I came across this video, "Garden of Your Mind," a Mr. Rogers remix, today and thought it was cool enough - specifically, deeply meaningful and a hip hybrid of nostalgia and synthesized-today - to share. It was just nice and kept up with Mr. Rogers' legacy for always being there to encourage others. Here's to today via a reminder from yesterday.
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Please post the link to your third Slice of Life in the comments to this post. Remember, you may also complete the Slice of Life Challenge in your Writer's Notebook. Authentic Purposes
Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself. - John Dewey The excitement and investment of three seventh graders trying to find just the right book to read together as friends. The earnestness of their pondering and deliberations as they crafted a reading schedule so they would have enough read to have a good discusison on Tuesday, but not so much that it would be hard for them to enjoy the read. Passing the remaining minutes of class with chairs circled together, paperbacks clutched intently, and concentration on their faces. - Me "Is there someone out there who's saying that reading a book in class has to be legitimized in some way - by using it to teach the five senses? If so, they're crazy and should be locked up for crimes against literacy" (p. 129). - Mem Fox's 1993 Radical Reflections: Passionate Opinions on Teaching, Learning, and Livinng I finished The Things They Carried this morning. It is a rare occurrence that I read more that a hundred pages on a weekday during the school year, but I did between Thursday and Friday morning's second hour. I reflected in my journal on Tim O'Brien as an author and on the text as a journey that aches with life: "I like Tim O'Brien's voice as an author; I trust his observations - a nonfiction / fictionalized memoir with a feeling of Steinbeck's eye for human nature and the beauty of life, nature, the human experience, the hardest, darkest, most confusing holes in our hearts and lives." I love how, subtly, life unravels itself, and also braids itself when appropriate, just at the right times to leave you seeing and feeling a deeper meaning and the resonating coincidence from which we can and do take pause to muse at life's wonder. And, I think this after having noticed on the YouTube page for the video below featuring Tim O'Brien speaking at Stanford about war and writing that the original speech occurred just a few weeks ago in late January of this still-new year. Early in the clip, O'Brien says the "aestheticizing" of human suffering is necessary; without authors and creators trying "...to make aesthetic an ugly person and an ugly situation, there would probably be no literature; there would be few movies; Broadway would go dark. Part of what literature is about is the study of, and the contemplation of, and the meditation on being human, and all its aspects.... And human beings, unlike say the gophers or the chipmunks, we're aware of tragedy, .... and aware of horror, and aware of despair. To dive into that wreck as a writer and try to salvage something beautiful and is beautifully made in harmony and in proportion with language that can make the horror float and allow characters to confront it, I don't think that's a bad thing. ... To elevate our own suffering so that we can look at it." (10:27 - 12:13 in the clip below). On a lighter note, the Fage commercial below also exemplifies an attention to and wonder of the simple, graceful, intriguing things offering beauty all around. Lovely, thoughtful, cinematic commercial; watch it on full-screen and without other distractions: The 2AM jangle, patter, hiss of layers of rain against the panes of every window amid the talk of beauty and the role of writing to understand and survive life have brought to mind a key line in a poem I first wrote during the Indiana Writing Project's Invitational Summer Institute in 2007. I've since revised the piece to become a poem (below) that I use in a mini-lesson about line-breaks and stanzas in free-verse poetry.
MORNING Music The air conditioner’s ocean breeze drifts away as cannon balls fly through it. Police car screams come up from the street. And I am awake. Propped up on elbows, judging the time by the haze seen from living room French doors. Up, walking like an enthused, inflexible marionette, I check the hour by the old wristwatch that used to save a ribbon of white skin to match the tees on the golf course. Shuffle-feeting, I am sleepily amused as the sirens still sing, probably a block away, and a dripping sink plays percussion and I think, “Anything can be beautiful.” We are nearing the end of the first semester, and though I have taught "five preps" and completed an enjoyable, thought-provoking graduate class on secondary-level curriculum, I have also made time to take pleasure in reading, and celebrating literacy. Through the culminating project for the grad course and Nancy Atwell's foundational The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids Become Skilled, Passionate, Habitual, Critical Readers, I investigated, implemented, reflected on, and made adjustments to Reading Workshop in my seventh, ninth, and tenth grade Language Arts classes. I feel the pleasure, dedication, and focus all students have exhibited when the right book gets into their hands and the rest of the classroom melts away as they quietly engage with a book, turn the page, and are intent on r-e-a-d-i-n-g... Compelled by my students' example of content, self-directed, and self-motivated readers, I also made time during the holiday break to read Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, which I have always felt as though I - an enthusiastic Language Arts teacher and fan of Steinbeck's earnest observations of life - should read. Since quickly completing that "big book," I have regained the spark to begin Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a book with a calm voice and attention to detail reminiscent of Steinbeck. In November, I also had the pleasure of representing the Indiana Writing Project at the National Writing Project's Annual Meeting and attending my sixth National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Annual Convention. The "golden lines" and ideas I carry away from the meeting and convention include: - Perhaps "new" literacy is something that has no official academic standard or assigned role in day to day life, but is an enrichment and illumination, a new means of being and communicating. It affects our lives and way of life before we know where the ripples will end or evolve into. New literacy is very personal and dependent on the user; it has not been canonized. - From the Area 3 Writing Project, Bee Foster's astute observation:"If it contains meaning, it's [an opportunity for] reading. If it requires a process to create, it's [an opportunity for] writing." For more joie de vivre via (digital) literacy, check out the brief movie based on illustrations and lines from the book Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night. As I crack open Rita Golden Gelman's new collection of travel stories, Female Nomad and Friends: Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread Around the World, fresh from its Amazon.com mailer, I am immediately reminded of the waves of newness and adventure, and the great potential for community, empowerment, and growth, and the ultimate anticipation of a journey of learning that each come with a new school year. Having enjoyed the richness and exponential rewards for all the risks that Gelman shared in her 2001 book, Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World, I am eager to continue reading this newest collection of tales of discovery and community from around the world; I have also recently discovered her website where the author also reflects on her adventures via a blog. Let the new school year and each ninth grade Language Arts class, tenth grade Honors class, seventh grade Honors class, Speech, and Film & Literature class be a constructive, collaborative experience of discovery and reflection as a community of learners. And as any good book includes unanticipated twists and turns that make the story what it is, here's to a great year :-). An added dollop of goodness, all proceeds from the sales of this anthology are going to fund scholarships for students from New Delhi, India's Vivekenand Part 2 jhuggie, or "slum"/"hut," who aspire to completing high school and earning a college degree. As I prepare to attend the National Writing Project's Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C. and meet with legislators to share with them the inherent, recursive value of writing and professional development, I was struck by the words of one of my professional and philosophical mentors Linda Christensen. While visiting the NWP site to find a link about the Spring Meeting to share with a peer in my EdCur601 class (as example of folks really fighting for quality education), I noticed the headline "Social Justice and Teaching Writing" - nothing gets my teacher-heart pumping like those words :-). After clicking the link, I immediately recognized Linda Christensen's name, and recalled her as the social action ally from my under-grad days in Dr. Hartman's "Teaching English in High School" course and remembered the tremendous relevance I found in her book Reading, Writing, and Rising Up: Teaching About Social Justice and the Power of the Written Word. Within the NWP site article, Linda's words invigorated my spirit on a rainy Monday evening, one week from spring break: "In every class I teach I look for the intersection of literature, society, and students' lives. A constant question in my classroom is, 'How does this relate to your life?' Students make the connection." What could make better airplane reading than Christensen's Teaching for Joy and Justice: Re-Imagining the Language Arts Classroom? While driving home today from school, I listened to NPR's "Talk of the Nation" and was particularly interested in an interview with LeVar Burton, the host of PBS's "Reading Rainbow" for more than twenty-six years. Feeling instantly sullen and surprised, like I'd received the news of a death of an intensely trusted friend (Fred Rogers?), I learned that "Reading Rainbow" had been canceled. A caring, compassionate guide and ally of literacy has been shelved, snuffed out. Where was/is the public outcry? Why not a telethon or public campaign to keep it on the air? How about "Revive Reading Rainbow"? In the interview (4:43-5:02) Burton reflects, "'Reading Rainbow' was about the passion. The idea for 'Reading Rainbow' was to be there during the time of a child's developmental cycle when they're making that decision-that every human being makes at one point or another-that decision being 'Will I be a reader, or not?'" "Will I be a reader, or not?" is as crucial a personal quest-ion as "Will I act for what I believe in?" So, if not "Revive Reading Rainbow", then how about senior or tenth grade buddies assisting elementary schoolers to author and prep their own book reviews and recommendations in multimodal presentations just like "Reading Rainbow" did? YouTube or bust, their voices can be heard, and dedication to literacy can be mentored. |
Ms. McCullough
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