establish and nourish. Soon after we got home last Saturday, I started putting up some a new candle holder in the shape of a Christmas tree up on our dining room table. KoKo was already looking forward to decorating the whole house. "I just get a warm feeling when all the Christmas decorations are up," she told me and smiled.
Thinking about that, I walked over to a framed picture Kristie gave me for my birthday. It is a picture of Mom, Dad, and I taken on my mother's last Mother's Day. I propped up the little Christmas tree ornament next to it. I smiled. I had a warm feeling, but wasn't just from the decorations anymore. It's the memories that one forges that are the real presents.
I would never have believed that two decades ago.
And I loved every second of it.
I usually get surprised looks when I explain how I love to shop. But it's true.
Growing up the best time of the year was our annual trip to Grand Forks for Christmas shopping. When I was a child, the mall, decked out in full Holiday regalia, Santa, mechanical dancing bears, the lights and elves, the music, and the people. It was hypnotic. And I soaked it all up.
I really started to appreciate and take part in the shopping (rather than just tagging along and never daring to venture out of reach of Mom or Dad) when I entered high school. Heading to Grand Forks meant hopping in Dad's battered old blue Chevy Silverado (Dad drove, Mom sat in the middle, and I usually listened to my headphones on the passenger side) and turning west on Highway 2. Once in Grand Forks, we'd take Gateway Drive out to a little old truck stop. There we'd have breakfast or an early lunch. Once that was over, we hit the interstate and took that south to Columbia. Once we turned on to Columbia, the anxiety began to build. I knew we were there. As a kid, I was part of enough breakdowns and wrong turns to never feel too reassured about anything. Dad always used to like to joke about how once he took the wrong turn trying to get fireworks. We headed out on the interstate. I vaguely recall it now. But he loved to remind me how frustrated I got when we headed farther and farther away. Apparently, I hadn't yet realized you can't find a quick turn off road on an interstate and have to wait for an actual exit. And in North Dakota, the exits, like the towns, are often few and far between (Kristie and I discovered this yet again last month when we helped Gail move out of her trailer house. We were driving the Uhaul to Mayville. However, we missed the exit and had to drive roughly 20 miles to find the next exit).
Once we turned onto Columbia though, I knew we had it made. You gotta love any road named after a mall. And, for me, that was what Christmas really was all about: the mall. What a place. For a kid who spent 95% of his time on a 120 acre farm feeding sheep, baling hay, and cooped up in his room, the mall was the greatest place on earth. (Hey, I even got excited over a trip to Crookston, which meant a trip to Hugos for groceries - and several heavy metal magazines and maybe even a cheap novel - and, if I was lucky, a trip to Pamida for a cassette or another cheap novel). It seemed like there were hundreds of stores -- all within walking distance.
Once I was in high school, Mom and Dad turned me loose to do my own shopping. I could have spent a whole week there. I stopped carrying so much about all the Christmas decorations. Instead I burried myself deep in B Dalton or one of the music stores. There was also the customary trip over to Spencers. This usually netted me several magazines, books, cassettes, T-shirts, and posters.
Last Saturday was not that much different. Fast forward 20 years, and I still found myself turned loose on the mall. Only this time I didn't spend much time shopping for myself. I had Kristie to shop for. KoKo and Casey are relatively easy to shop for. Well, Kristie is too, but there was a lot to do.
Like a young kid again, this time I savored the Christmas decorations and the music. I found myself longing for that old trip to the mall with Mom and Dad where I was too scared to venture far beyond their reach. I would wallow in that protection now. But it's gone. As are they. But in a bit of a tribute to them, I found Macy's Christmas section and searched for a little Christmas decoration in honor of them. I found the perfect one. It was an ornament in the shape of a Christmas tree with an oval picture in the middle. It was perfect.
Mom was a big Christmas decorator and would have loved it.
All those years ago, Mom, Dad, and I would stop at the old A&W on the way home for supper. Then we'd venture back in the dark, crammed together with the packages that were too light to set in back. At the time, I'd have my headphones on and be a million miles away. But what I wouldn't give to cram myself back into that cab for one last ride.
Thank God for Kristie and the kids. We now have new traditions to establish and nourish. Soon after we got home last Saturday, I started putting up some a new candle holder in the shape of a Christmas tree up on our dining room table. KoKo was already looking forward to decorating the whole house. "I just get a warm feeling when all the Christmas decorations are up," she told me and smiled.
Thinking about that, I walked over to a framed picture Kristie gave me for my birthday. It is a picture of Mom, Dad, and I taken on my mother's last Mother's Day. I propped up the little Christmas tree ornament next to it. I smiled. I had a warm feeling, but wasn't just from the decorations anymore. It's the memories that one forges that are the real presents.
I would never have believed that two decades ago.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Latest Creation
Last week my junior English class listened to "The Damned Thing" by Ambrose Bierce. Then I turned them loose on a creative project - they could turn the story into a CSI episode, they could devise a board game around the story, they could draw what the "Damned Thing" might have looked like, they could invent a scene, and so on. This class loves this kind of stuff.
While they listened to the story, I devised this brief comic using the comiclife application on my computer. At the time, the students didn't have access to this application, so they couldn't do this as one of the creative options, but next time they will have that opportunity.
While they listened to the story, I devised this brief comic using the comiclife application on my computer. At the time, the students didn't have access to this application, so they couldn't do this as one of the creative options, but next time they will have that opportunity.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Boredom
Dr. Drake, from NCTC, once told me, coming off her year long sabbatical, that it is impossible for one to truly be bored. There is just too much to do. Reading . . . repairs around the house . . . yard work . . . travel . . . even relaxation need not be boring. I was shocked when I heard this for I thought I had been repeatedly bored during my life. But now that I reflect on this in my life now, I agree with Dr. Drake.
Boredom is a myth. When my students whine that they don’t want to do anything today, I tell them fine. We will sit and stare at the walls for 85 full minutes. No one may get up. No one may talk. No one may slouch. No one may sleep. No one may fidget. We will sit and stare. That is, we will do nothing.
I have never had a class take me up on this.
The mind, it seems to me, doesn’t want to be bored. It doesn’t want the mundane and the routine. I think this is one reason free writing works for writers. The mind cannot stand writing the same phrase or word continuously, so it kicks the imagination into high gear and away the writer goes.
This too is why I keep this blog: it is a place for my stories, rants, lessons, ideas. Even as I write this very entry, my mind is already moving ahead of my fingers. It’s in the next paragraph wondering how I’m going to transition, thinking of where to go next. I am barely aware of it sneaking ahead of me, but it surely is. I wonder how much of my life I spend composing inside my head?
It usually starts in the shower, which where I do some of my best thinking. The same is true for the ride to work. School hits and it’s non-stop thinking and composing.
There is brief respite after school, but that doesn’t last long because it’s usually time for errands to the grocery store or Wal-mart, my mind off composing the whole way. Sometimes I’m thinking of something so hard, I drive right past Wal-mart. Only once did I ever start thinking about how I was thinking so hard that I missed Wal-mart on the second drive by. I didn’t attempt a third. I just drove straight home.
Lying in bed I usually rehash my day in my mind or plan for tomorrow. Kristie, though, often cannot sleep if she has something on her mind. Her brain will keep working it over and attacking the issue from different angles long into the night while she lies there tired but sleepless. With this type of mental power inside us all, how it is one may ever be bored?
Just last night as I left school early to drive to GF to meet Kristie for the “Taste of the Holidays” at the Allerus center, my mind was juggling so many things (what podcast would I listen to on the way to GF or should I organize a Christmas playlist of my favorite Holiday favorites? which route should I take? Should I drive past the farmstead with the original, tiny settlement house on it? Should I grab a cup of coffee for the road? Would I get there in time? Do I have the latest “Hardcore History” podcast from Dan Carlin downloaded? The last one was on the rise of the Nazis, and I loved it. Should I check if Stanford has any new lectures on education downloaded? The last one I listened to led me into buying the book “Doing School.”) I barely made it out of school on time. In fact, as I was halfway to GF, when I realized I must have left my cell phone on my desk. Of course, I had to commence searching for it immediately, without stopping. I scoured my back pack and its myriad compartments. Nothing. I patted down my coat. Nothing. I tried to check under the seat and between the cushions. Nothing but a few hairy French fries.
It was at this point that I began to get frustrated with my lack of organizational skills. For the hundredth time, my mind was ten steps ahead of my body.
But then I checked in the last spot (and most obvious) my pocket. There it was. Yet, my mind was too preoccupied to note it. I didn’t even notice that I drove right by the farmstead with the original pioneer house on it. I had wanted to stop and get a picture for this blog. I was bummed out, for about five seconds. Then I began thinking about a top ten list of my favorite Christmas songs, which led me into thinking about my top ten favorite Christmas gifts as a child.
It is now 3:40. Time for me to head home. Look at all that. I wasn’t bored for one split second. But now I must pick up a mattress for KoKo and hit the grocery store. Hopefully, I’ll only have to turn around once . . .
Boredom is a myth. When my students whine that they don’t want to do anything today, I tell them fine. We will sit and stare at the walls for 85 full minutes. No one may get up. No one may talk. No one may slouch. No one may sleep. No one may fidget. We will sit and stare. That is, we will do nothing.
I have never had a class take me up on this.
The mind, it seems to me, doesn’t want to be bored. It doesn’t want the mundane and the routine. I think this is one reason free writing works for writers. The mind cannot stand writing the same phrase or word continuously, so it kicks the imagination into high gear and away the writer goes.
This too is why I keep this blog: it is a place for my stories, rants, lessons, ideas. Even as I write this very entry, my mind is already moving ahead of my fingers. It’s in the next paragraph wondering how I’m going to transition, thinking of where to go next. I am barely aware of it sneaking ahead of me, but it surely is. I wonder how much of my life I spend composing inside my head?
It usually starts in the shower, which where I do some of my best thinking. The same is true for the ride to work. School hits and it’s non-stop thinking and composing.
There is brief respite after school, but that doesn’t last long because it’s usually time for errands to the grocery store or Wal-mart, my mind off composing the whole way. Sometimes I’m thinking of something so hard, I drive right past Wal-mart. Only once did I ever start thinking about how I was thinking so hard that I missed Wal-mart on the second drive by. I didn’t attempt a third. I just drove straight home.
Lying in bed I usually rehash my day in my mind or plan for tomorrow. Kristie, though, often cannot sleep if she has something on her mind. Her brain will keep working it over and attacking the issue from different angles long into the night while she lies there tired but sleepless. With this type of mental power inside us all, how it is one may ever be bored?
Just last night as I left school early to drive to GF to meet Kristie for the “Taste of the Holidays” at the Allerus center, my mind was juggling so many things (what podcast would I listen to on the way to GF or should I organize a Christmas playlist of my favorite Holiday favorites? which route should I take? Should I drive past the farmstead with the original, tiny settlement house on it? Should I grab a cup of coffee for the road? Would I get there in time? Do I have the latest “Hardcore History” podcast from Dan Carlin downloaded? The last one was on the rise of the Nazis, and I loved it. Should I check if Stanford has any new lectures on education downloaded? The last one I listened to led me into buying the book “Doing School.”) I barely made it out of school on time. In fact, as I was halfway to GF, when I realized I must have left my cell phone on my desk. Of course, I had to commence searching for it immediately, without stopping. I scoured my back pack and its myriad compartments. Nothing. I patted down my coat. Nothing. I tried to check under the seat and between the cushions. Nothing but a few hairy French fries.
It was at this point that I began to get frustrated with my lack of organizational skills. For the hundredth time, my mind was ten steps ahead of my body.
But then I checked in the last spot (and most obvious) my pocket. There it was. Yet, my mind was too preoccupied to note it. I didn’t even notice that I drove right by the farmstead with the original pioneer house on it. I had wanted to stop and get a picture for this blog. I was bummed out, for about five seconds. Then I began thinking about a top ten list of my favorite Christmas songs, which led me into thinking about my top ten favorite Christmas gifts as a child.
It is now 3:40. Time for me to head home. Look at all that. I wasn’t bored for one split second. But now I must pick up a mattress for KoKo and hit the grocery store. Hopefully, I’ll only have to turn around once . . .
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
If that is a Prince Albert, what is a William the Conqueror?
I am preparing a Victorian Period scavenger hunt for my senior English class. They will search for several of the main characters behind the period – Victoria herself, John Stuart Mill, and Charles Darwin. I am also having them search for myths and interesting facts about the people and, in some cases, images. One thing I will not be having them look for, though, is a picture of Queen Victoria’s husband, Albert – or Prince Albert. Our new firewall here is quite strict – no blogs, youtube, facebook, or anything like that. Fine with me. However, I did an image search for him and – despite having the safe search turned on in the google search engine, I stll saw drawings of Prince Alberts . . . which happen to be a ring through the penis! So I quickly took that item off the scavenger hunt. Disaster avoided. But so much for what gets blocked and what gets through!
The Life of a Book
I’ve always wondered about this. Some spend their entire existence jammed onto a shelf. Kristie will be the first to tell you that I have a large collection of books that I have never, and likely will never, read (Crime and Punishment – though, out of spite, I am attempting to read it now, The Sound and the Fury, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities (Okay, pretty much every single book by Dickens), Others burn out quickly – from either abuse or constant use. My copy of The Catcher in the Rye has most certainly seen better days and last I saw was missing most of the cover. I have no idea where my trusted old copy of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is.
In a famous episode of Seinfeld, George breaks up with his girlfriend. However, he forgot some books over at her apartment. Fearing a bout of make up sex, he asks Jerry to go over and get his books. This completely baffles Jerry. “So?” Jerry says to George. “I don’t understand people’s obsession with books. Have you read them?”
“Yeah,” George replies.
“Then what do you need them for?”
“They’re books. They’re mine!”
“But you’ve read them. You know what’s funny. The second time you read Moby Dick, Ahab and the whale become really good friends!”
This is a common struggle for book people. Kristie treasures books. Let’s just say if I grabbed some of her beloved Stephen King collection and brought them to school for SSR – it wouldn’t be good. On the other hand, I’ve known professors and teachers over the years who gladly loan books out, knowing full well they may never return.
I’m somewhere in between these two. A few months ago, we were over visiting Lon and Sara. Lon was showing me something upstairs when I saw one of my old books in his cabinet. “Hey, that’s mine!” I exclaimed. I left it there, but I felt reassured that I knew where it was and that it was safe. Last year I had a student who rarely said a word but was a voracious reader. In one of his journals he wrote about his love of horror novels, so I loaned him several of my favorites. He returned a few but then moved away over the summer. Those books are gone forever. But maybe they are being put to use rather than just sitting on my shelf.
Yesterday I had a former student show up looking for some help with a speech. I wanted to give him a copy of a chapter from Tom Romano’s “Crafting Authentic Voice.” However, I cannot find it. Here is where I become a lot like Kristie. Now I’m obsessed with finding that book. I usually keep it on a table next to my desk. But I brought it home while writing my McEssay paper. Now it’s disappeared. I scoured the house last night. I scoured my classroom this morning. I gave my car a good once over. No luck.
I don’t even want to think of all the hours I’ve spent searching for books. Do I ever read them cover to cover again when I find them? No. But I like knowing where they are.
Which reminds me, maybe I left it in the copy room . . .
In a famous episode of Seinfeld, George breaks up with his girlfriend. However, he forgot some books over at her apartment. Fearing a bout of make up sex, he asks Jerry to go over and get his books. This completely baffles Jerry. “So?” Jerry says to George. “I don’t understand people’s obsession with books. Have you read them?”
“Yeah,” George replies.
“Then what do you need them for?”
“They’re books. They’re mine!”
“But you’ve read them. You know what’s funny. The second time you read Moby Dick, Ahab and the whale become really good friends!”
This is a common struggle for book people. Kristie treasures books. Let’s just say if I grabbed some of her beloved Stephen King collection and brought them to school for SSR – it wouldn’t be good. On the other hand, I’ve known professors and teachers over the years who gladly loan books out, knowing full well they may never return.
I’m somewhere in between these two. A few months ago, we were over visiting Lon and Sara. Lon was showing me something upstairs when I saw one of my old books in his cabinet. “Hey, that’s mine!” I exclaimed. I left it there, but I felt reassured that I knew where it was and that it was safe. Last year I had a student who rarely said a word but was a voracious reader. In one of his journals he wrote about his love of horror novels, so I loaned him several of my favorites. He returned a few but then moved away over the summer. Those books are gone forever. But maybe they are being put to use rather than just sitting on my shelf.
Yesterday I had a former student show up looking for some help with a speech. I wanted to give him a copy of a chapter from Tom Romano’s “Crafting Authentic Voice.” However, I cannot find it. Here is where I become a lot like Kristie. Now I’m obsessed with finding that book. I usually keep it on a table next to my desk. But I brought it home while writing my McEssay paper. Now it’s disappeared. I scoured the house last night. I scoured my classroom this morning. I gave my car a good once over. No luck.
I don’t even want to think of all the hours I’ve spent searching for books. Do I ever read them cover to cover again when I find them? No. But I like knowing where they are.
Which reminds me, maybe I left it in the copy room . . .
Monday, November 12, 2007
Monday
Kristie, KoKo, Gail, and I met in Grand Forks for dinner and shopping before heading over the Chester Fritz for “The Great Russian Nutcracker.” The colors were spectacular and the dancers were great. But the second act after intermission seemed to go on forever. If it’s not a football game, it’s difficult to devote three hours to something. By 9:30 I was wishing the girl would wake up from her dream, get her nutcracker doll and get the show over with!
Now if we could just find some money to shell out for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra when they hit the Allerus center in December.
All in a day . . .
Corrected the remaining College Comp novel tests. Burned the final Edgar Allan Poe imovies to DVDs. And added sound to some students imovie that didn’t work out last week. Designed an introductory assignment for our new Lit and Language 11 unit, “A House Divided,” which focuses on the Civil War. I guess that God-awful Civil War class from this summer came in handy after all. The class wasn’t God-awful, just the readings. Discussed irony and point of view, preparing students for “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” Met with a former student, who is now attending NDSU. He wanted some sources for an upcoming speech -- against the five paragraph essay format! Who would have ever thought I’d slowly turn out my own legion of soldiers prepared to combat the McEssay! He actually has to deliver a speech - in the five paragraph, thesis-support format - in which he discredits the very format. The head of the speech department is his professor, so I made sure he notified her of his intent. She is all for it. Prepared an introductory assignment for our new Lit and Language 12 Unit, “The Victorians” and prepared an introductory assignment for Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Finished final grades for two of my classes. Discussed and gave notes on Queen Victoria and Social Darwinism. Read a student’s college application essay and offered advice. Prepared to write a letter of recommendation for another student. Graded more College Comp novel tests. Prepared for the next College Comp paper, a persuasive essay, and finished the novel tests Prepared a peer editing guide for the current College Comp paper, a how to guide. Tried to get a discussion going in College Comp about rhetoric and the Toulmin Method of persuasion, with typical minim results. Turned the class loose to edit their rough drafts. Finished grading the novel tests and returned them with their final grades attached. Cleaned off most of my desk. Called it a day and headed home.
Wonder what tomorrow will bring . . .
Now if we could just find some money to shell out for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra when they hit the Allerus center in December.
All in a day . . .
Corrected the remaining College Comp novel tests. Burned the final Edgar Allan Poe imovies to DVDs. And added sound to some students imovie that didn’t work out last week. Designed an introductory assignment for our new Lit and Language 11 unit, “A House Divided,” which focuses on the Civil War. I guess that God-awful Civil War class from this summer came in handy after all. The class wasn’t God-awful, just the readings. Discussed irony and point of view, preparing students for “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” Met with a former student, who is now attending NDSU. He wanted some sources for an upcoming speech -- against the five paragraph essay format! Who would have ever thought I’d slowly turn out my own legion of soldiers prepared to combat the McEssay! He actually has to deliver a speech - in the five paragraph, thesis-support format - in which he discredits the very format. The head of the speech department is his professor, so I made sure he notified her of his intent. She is all for it. Prepared an introductory assignment for our new Lit and Language 12 Unit, “The Victorians” and prepared an introductory assignment for Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Finished final grades for two of my classes. Discussed and gave notes on Queen Victoria and Social Darwinism. Read a student’s college application essay and offered advice. Prepared to write a letter of recommendation for another student. Graded more College Comp novel tests. Prepared for the next College Comp paper, a persuasive essay, and finished the novel tests Prepared a peer editing guide for the current College Comp paper, a how to guide. Tried to get a discussion going in College Comp about rhetoric and the Toulmin Method of persuasion, with typical minim results. Turned the class loose to edit their rough drafts. Finished grading the novel tests and returned them with their final grades attached. Cleaned off most of my desk. Called it a day and headed home.
Wonder what tomorrow will bring . . .
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Bliss
Here is an imovie I made for Kristie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TADEUPbFnnA
(Again, our computer is being retarded and won't let me place a link for whatever reason. Nor will it let me post video. It's ancient and my laptop is new, so that might be a problem. So you'll have to copy and past if you want to watch the clip. Sorry. I'll have to wait until I can use the internet at Star Bucks or Cariboue Coffee or NCTC to see if I can't create a link since blogs and youtube are both blocked at our school)
It also happens to be the anniversary of the day I proposed. I was fortunate enough to have her say, "Yes."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TADEUPbFnnA
(Again, our computer is being retarded and won't let me place a link for whatever reason. Nor will it let me post video. It's ancient and my laptop is new, so that might be a problem. So you'll have to copy and past if you want to watch the clip. Sorry. I'll have to wait until I can use the internet at Star Bucks or Cariboue Coffee or NCTC to see if I can't create a link since blogs and youtube are both blocked at our school)
It also happens to be the anniversary of the day I proposed. I was fortunate enough to have her say, "Yes."
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Next thing to try
For my next project, I'm going to give my students the option of creating a comicbook verions of a story or section from a novel. Here is just something I threw together while I was waiting for a DVD to burn. I used the application comiclife. Students could scan original artwork and drop it in. They could take their own pictures and put them in. They could download other images from the internet. Then they can add dialogue and text to it.
I'd like to use this as a teaser for a story or novel just to get kids interested in the action or characters.
I'd like to use this as a teaser for a story or novel just to get kids interested in the action or characters.
End of the Quarter
My junior English class wrapped up their Edgar Allan Poe imovie projects. I am quite pleased. Most worked very hard. Some struggled and some did next to nothing. But how is that different from any other class?
For those who worked and struggled, they still took pride in their creations. That is something that is quite different from most of my classes.
Four groups finished early (actually, it was just three - one group decided to make two separate videos to see which one they like better. They couldn't decide, so they asked me to be the judge. I accepted them both! Now how often does a teacher have an assignment where a student does an extra version of it?). So I created an iDVD of them. This means I literally made a DVD, complete with a set up menu (like real DVDs) with various pictures of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven (a clip from the Simpson's version of it from their first Halloween special, The Treehouse of Horror), the Masque of the Red Death, and The Black Cat. All probably illegally downloaded, but I'm guilty, so what? Then I added a song I bought from itunes to the menu (Lou Reed's "Edgar Allan Poe," apparently the former member of the Eagles is a huge Poe fan and created a solo album devoted to his works). We watched it in class on Friday. Then I turned the remaining students loose to finish their imovies.
For the rest of the day, I had students stopping in to see if I had created an iDVD for them so they could bring it home to show their parents (Now I don't even need to ask how often that happens!). For the second set of imovies, I used different pictures for the set up menu (a create claymation picture of Edgar Allan Poe and a picture of the Poe action figure - complete with a raven that sits on his shoulder - that I have in my classroom). I chose Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" for the music. Seemed kinda appropriate.
On Monday we will watch them.
Overall, were they perfect? Not even close. We're copyright laws violated? Most certainly. Did they learn anything to help them on a BST or standard? Nope. But did they have fun, take ownership, use technology, hone skills they will likely use in the workplace, experience engagement and flow? Without a doubt.
One student in particular highlights this assignment. She struggles with her regular assignments and attendance. She is quiet and withdrawn. Or at least that was until we started this project. Unlike the others, she chose to work alone. She diligently sat at her computer class after class. Finally, she asked me to look at her clip. It was great. She selected "The Raven" to use. She had various slides of Poe and ravens and adaptations of the poem. Then she typed in stanzas from the poem that fit perfectly with the pictures. The color of the font was a blood red, which also fit perfectly. She wanted some help with the music. So I told her I'd download a song that would be perfect for it, "The Raven" by the Allan Parson's Project (of "The Eye in the Sky" fame back in '82 or '83). We put that on, and it turned out great. It was by far the hardest she had worked all year. What a payoff for her too.
Thgis has easily the highlight of my year.
For those who worked and struggled, they still took pride in their creations. That is something that is quite different from most of my classes.
Four groups finished early (actually, it was just three - one group decided to make two separate videos to see which one they like better. They couldn't decide, so they asked me to be the judge. I accepted them both! Now how often does a teacher have an assignment where a student does an extra version of it?). So I created an iDVD of them. This means I literally made a DVD, complete with a set up menu (like real DVDs) with various pictures of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven (a clip from the Simpson's version of it from their first Halloween special, The Treehouse of Horror), the Masque of the Red Death, and The Black Cat. All probably illegally downloaded, but I'm guilty, so what? Then I added a song I bought from itunes to the menu (Lou Reed's "Edgar Allan Poe," apparently the former member of the Eagles is a huge Poe fan and created a solo album devoted to his works). We watched it in class on Friday. Then I turned the remaining students loose to finish their imovies.
For the rest of the day, I had students stopping in to see if I had created an iDVD for them so they could bring it home to show their parents (Now I don't even need to ask how often that happens!). For the second set of imovies, I used different pictures for the set up menu (a create claymation picture of Edgar Allan Poe and a picture of the Poe action figure - complete with a raven that sits on his shoulder - that I have in my classroom). I chose Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" for the music. Seemed kinda appropriate.
On Monday we will watch them.
Overall, were they perfect? Not even close. We're copyright laws violated? Most certainly. Did they learn anything to help them on a BST or standard? Nope. But did they have fun, take ownership, use technology, hone skills they will likely use in the workplace, experience engagement and flow? Without a doubt.
One student in particular highlights this assignment. She struggles with her regular assignments and attendance. She is quiet and withdrawn. Or at least that was until we started this project. Unlike the others, she chose to work alone. She diligently sat at her computer class after class. Finally, she asked me to look at her clip. It was great. She selected "The Raven" to use. She had various slides of Poe and ravens and adaptations of the poem. Then she typed in stanzas from the poem that fit perfectly with the pictures. The color of the font was a blood red, which also fit perfectly. She wanted some help with the music. So I told her I'd download a song that would be perfect for it, "The Raven" by the Allan Parson's Project (of "The Eye in the Sky" fame back in '82 or '83). We put that on, and it turned out great. It was by far the hardest she had worked all year. What a payoff for her too.
Thgis has easily the highlight of my year.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Long Time No Blog
It's been awhile since my last blog. Where to begin?
Last Thursday I arrived home from school to find our front porch door open. Not good. Mischa will bolt every chance she gets. A quick survey of the house proved my suspisions correct. No Mischa.
I walked around the yard and expanding my search to the neighborhood but not luck.
Kristie got home and called the kids over at their dad's, and, sure enough, they were in a hurry and one of KoKo's friends didn't shut the door all the way. Mischa must have scampered out onto the porch as they were leaving. No one bothered to make sure that the porch door closed. Mischa eyed her chance for escape and took it.
The following day when I got home from school, KoKo and I set out on foot and searched the entire neighborhood. No luck.
Gail came over to spend the weekend and aided in the search. No luck.
Monday after school I called the Pennington County Humane Society and left a message. They got our hopes up and called later that night, but they didn't have a cat that matched our description, but the lady said I should stop by anyway.
Next KoKo and I hit the businesses in town with some homemade posters KoKo put together on the computer.
Wednesday after school I visited the Humane Society. I was in heaven. Well, cat heaven. If I could, I would have taken them all home. Kristie, though, would not have been pleased.
The lady in charge said they had a cat that might fit the description, but she was injured and had to have a leg amputated! I felt horrible. Poor Mischa. However, when I saw the poor creature, it was not Mischa. That didn't stop me, though, from wanting to bring her home. She would have fit in with all of our other misfits . . . Einstein who has six toes on each paw, Kozy who is ADHD, Boo who is scrawny and had a runny eye . . . Buddy who is deaf and blind . . . KoKo . . . Ha. Just kidding, dear.
Next we were off to the local pound to check there. No luck either.
I returned home certain we would never see her. However, soon after I got home Kristie answered the phone. The man on the other end said, "I have your kitty."
"You're kidding," Kristie said with a huge grin. "What's your address?"
"Third street that's just across the street from here!"
Poor Mischa was right next to us all ths time.
Apparently, the man had been out mowing his lawn on Saturday when this cat started following him around and wanted to get into his house. Since he and his wife already had two cats, he figured he better not let it in. But when he got up Sunday and went out into the yard, Mischa was still there! (And how she couldn't hear us calling all the time is beyond me?) So they took her in. They had even made a vet appointment to have her checked out. Then he saw one of KoKo's signs! (I mean honestly, how many times to do those signs ever pan out?)
So we rushed over and, sure enough, they had our Mischa. The really odd thing, though, was that they had taken to calling her Mischa! Even before they had seen our sign. What are the odd?
Mischa is now safe and sound and the family is once again complete.
Last Thursday I arrived home from school to find our front porch door open. Not good. Mischa will bolt every chance she gets. A quick survey of the house proved my suspisions correct. No Mischa.
I walked around the yard and expanding my search to the neighborhood but not luck.
Kristie got home and called the kids over at their dad's, and, sure enough, they were in a hurry and one of KoKo's friends didn't shut the door all the way. Mischa must have scampered out onto the porch as they were leaving. No one bothered to make sure that the porch door closed. Mischa eyed her chance for escape and took it.
The following day when I got home from school, KoKo and I set out on foot and searched the entire neighborhood. No luck.
Gail came over to spend the weekend and aided in the search. No luck.
Monday after school I called the Pennington County Humane Society and left a message. They got our hopes up and called later that night, but they didn't have a cat that matched our description, but the lady said I should stop by anyway.
Next KoKo and I hit the businesses in town with some homemade posters KoKo put together on the computer.
Wednesday after school I visited the Humane Society. I was in heaven. Well, cat heaven. If I could, I would have taken them all home. Kristie, though, would not have been pleased.
The lady in charge said they had a cat that might fit the description, but she was injured and had to have a leg amputated! I felt horrible. Poor Mischa. However, when I saw the poor creature, it was not Mischa. That didn't stop me, though, from wanting to bring her home. She would have fit in with all of our other misfits . . . Einstein who has six toes on each paw, Kozy who is ADHD, Boo who is scrawny and had a runny eye . . . Buddy who is deaf and blind . . . KoKo . . . Ha. Just kidding, dear.
Next we were off to the local pound to check there. No luck either.
I returned home certain we would never see her. However, soon after I got home Kristie answered the phone. The man on the other end said, "I have your kitty."
"You're kidding," Kristie said with a huge grin. "What's your address?"
"Third street that's just across the street from here!"
Poor Mischa was right next to us all ths time.
Apparently, the man had been out mowing his lawn on Saturday when this cat started following him around and wanted to get into his house. Since he and his wife already had two cats, he figured he better not let it in. But when he got up Sunday and went out into the yard, Mischa was still there! (And how she couldn't hear us calling all the time is beyond me?) So they took her in. They had even made a vet appointment to have her checked out. Then he saw one of KoKo's signs! (I mean honestly, how many times to do those signs ever pan out?)
So we rushed over and, sure enough, they had our Mischa. The really odd thing, though, was that they had taken to calling her Mischa! Even before they had seen our sign. What are the odd?
Mischa is now safe and sound and the family is once again complete.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Somehow I've become my Mother
Isn't that everyone's greatest fear? Yet, I have.
Mom, God rest her soul, was a wonderful, protective woman, but she always had a way of trying to talk me out of things. When, as a grown man, I brought up the idea of returning to graduate school, she brought up all the negatives. It's not that she tried to talk me out of it, but she didn't really try to talk me into it either. That was my dad's job. He was supportive of just about everything I did - everything that didn't entail costing a lot of money, I should say.
Mom had a way of outlining all of the "well, how are you going to handle this . . ." that might come up whenever I had a new idea for something. And it really rained on my parade.
Though I hated it when she would do it, somehow all of those years of absorbing that doubt and questioning has filtered into my subconsciousness. And, dammit, if I don't find myself doing the same thing to my kids!
Last night Casey was informing us about a college in Orlando that featured a computer gaming degree. Suddenly, I found myself firing every bullet I had at the idea trying to riddle it with holes. Finally, Kristie told me to stop being a spoil-sport and that was when it hit me!
I knew I recognized that voice coming out of my mouth. It was Mom's!
Mom, God rest her soul, was a wonderful, protective woman, but she always had a way of trying to talk me out of things. When, as a grown man, I brought up the idea of returning to graduate school, she brought up all the negatives. It's not that she tried to talk me out of it, but she didn't really try to talk me into it either. That was my dad's job. He was supportive of just about everything I did - everything that didn't entail costing a lot of money, I should say.
Mom had a way of outlining all of the "well, how are you going to handle this . . ." that might come up whenever I had a new idea for something. And it really rained on my parade.
Though I hated it when she would do it, somehow all of those years of absorbing that doubt and questioning has filtered into my subconsciousness. And, dammit, if I don't find myself doing the same thing to my kids!
Last night Casey was informing us about a college in Orlando that featured a computer gaming degree. Suddenly, I found myself firing every bullet I had at the idea trying to riddle it with holes. Finally, Kristie told me to stop being a spoil-sport and that was when it hit me!
I knew I recognized that voice coming out of my mouth. It was Mom's!
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Cool imovie
Our stupid computer won't let me place a link. So you'll have to copy and paste it, but it's worth it. If my juniors can come up with an imovie trailer half this good, I'll be very,very pleased.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7960979145045850903&q=the+masque+of+the+red+death&total=46&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=4
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7960979145045850903&q=the+masque+of+the+red+death&total=46&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=4
Tough Times
One reason I absolutely love college football is that I don't have one team that I'm overly passionate about. I can just unbiasedly enjoy any game. What a pleasure my Saturdays are because of it.
Sundays are a totally different story. My favorite NFL team has been the Cincinnati Bengals since I can remember. I don't know why. Maybe it was their funky helmets. Maybe it was the maverick style of play in the late 70s - they had Bill Walsh, yes, THAT Bill Walsh, as their offensive coordinator. Or maybe it was the -75 degree AFC championship that I watched them pummel the Chargers in to go to their first Super Bowl in '80. But by the mid 80's I was a diehard. I still am though I've endured some of the most wretched football ever witnessed for about fifteen years. Now it seems, despite some moderate success over that past few years, that the Bengals are back to being the Bungals. So I spend most Sundays bummed out that they lost.
What makes matters worse is that Kristie is a diehard Packers fan. And they're 7-1.
Actually, I've come to like them . . . even their QB.
But I can never enjoy the pro game like I can the college game.
Sundays are a totally different story. My favorite NFL team has been the Cincinnati Bengals since I can remember. I don't know why. Maybe it was their funky helmets. Maybe it was the maverick style of play in the late 70s - they had Bill Walsh, yes, THAT Bill Walsh, as their offensive coordinator. Or maybe it was the -75 degree AFC championship that I watched them pummel the Chargers in to go to their first Super Bowl in '80. But by the mid 80's I was a diehard. I still am though I've endured some of the most wretched football ever witnessed for about fifteen years. Now it seems, despite some moderate success over that past few years, that the Bengals are back to being the Bungals. So I spend most Sundays bummed out that they lost.
What makes matters worse is that Kristie is a diehard Packers fan. And they're 7-1.
Actually, I've come to like them . . . even their QB.
But I can never enjoy the pro game like I can the college game.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Essay done
"The McEssay: Choking Voice out of Student Writing" is off to the editors. Kristie came up with the title. I wanted to use "McEssay" (my term for the canned five-paragraph style essay)in the essay, but I also wanted to either incorporate voice or the personal essay. Kristie emailed me it about half an hour before I sent it off. Who knows what else I would have called it.
What a relief to have that sucker done and off. Now I can work on that stack of papers and work towering on my desk.
Once I can find out how to include a hyperlink, I'll make a link to the essay for any interested. I don't want to copy and paste a 25 page document as a blog entry.
What a relief to have that sucker done and off. Now I can work on that stack of papers and work towering on my desk.
Once I can find out how to include a hyperlink, I'll make a link to the essay for any interested. I don't want to copy and paste a 25 page document as a blog entry.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Pukey
I took my frustration out on this poor pumpkin when I got home. But I think he looks good. I'm already looking forward to next Halloween.
Thursday
Well, it has taken until the eighth week of the year for a full blown confrontation with a student. This happened in my senior English class yesterday. The student in question, who has more trouble in his/her life than any one kid should have, came in as usual, which means she/he was standing outside the door making a hell of a racket. This students always demands attention, which, lately, has begun to really wear on me since the class is a collection of 37 different personalities (including mine). It cannot be dominated by just one. Yet that is exactly what this student does day in and day out (well, when they choose to attend).
I walked toward class. And there they were. They asked to borrow fifty cents. I said no problem and dished out the change. Then I breezed into class and got things rolling. However, this student was ready to begin class. Conflict. So I ignored him/her. This didn’t meet the student’s need for attention (which they obviously don’t get at home or anywhere else).
As usual, I continue to ignore the student’s antics and just plow on. Why feed in to her/his need for attention?
After chitchatting with a few students, I asked them to pass in their parent permission slips (I print out their grades and have them take them home and have a parent or guardian sign it). This is a graded task, so it affects their grade quite a bit.
Unfortunately, this student doesn’t have much for parental guidance in his life (could there be a correlation????) and he/she said, “What am I supposed to do?” She/He had neither a grade report nor a parent to sign it.
I could have said, “Show up to class on time when I hand out the grade reports you actually can get one. Or try and complete your work so you actually have a passing grade.” But I didn’t. I advised him/her to do what we have done in the past, have either our assistant principal or guidance officer sign it for them.
That wasn’t good enough.
By this time we had already wasted 15 minutes of class, which was pissing me off because the student was putting the emphasis on him/her and not the class.
More grumbling under his breath.
“Are you just going to whine all day or can we get something accomplished?” I shot back, tired of her/his antics.
“What the fuck?”
“Okay, why don’t you just leave.”
“No. I’m not leaving.”
“Okay, then be quiet.”
More grumbling under his/her breath.
“Listen, if you have any guts you will say it to my face instead of whining under your breath.”
“What the fuck?”
“Alright, Get out.”
“No. I’m not leaving.”
(Why didn’t I think to take my entire class on a field trip and leave him/her alone in the classroom? Probably because I have several thousand dollars worth of technology there. But that would have been quite dramatic to just pack the hole damn class up and leave him there. “You’re not going to leave? Fine, we will.”)
“Then I’ll call our assistant principal,” I said and headed for the phone, my hands shaking. I never get into confrontations. I mean if you get me angry, you have to be one hell of a &*^%.
“How much do you want to bet I won’t be here when he gets here?” she/he calls.
(I should have said, “Ooooooh. Aren’t you the tough guy?” But I didn’t think of it. Probably because the assistant principal was at a meeting and I was trying to get a hold of his secretary.)
“Have a great day!” I called as he exited.
He/she had left, leaving a torn up dollar, stolen from a fund raiser our art department was having, strewn all over the floor.
“Thanks for the tip!” I called . . . and began class.
This won’t be the last conflict. But like Kristie said - document it for when something drastic happens. I didn’t think we’d come to blows or anything. But I wouldn’t put it past this student. I thought we were going to go at it last year, but they backed down. I would never use force on a student of course, but I don’t know that this student is beyond that. And I would defend myself, my class and my students.
Alas, I really like this kid, still. But how I see them as a student is irreparably damaged.
At least I have a break from them for a week. Or the rest of the quarter. Then only nine more long weeks. What’s that 45 class days? Given they miss at least 10 , I think I can survive 35 days. Plus throw in Christmas vacation. I can make it. But it shouldn’t have to be like this, should it? Why dread what you absolutely love to do?
They always tell us to end with a positive right? Here it is.
My fourth block College Comp class is pure delight. Today the peer edited their third essay. I was busy running around the room helping out here and there, printing off grade reports, digging for missing work, helping kids with their upcoming novel tests and so on. But it was grand to overhear them talk about writing as writers.
“You need to break this paragraph up. It’s clunky.”
“This part just doesn’t sound like you.”
“This is a good image.”
“I love this dialogue.”
“How else can you rephrase this?”
The list goes on, but it was great. When I could, I soaked it up. This class makes all the other crap worth it.
I walked toward class. And there they were. They asked to borrow fifty cents. I said no problem and dished out the change. Then I breezed into class and got things rolling. However, this student was ready to begin class. Conflict. So I ignored him/her. This didn’t meet the student’s need for attention (which they obviously don’t get at home or anywhere else).
As usual, I continue to ignore the student’s antics and just plow on. Why feed in to her/his need for attention?
After chitchatting with a few students, I asked them to pass in their parent permission slips (I print out their grades and have them take them home and have a parent or guardian sign it). This is a graded task, so it affects their grade quite a bit.
Unfortunately, this student doesn’t have much for parental guidance in his life (could there be a correlation????) and he/she said, “What am I supposed to do?” She/He had neither a grade report nor a parent to sign it.
I could have said, “Show up to class on time when I hand out the grade reports you actually can get one. Or try and complete your work so you actually have a passing grade.” But I didn’t. I advised him/her to do what we have done in the past, have either our assistant principal or guidance officer sign it for them.
That wasn’t good enough.
By this time we had already wasted 15 minutes of class, which was pissing me off because the student was putting the emphasis on him/her and not the class.
More grumbling under his breath.
“Are you just going to whine all day or can we get something accomplished?” I shot back, tired of her/his antics.
“What the fuck?”
“Okay, why don’t you just leave.”
“No. I’m not leaving.”
“Okay, then be quiet.”
More grumbling under his/her breath.
“Listen, if you have any guts you will say it to my face instead of whining under your breath.”
“What the fuck?”
“Alright, Get out.”
“No. I’m not leaving.”
(Why didn’t I think to take my entire class on a field trip and leave him/her alone in the classroom? Probably because I have several thousand dollars worth of technology there. But that would have been quite dramatic to just pack the hole damn class up and leave him there. “You’re not going to leave? Fine, we will.”)
“Then I’ll call our assistant principal,” I said and headed for the phone, my hands shaking. I never get into confrontations. I mean if you get me angry, you have to be one hell of a &*^%.
“How much do you want to bet I won’t be here when he gets here?” she/he calls.
(I should have said, “Ooooooh. Aren’t you the tough guy?” But I didn’t think of it. Probably because the assistant principal was at a meeting and I was trying to get a hold of his secretary.)
“Have a great day!” I called as he exited.
He/she had left, leaving a torn up dollar, stolen from a fund raiser our art department was having, strewn all over the floor.
“Thanks for the tip!” I called . . . and began class.
This won’t be the last conflict. But like Kristie said - document it for when something drastic happens. I didn’t think we’d come to blows or anything. But I wouldn’t put it past this student. I thought we were going to go at it last year, but they backed down. I would never use force on a student of course, but I don’t know that this student is beyond that. And I would defend myself, my class and my students.
Alas, I really like this kid, still. But how I see them as a student is irreparably damaged.
At least I have a break from them for a week. Or the rest of the quarter. Then only nine more long weeks. What’s that 45 class days? Given they miss at least 10 , I think I can survive 35 days. Plus throw in Christmas vacation. I can make it. But it shouldn’t have to be like this, should it? Why dread what you absolutely love to do?
They always tell us to end with a positive right? Here it is.
My fourth block College Comp class is pure delight. Today the peer edited their third essay. I was busy running around the room helping out here and there, printing off grade reports, digging for missing work, helping kids with their upcoming novel tests and so on. But it was grand to overhear them talk about writing as writers.
“You need to break this paragraph up. It’s clunky.”
“This part just doesn’t sound like you.”
“This is a good image.”
“I love this dialogue.”
“How else can you rephrase this?”
The list goes on, but it was great. When I could, I soaked it up. This class makes all the other crap worth it.
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