Leonard's Rules of Writing

Watching the live stream of the National Book Award Ceremony!

The 2012 Recipient of the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, Elmore Leonard, just gave an informative and compelling speech about his writing process.  I have to remember to show clips of it (particularly the part when he discusses learning to "show, not tell" in his writing) to my creative writing students in the spring.


In addition to an impressive resume, Leonard also has a delightful list of "10 Rules of Writing," on which he elaborates in his book by the same name.

1.  Never open a book with weather.
2.  Avoid prologues.
3.  Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4.  Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.
5.  Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. 
6.  Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7.  Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8.  Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9.  Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10.  Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

Source: http://mysterypeople.wordpress.com/tag/elmore-leonard/

In less than an hour the National Book Award Winners will be announced.  I'm voting for This is How You Lose Her by @JunotDiazDaily (fiction), Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo (nonfiction), and Never Fall Down by Patricia @McCormickWrites (Young People's Lit).  I haven't read any of the poetry collections, so I won't weigh in on that contest. We'll see if I'm right!

On Writing Well

Note to self: Read this book over Christmas vacation and purchase some copies as resources for the spring semester creative writing class you'll be teaching!

On Writing Well by William Zinsser

The Table of Contents:
Part I Principles
Part II Methods
Part III Forms
    -Nonfiction, The Interview, The Travel Article, The Memoir, Science and Technology, Writing in Your Job, Sports, Critics and Columnists, Humor-
Part IV Attitudes

This book is a gold mine for writing teachers and writers alike!  Unfortunately, it is due back to my library in two days and I'm in the midst of grading 100+ student essays/research papers, so I don't have time to read it cover to cover.  Here are a few quotations I found by just flipping through the book:

p. 213-2: Let's start with breeziness.  There is a kind of writing that sounds so relaxed that you think you hear the author talking to you.... The common assumption is that the style is effortless.  In fact the opposite is true: the effortless style is achieved by strenuous effort and constant refining."

p. 79: "Keep your paragraphs short.  Writing is visual--it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.  Short paragraphs put air around what you write and make it look inviting, whereas a long chunk of type can discourage a reader from even starting to read."

p. 13: "Clutter is the ponderous euphemism that turns a slum into a depressed socioeconomic area, garbage collectors into waste-disposal personnel and the town dump into the volume reduction unit."

p. 15: "Is there any way to recognize clutter at a glance? ...I would put brackets around every component in a piece of writing that wasn't doing useful work....My reason for bracketing the students' superfluous words, instead of crossing them out, was to avoid violating their sacred prose.  I wanted to leave the sentence intact for them to analyze."

p. 244: "One way to generate confidence is to write about subjects that interest you and that you care about."


And while I'm thinking of meaningful quotations, I heard this one today on a Taylor Swift E! special:
"My parents raised me to never feel like I was entitled to success.  That you have to work for it.  You have to work so hard for it.  And sometimes then you don't even get where you need to go." -Taylor Swift
I have to remember to share this with my students!

Back to School

It's amazing how quickly a well-intentioned goal can become sidelined when late August rolls around.  I had every intention of blogging about the many books I've read over the last month, but unfortunately back-to-school meetings and plans, along with last-minute getaways and family vacations, interfered. So now I will attempt to play catch up!

I have been dying to write about the following book since I read it in early August. The memoir, called It Happened on the Way to War: A Marine's Path to Peace, was the most inspiring book I read all summer. I heard about it from a graduating senior on one of the final days of last school year. I had mentioned that our department was contemplating a "One Book One School" program, which was exactly what her university was doing. This was the book she was to read over the summer before her freshman year at college.

The most intriguing aspect of this book, by Rye Barcott (@ryebarcott), is the dichotomy between the author's passion for the U.S. military and his commitment to peacefully reconciling ethnic violence, particularly in areas of Africa. His desire to maintain peace in the world--shaped in large part by his anthropology professor mother and his Vietnam vet father--drives him to simultaneously enroll in the ROTC program and pursue an independent research project, which involves semi-annual trips to Kiberia, the largest slum in Kenya.

Throughout the approximately ten-year span of the book, Barcott details his experiences in the U.S., Kenya, Somalia, and Iraq. He describes the extreme patriotism he feels for his country, as well as the compassion he feels for the residents of Kiberia. He emphasizes the importance of helping the poor, downtrodden members of society by empowering them to begin their own community outreach programs, clinics, and small businesses so as to increase a sense of responsibility and ownership within the residents of these communities. Barcott also believes in the necessity of a strong military in order to maintain peace and order throughout the world.

The path to peace is not easy for Barcott, and his relationships and investments do not always go as planned. On several occasions he literally and figuratively falls on his face in his efforts to achieve high military honors and large-scale humanitarian efforts simultaneously. One of his most significant obstacles is fundraising and selecting the best local projects in which to invest. He is at times misunderstood by his fellow Marines and does not always attain top honors in his military trainings as he aspires to do. In Kiberia, an area ruled in large part by gang violence as the Kenyan police find it too dangerous to enter, Barcott--the only white person in Kieberia on most occasions--must learn the appropriate greetings and ways of life as to not be targeted by the gang leaders.

What Barcott achieves by the age of 30 is remarkable and inspiring to anyone who reads it. Incoming college students are a prime audience, since the memoir largely describes the author's accomplishments throughout his late teens and twenties. Nevertheless, this book could certainly be a One Book One School selection for a high school population, too. Students reading at a middle school reading level might have some difficulty with the book's somewhat sophisticated writing style, which I would estimate to be written at about a 10th or 11th grade reading level. Reluctant readers might be turned off by the book's length (352 pages).  However, if these students have any interest in poverty, the military, or human rights, the intriguing subject matter might be all they need to persevere through the challenging spots.  Low readers could also read excerpts or perhaps an easier text with similar themes.

Finally, It Happened on the Way to War: A Marine's Path to Peace would be an excellent text to read in conjunction with a service project or a volunteer assignment. When you close the final pages of the book, you will certainly feel an overwhelming desire to make a difference in the world.

Teaching Kids to Tweet Responsibly!

The ongoing Olympic games have been impressive, breathtaking, and record-breaking. But perhaps the most intriguing and unexpected record of all involves the incredible number of people tweeting about Olympic events. According to Bluefin Labs, during the opening ceremonies alone, athletes, spectators, and journalists issued 5 million tweets mentioning the Olympics. Twitter claims that number is in the 10 million range. Regardless, we can only assume that just as many tweets will be tweeted (I'm starting to feel a bit ridiculous using this terminology) throughout the duration of the games.  

These tweets are mostly informative and upbeat, showing a world united through its love of friendly competition. Unfortunately, however, a few athletes have not shared in this spirit of sportsmanship.  

On July 25th, two days before the opening ceremonies, a 23-year-old female Greek triple jumper was expelled from the Olympics for this tweet: “With so many Africans in Greece... the West Nile mosquitoes will at least eat homemade food!!!”

Only a few days later a 23-year-old Swiss soccer player was banned for derogatory tweets about his opponents. Translated, his tweet read, "I want to beat up all South Koreans. Bunch of mentally handicapped retards."

With one more week of the Olympics to go, I can only hope that the remaining athletes have learned a lesson from these fallen heroes and will start filtering their thoughts and words before tweeting them.

Not only do these examples illustrate the necessity of teaching kids to use social media responsibly, a task which should be shared by parents and teachers alike, it also shows a need to teach kids to be compassionate towards others, to accept others' differences, and to be good sports.

I've had several students involved in the Best Buddies program at school attempt to educate their classmates about the negative effects of using the word "retard" or "retarded" to mean "stupid."  I've taken up their cause and have spoken to students who use this epithet, explaining the guilty remorse I felt the time I used the word in front of a classmate whose brother really did suffer from developmental delays. I've had similar discussions with students who use the words "gay" and "fag" to mean "stupid" and "loser."

This past summer, as I was walking into my school, a colleague noticed that I had a bag of arts and crafts supplies from a local teacher supply store and asked if I was planning a fun project with my class. I grumbled to her that I was making a large, colorful sign that said "THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK" to hang in my classroom since I had one class in particular that seemed to lack filters. Her take on this issue, which she also had experienced, was that due to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, students have a false impression that everything they think is so important that it requires publishing. Nothing supports her argument more than the recent Twitter follies committed by (young) Olympians. 

Not only do students need to be instructed on how to effectively filter their thoughts into coherent and respectful sentences, they also must be required to overcome tendencies to act in a prejudiced manner towards those who come from backgrounds different than their own. Educating my fairly homogenous students about other cultures within the confines of my curriculum has been an important component of my teaching for the length of my career. For instance, when studying Greek mythology, I've also required students to read myths from Asian and African cultures. When studying the French Revolution while reading A Tale of Two Cities, I've asked students to research slave rebellions and other revolutions that have occurred around the world. When reading A Separate Peace, I make sure students know the history of the Japanese internment camps when we discuss WWII, even though this has no direct relevance to the text. Does this take additional time? Yes. Do I have time to do all of these activities every year? No. But, I can't bear to imply to students that Greece is the only nation worthy of having its mythology read in schools, that France and America are the only countries who ever revolted against an oppressor, and that the Americans were unequivocally the "good guys" in WWII. 

Perhaps none of my attempts at teaching from this 'world perspective' have made a difference in most of my students' lives. But if even one of these lessons changed one student's tendency to speak without thinking or judge someone solely because of his or her nationality (gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, etc.), my work will not have been in vain.  

The weird thing about the teaching profession is that I may never know for sure if my words and actions changed a student's behaviors or thoughts. What's weirder still? I'm okay with that, as long as I know I've tried my hardest to do my part to make the world a better place.  

For more ideas on teaching @tolerance_org, visit www.tolerance.org. 

For a lesson plan on using social media responsibly, visit teachtoday.edu or click here.

Art and Poetry Connection

As I continued to think about connecting art and writing and nature in my classroom (thanks to the VAST course I took through University of the Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art!), I thought I might try pairing poems and paintings, so that while we are reading/analyzing a poem in class, students also have a visual accompaniment. The poem's structure and form can serve as a mentor text and the painting can serve as inspiration for student's own original poetry.  Here are a few of the pairs I've discovered, but I hope to find more before the school year starts!

"Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost and 

Poplars on the Bank of the Epte by Claude Monet

Nature's first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf's a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay. 

"The Tree is Here, Still, In Pure Stone" by Pablo Neruda and 

Birch and Pine Tree No. 1 by Georgia O'Keeffe
The tree is here, still, in pure stone, 

in deep evidence, in solid beauty, 

layered, through a hundred million years. 

Agate, cornelian, gemstone 

transmuted the timber and sap 

until damp corruptions 

fissured the giant's trunk 

fusing a parallel being: 

the living leaves 

unmade themselves 

and when the pillar was overthrown 

fire in the forest, blaze of the dust-cloud, 

celestial ashes mantled it round, 

until time, and the lava, created 

this gift, of translucent stone. 

"Night Poem" by Margaret Atwood and Rain by Vincent van Gogh

Philadelphia Museum of Art

There is nothing to be afraid of, 

it is only the wind 

changing to the east, it is only 

your father the thunder 

your mother the rain 

In this country of water 

with its beige moon damp as a mushroom, 

its drowned stumps and long birds 

that swim, where the moss grows 

on all sides of the trees 

and your shadow is not your shadow 

but your reflection, 

your true parents disappear 

when the curtain covers your door. 

We are the others, 

the ones from under the lake 

who stand silently beside your bed 

with our heads of darkness. 

We have come to cover you 

with red wool, 

with our tears and distant whipers. 

You rock in the rain's arms 

the chilly ark of your sleep, 

while we wait, your night 

father and mother 

with our cold hands and dead flashlight, 

knowing we are only 

the wavering shadows thrown 

by one candle, in this echo 

you will hear twenty years later. 







"Warble for Lilac Time" from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman and 

Hydrangeas by Alma Thomas


Philadelphia Museum of Art


  Warble me now for joy of lilac-time, (returning in reminiscence,)
  Sort me O tongue and lips for Nature's sake, souvenirs of earliest summer,
  Gather the welcome signs, (as children with pebbles or stringing shells,)
  Put in April and May, the hylas croaking in the ponds, the elastic air,
  Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,
  Blue-bird and darting swallow, nor forget the high-hole flashing his
      golden wings,
  The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,
  Shimmer of waters with fish in them, the cerulean above,
  All that is jocund and sparkling, the brooks running,
  The maple woods, the crisp February days and the sugar-making,
  The robin where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,
  With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,
  Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest
      of his mate,
  The melted snow of March, the willow sending forth its yellow-green sprouts,
  For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in it
      and from it?
  Thou, soul, unloosen'd—the restlessness after I know not what;
  Come, let us lag here no longer, let us be up and away!
  O if one could but fly like a bird!
  O to escape, to sail forth as in a ship!
  To glide with thee O soul, o'er all, in all, as a ship o'er the waters;
  Gathering these hints, the preludes, the blue sky, the grass, the
      morning drops of dew,
  The lilac-scent, the bushes with dark green heart-shaped leaves,
  Wood-violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence,
  Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere,
  To grace the bush I love—to sing with the birds,
  A warble for joy of returning in reminiscence.

The White Tiger

Today, on my journey to and from my beach book club meeting, I finished listening to The White Tiger. Since I 'read' the novel by listening to its audio version, I have no concept of chapters, only of discs--seven of them. Disc one introduced the narrator, White Tiger, as a wry and witty murderer who, from a secret hide-out, tells his life's story through letters written to the Chinese Premier who will soon be visiting India. At first, I enjoyed White Tiger's sense of humor, and both his situation and the novel's epistolary structure piqued my curiosity. Unfortunately, my interest in his tale deteriorated throughout discs two and three. The protagonist's recollections of his childhood and young adulthood rarely sustained my interest. The needlessly long-winded details of his life growing up with a rickshaw-driver father intrigued me, but as the story went along I found most of these elaborate childhood stories to be largely irrelevant.

Luckily, the novel's pace picked up in disc four and I found myself hesitating to turn the car off when I arrived at my destination, so that I could discover how the White Tiger--a cunning, illiterate, low-caste, and loyal servant--got his name on a wanted poster.

This novel would not be an appropriate whole-class text in a unit on Indian literature due to its profanity, references to sex and prostitutes, and slow pace. Offered as an optional text, it might garner some interest with a particular type of student who will not be turned off by a loquacious first person narrator with a dry wit and a criminal background.

Next up, I'm looking forward to continuing The God of Small Things and ordering Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil (@jeetthayil), which recently made the #ManBookerPrize long list.

Human Rights Issues in YA Literature

Sometime in the mid-1990s, when I was around 10 or 11, my grandmother gave me a book called Zlata's Diary, written by a young girl (@ZlataFilipovic) living through the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Around the same time, two new students arrived in my school; they were Bosnian refugees. After reading Zlata's Diary, did I fully grasp the recent trauma my new classmates had experienced? No, but neither can I say that now, as an adult, I understand their experiences. However, reading Zlata's Diary did open my eyes to the experiences of a girl my age half a world away. It made me curious--not cruel--towards the new kids at my school. It did not traumatize me or give me nightmares, but instead put my life and "problems" into a broader context; suddenly, not being allowed to have my ears pierced seemed unimportant. It sparked in me a curiosity about people in other areas of the world. It caused me to question the evil that exists in the world, but it also inspired me be a source of goodness.

As an adult, I continue to be drawn to literature about people living in places and times that are not my own. Reading Never Fall Down (@McCormickWrites) was both a horrifying and inspiring experience for me. As I read, I continued to have flashbacks to Beah's A Long Way Gone and Wiesel's Night. Like Beah and Wiesel, the protagonist, Arn Chorn-Pond, suffers greatly as he endures the Khmer Rouge's violent reign over his homeland, yet he also rises out of that hopelessness and, as an adult, works tirelessly as a human rights advocate.

Never Fall Down is a fairly simple read for high school students, yet its subject matter is complex and challenging, making it a perfect read for both reluctant readers and high-achieving students. In an English/language arts classroom, discussions of novel text might include the literary themes of war, perseverance, and the will to survive, or the writer's process of turning a true story into a work of fiction. McCormick's choice of voice for her protagonist would be a valuable lesson topic, as well. Finally, this book beckons a discussion of the role of the arts in a people's cultural identity. Why did the Khmer Rouge find it so important to wipe out all traditional Cambodian music and art? What is the value of traditional songs, images, and stories?

Social Studies teachers could also use this text to teach about a variety of historical eras. Never Fall Down not only gives readers insight into the Cambodian Genocide, but also provides a platform for discussing other mass killings such as the Holocaust and those in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sudan, Rwanda, and the massacres that are occurring in Syria even as I type these words. The innocence of McCormick's child narrator and his at-times naive perspective on the atrocities he witnesses help students to comprehend an otherwise overwhelming topic.

Although it might be tempting to censor books that contain graphic war imagery and violence from middle and high school students, it's also important to remember that living in a bubble disadvantages everyone--victims and bystanders alike. Students should not be prevented from learning about historical or current events just because they paint a picture that not everything in our world is all roses and butterflies. If we want students to become agents of change, we have to show them what needs to be changed. At the same time, we cannot simply hand students books about tragedies and expect them to feel empowered. Opportunities for empowerment--community service projects, food and clothing drives, petitions or letter/email-writing campaigns--should be an integral part of students' experiences, too.

A few of my favorites:

Kiva @kiva

Habitat for Humanity @Habitat_org

Hope in Haiti

The Indomitable Human Spirit

I didn't choose to read Night and Dawn by Elie Wiesel on my summer break. However, because I'm tutoring a student who does have to read these books for her summer English assignment, I'm reading them as well. As I re-read Night, the harrowing memoir of Wiesel's journey from his small Hungarian town to various concentration and labor camps, I couldn't help but connect his experiences with the recent tragedy of the Aurora, Colorado shooting. In both cases, some victims' lives were lost while others' were spared. Both invite us to grapple with the intense wickedness as well as the exceptional compassion of which humans are capable.

Using literature as a platform for discussing these complex themes with students, can help them make sense of the emotions that arise during times of tragedy. Some notable works about the resilience of humanity:

Memoir
Night by Elie Wiesel (@ElieWiesel)
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (@JeanetteWalls)

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah (@IshmaelBeah)

A Child Called "It" by Dave Pelzer (@DavePelzer)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (@DrMayaAngelou)

Infidel by Aryaan Hirsi Ali

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston (@MaxineHong1)

Stitches by David Small

The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara

Slave by Damien Lewis and Mende Nazer

Other Nonfiction

Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario

Claudette Colvin by Phillip Hoose

Fiction
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Little Bee by Chris Cleave (@ChrisCleave)

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (@Lisa_See)

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (@jesmimi)

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (@askLaurie)

No Safe Place by Deborah Ellis

Sold by Patricia McCormick (@McCormicWrites)

Speaking of Patricia McCormick, I'm off to read my next beach book club selection Never Fall Down, another tale of a young boy extirpated from his town, separated from his family, and forced to work in a labor camp. I have a feeling my summer of reflecting on the triumph of the human spirit isn't over yet.

Writing Nature

I've already fallen off the wagon. My goal to blog each day was thwarted by a spontaneous camping trip to Lums Pond State Park in Delaware. Since my laptop spent the weekend on my coffee table, all blogging ceased. As my yoga instructor said last week, "Sometimes it's good to get away for a bit.  Sometimes you just need to hug a tree."

Several weeks ago, I had the pleasure of participating in a course for teachers called VAST (Visual Arts as Sources for Teaching) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (@philamuseum). This year the course was titled "Nature through the Lens of Art and Science." As I enjoyed nature during my weekend of camping, I continuously thought back to discussions and lessons I learned in that course, several of which are recalled below. Since only one seminar was dedicated to exclusively to writing about nature, I must attribute all of these writing lesson ideas to the seminar instructor @BethKephart. (Much thanks!)




Quick Collaborative Poetry
-->Make several pieces of art available for students to view.  
-->Give students 2 minutes to jot down descriptors (words and/or phrases) of any or all of the art.  
-->Students then return to their seats, preferably in a circle, and pass their descriptors to the person on their right. (Don't tell them in advance that they'll be handing them off to another student!)
-->After taking the list of words from the person on their left, students have 3 minutes to create a poem using some or all of their classmate's words. 
-->Share! (Take volunteers or have everyone share.)


What I like about this activity: 1) The short time constraints instill a sense of urgency in students and force them to write on the spot. No time for writer's block! 2) Using art as inspiration for writing is often a more comfortable starting point than requiring students to write about a more personal topic. Before long, the personal topics will surface in their poetry! 3) I like the idea writing poetry using someone else's words-particularly when first starting out. It reminds me of 'Found Poetry.' Experimenting with word choice and arrangement can be less intimidating when the words do not 'belong' to you.

Nature Walk:
-->Read aloud poetry and prose by authors (including by you the teacher!) writing about nature. Potential authors include Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Dickinson, William Carlos Williams, Pablo Neruda, Mary Oliver, and Margaret Atwood.
-->Send students out into a natural space (gardens, fields, etc.) to collect words about their observations of the natural world.
-->Reconvene to create group and/or individual poems based on words collected during the nature walk.


Art/photography connection: Ask students to use their camera phones to take photos of objects they find intriguing. The objects in these photos can become inspiration for their poetry or prose.


A Change of Scenery:
-->Share excerpts from Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River 
-->Invite students to write from the perspective of an inanimate object (perhaps one they took a photo of during their nature walk--see previous activity)


Extension: A related lesson plan with a socially conscious emphasis by Bill Bigelow @RethinkSchools: The Human Lives behind the Labels


Love Hate Relationship:
-->Read this Kate Northrop Poem to students.
-->Ask students to write their own "Three Things Loved, Three Things Hated" poem using Northrop's as a model.


Extension: Students choose one "thing" from this poem to become a topic of a longer poem or writing piece.  

Garden Memory:
-->Display a piece of art depicting a garden or other natural scene.
-->Read 2-3 models of writing about nature. 
-->Ask students to recall a favorite memory of a garden or nature and write about it for 4 minutes.  
-->Share! (Volunteers or everyone)  Ask follow-up questions requiring students to reflect on their process of recalling their memories and composing their piece.


The Color of Your Life:
-->Read the following lines from Gerald Stern's poem Eggshell:
"The color of life is an almost pale white robin's green
that once was bluer when it was in the nest,
before the jay had arranged the straw and warm flesh
was in the shell."

-->Give students 4 minutes to answer the question "What is the color of your life?" and share. This would make an excellent icebreaker.

Here's mine:

Freckles and bronze skin on sand;

Crisp pizzelles, chocolate (milk and dark), espresso

Adorning oak, lace-covered tables;

Dirt from gardens, back yards, wooded paths.

Extension: Write about a color without ever naming the color.

The Essential Nature of Collaboration

Favorite quotation from VAST: "It's an illusion that we're ever working alone. We're always collaborating and the more aware of that we become, the better off we are."  -Landscape Sculptor and Artist, Winifred Lutz

Indian Literature for High School World Lit Course

I volunteered to research, read, and review literature from South Asia (India, Pakistan, Nepal, etc.) for consideration in a new world literature course for 10th graders.


Reading Now: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Listening to Now: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga


My "To Read" List:
Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
A Fine Balance or Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
Midnight's Children or The Moor's Last Sign by Salman Rushdie
Cracking India / 1947 by Bapsi Sidhwa
Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
In Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh
poetry by Vikram Seth
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
In Custody by Anita Desai
short stories by Tahira Naqvi
The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrel
The Ramayana: Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic by R.K Narayan
Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand

Have Read:
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
     While this is a classic text and a superb example of allegory, I'm afraid that its focus on self-actualization and spirituality will cause it to miss the mark with most high school students. Perhaps this text  should be read by Honors students or those who may consider majoring in English, since this book is literally on the syllabus of every high school and college world literature course.

  Interpreter of Maladies and Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
     As a contemporary Pulitzer Prize winning author, Lahiri should certainly be included in  secondary English curricula today. Both of the aforementioned short story collections  focus primarily on children or adults raised in the United States by Indian parents who adhere to Indian cultural traditions. The theme of identity and feeling caught between two cultures permeate her work.  I didn't find any of the stories to be "inappropriate" for high schoolers, although several had adult themes to which a teen might have trouble relating (ie. A character who has married an American man and embraced American culture must decide whether or not to participate in the traditional Indian custom of inviting her aging father to live with her, her husband, and young child.)   Which stories would be meaningful to high school students?  From Interpreter: "Interpreter of Maladies" and "Mrs. Sen's." From Unaccustomed: "Unaccustomed Earth" and "Hema and Kaushik."

“By Any Other Name” essay by Santha Rama Rau published in The New Yorker March 17, 1951.  http://static.dpsk12.org/gems/montbello/SB9IdentifyingCulturalDifferences.pdf

     This is a short, five-page essay that could easily be read in class or for homework.  In it, Rama Rau describes the prejudices and cultural misconceptions she faced when she was forced to attend a Anglo-Indian school.

Teachers: Travel Internationally and Earn Graduate Credits!

My best friend, also a teacher, is using her summer vacation to travel to Mexico, Russia, and California (the latter might not seem as exotic to west coast residents, but for us east coasters it is!).  Did I mention she is currently volunteering with her church group in New Orleans?

An avid traveler, the annual summertime trip my husband and I typically take did not come to fruition this year due to a decision to rent out our house and undertake a big move 30 miles closer to Philadelphia.

Now, thanks to my globetrotting best friend and the fact that I haven't traveled since June 2011, I've been bitten by the travel bug. While I can't afford a trip this year, I've already started looking into destinations for 2013. As a teacher who has a heck of a lot of graduate courses in her future, I've begun looking into opportunities to earn graduate credits while traveling abroad.

Here's what I've discovered so far:

Creativity Workshop  
(graduate credit from University of Arizona)
Upcoming Workshops
2013

• • Singapore February 14 - 17
  • New York March 1 - 4
  • Istanbul March 10 - 16
  • Prague March 24 - 30
  • New York June 7 - 10
  • Crete June 23 - 29
  • Barcelona July 4 - 10
  • Provence July 16 - 22
  • Florence July 25 - 31
  • New York August 16 - 19
  • New York October 18 - 21

Thom Stecher & Associates  
(graduate credit available from Neumann University)

EDU 526 - Costa Rica: A Multicultural, Geographic and Environmental Experience

Costa Rica is a unique Spanish/English speaking, democratic Latin American country that has gained international recognition for the preservation of their natural environment and educational system. This course is designed to be experiential for teachers and administrators levels K-12. Participants will interact and have discussions with local people learning about their language, food, culture, government, and educational system. We will explore varied ecosystems contained in mountainous areas, jungles, rivers, and Pacific coastline, as well as the flora and fauna that exists. We will study Costa Ricaʼs geography and philosophy of natural conservation. Time will be spent on development of the whole student, including trust, relationship development, and the need of physical activity for emotional, mental, and physical health. This will be accomplished experientially with guided hiking tours, a two day white water rafting trip, guided bus tours with site visitations, canopy tour one hundred feet in the trees, and horseback riding excursion. Readings will be provided, lecture and discussion time with local presenters is planned. Cost:$1500.00 plus air fare $698.55 plus $700.00 tuition includes: lodging, transportation, meals, and fees for guides, presenters, whitewater rafting trip (picture CD included), horseback riding trip, tips, and all entrance fees. Delaware County Christian School (July 14th for registration)

Global Exploration for Educators Organization
(graduate credit available from Indiana University-Bloomington distance education)

Berkeley Summer Sessions
Kenya, Ireland, Brazil and many other options! Not specifically for educators, but many of the courses offered would relate to secondary teachers' content areas.  
"UC Berkeley students, students from other colleges and universities, international students, and adults with an interest in studying abroad are encouraged to apply."  

Arcadia Graduate Study Abroad Program 

University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Center for Global Education


Although not available for graduate credit, the exclusive Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad Bilateral Projects would be an incredible opportunity for any educator.
 "The program provides short-term study and travel seminars abroad for U.S. educators in the social sciences and humanities for the purpose of improving their understanding and knowledge of the peoples and cultures of other countries." The website also emphasizes that travel is to non-western European countries."

HAPPY TRAVELS TEACHERS!

Why Grown-Ups Should (Re)Read Classics

After spending two tutoring sessions helping a rising 11th grader read and interpret The Great Gatsby, I decided to actually open the book on my own for the first time since I was a high school student myself. As I carried the book home from the library, memories of my first encounter with Gatsby flooded back to me. This is why I love literature. One story can conjure up the most vivid of memories even when other details which should have been more important have faded into oblivion.

The year I read The Great Gatsby was the year I had Mrs. Caffier (caf-ee-ay) for 10th grade English. Mrs. Caffier, who among other similarly bold outfits, proudly wore a skirt which depicted an entire farmscape--from bright red barn to rolling green hills complete with barnyard animals. Mrs. Caffier, who had an uncanny ability to never repeat an outfit. (I hope this is the only reason she ever wore that farm skirt.) Mrs. Caffier, who forewarned us that after she underwent nose surgery, she might return to class with a tampon sticking out of her nose. Mrs. Caffier, who cautioned us to never rely on spell check, recalling the time she had been listed in a school play program as a teacher of "pubic speaking." Mrs. Caffier, who assigned me The Great Gatsby and, regardless of all the study guide questions and projects she also distributed, left me with two enduring memories of the book: a blinking green light of colossal significance and a billboard with huge eye glasses, clearly a symbol of God.

Needless to say, when I reunited with the novel as a 28-year-old, I did so in a much different manner than when I was first introduced to it at the age of 15. (For starters, I was not distracted by a middle-aged woman in a farm skirt.)

As an adult reader of Gatsby, I found myself pausing and lingering over sentences, which I can't imagine had any impact on me as a teenager. I read and re-read one sentence in particular, in which the narrator summarizes Gatsby's disillusionment with the woman he has idolized for years:


"There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams--not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion."

Colossal vitality of his illusion. How I reacted to those words as a teen I can't recall. Most likely, they confused me, as they did my poor tutee, so I ignored them. However, as an adult, I read these words and recalled the people whom I have admired, even idolized at times, who were later revealed to be severely flawed-which only means they're human. Reflections such as these require lived experience and can hardly be realized by a person who can't yet drive a car or stay out past ten.

Another aspect of Gatsby which I could not appreciate as a teenager is Fitzgerald's luxurious, yet poingant language. His ability to not only depict images of opulence but to use words that convey the transience of that wealth:

"The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath..."

Words like these were so new to me as a teenager that I could barely fathom their meanings.  Reading them again has given me a new appreciation for Fitzgerald's eloquent precision with language.

So, I invite you to dust off a copy of a book you were forced to read as a student. One you loved or one you hardly remember. Embrace the memories it conjures up and the new perspectives you're able to bring to the story.

Authors Visit Philly!

Justin Torres, author of We the Animals, will be visiting Philadelphia on Tuesday, September 20, 2012 at 5:30pm at Giovanni's Room.


Beth Kephart, author of Small Damages 
July 28, 2012  Books A Million, Exton, PA  1 - 3 PM
August 25, 2012 PAYA Festival, West Chester, PA
September 12, 2012 Radnor Memorial Library, Radnor, PA 7:30 PM 
October 27, 2012 Writers House, University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA Homecoming Memoir Panel with Buzz Bissinger, Cynthia Kaplan, and James Martin 4:30 PM

On Daily Writing and Treasure Island(!!!)

Over the last six years I have cajoled, bribed, encouraged, pressured and inspired (ha, I wish) my students to read every single day for two reasons: 1) because I strongly believe that the more one reads the better he or she becomes at reading and writing, and 2) because I love to read. Writing, however, is not quite as near and dear to my heart. Although I remember a time long ago when I kept various "quote books," journals, and notebooks of poetry, these days I write only when required to do so.

As I gear up to teach a creative writing elective (for the first time) next year, I anticipate asking my students to write each day, and I'm feeling compelled to do the same. Hence, this blog, which will serve as an experiment to see if I actually can find time each day to write.


Creative Writing Lesson #1: Write about what you know.
What I know best is ___books____, so until I can come up with something else to write about, books it is!

My Reviews of Treasure Island!!! and Treasure Island 
(read 7/11/12-7/15/12)

A few months ago, one of my beach book club friends discovered a review of Treasure Island!!! by Sara Levine (@levinehere), and we agreed it should be added to our summer book list. The reviewer accurately promised a hilarious read, but failed to warn the reader of the psychotic episodes that would emerge throughout the story. Fifty pages in, I found the book to be hysterical and imaginative. After all, the narrator is a 25-year old college graduate employed at a Pet Library, who aspires to something greater than cleaning up cat poo and shaving dogs. One hundred pages in, I started to deplore the increasingly insane actions of the protagonist whose obsession with Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island leads  to her being marooned on the island of insanity.

In hindsight, I can't say the author didn't drop some hints that her novel's protagonist was wacky bizarre crazy. I should have paid more attention to the three (not one or two) exclamation points in the title and the Holden Caulfield-like narration evident on the first page:

"In the aftermath of my adventure, I decided to write down the whole thing, starting with my discovery of Treasure Island and keeping nothing back, not even the names of the friends and family members whose problems plagued me; and so even though I'd love to go into the other room and stab someone with a kitchen knife, I take up my pen..."

In the end, it is because I had become so attached to the narrator, that her downward spiral affected me so greatly. From the start, I wanted her to reach for the stars!!! Find that dream job!!! Make a difference in the world!!! I was sure that the quotations and lessons she had excerpted from the classic novel would guide her to a fulfilling career, marital bliss, and a general zeal for life!!! When none of that happened, I found myself annoyed, distraught, and confused. So while I can't say that I enjoyed every moment of this book, it sure kept me reading, if only so that I could watch the train (ship?) wreck transpire. Any author who can make me initially connect with a character whom I eventually come to distrust and even disdain earns my vote of approval!

After the mania of Treasure Island!!! I thought I should read the more sedate Treasure Island, thinking that reading the latter would illuminate some hidden meaning that had eluded me in the former. As I read Stevenson's classic for the first time, I did experience a few "a-ha" moments. However, not having prior knowledge of the classic did not prohibit me from accessing Levine's work.

Overall, I found the classic to be a bore, perhaps because it could not live up to the Treasure Island!!! narrator's claims that it contained themes and characters that would change my life. And perhaps because I am not its intended audience. A typical boy's adventure tale, full of far-fetched, impossible feats of valor, Treasure Island's only treasure is its contribution of Long John Silver and his green parrot to the contemporary cannon of pirate imagery. Perhaps at one time, when television and the internet did not compete for a youngster's time, a boy would have been caught up in the action and adventure of this pirate's tale. However, 129 years after Stevenson penned this story, the esoteric language and writing style (think Dickens) and the myriad nautical terms would likely prevent the book from being enjoyed by modern day young male readers whose grandfathers and great-grandfathers devoured the tale in its prime.

Bottom line: If you're looking for a laugh and an opportunity to psychoanalyze a 20-something "boomerang" kid who's not living up to her potential, read Treasure Island!!! (I wouldn't recommend it to young teen readers).  If you want to (re)read a classic, 19th-century novel with no shortage of shipwrecks, marooned pirates, black spots, mutinies, buried treasure, and Jolly Rogers, assuming you have no opposition to ubiquitous maritime lingo, you'll enjoy Treasure Island minus the exclamation points.