Comic Con is Really Literacy for All

November 27, 2012 — 2 Comments

Two visibly dissimilar groups arrived at the Downtown Convention Center in Providence, Rhode Island, on Sunday, November 4, 2012.

The Literacy for All Convention organized by Lesley University attracted thousands of business casual educators-teachers, literacy specialists, reading consultants, etc. These attendees were easily identified by their large red book totes and sensible shoes.

In contrast there were thousands of attendees to the Rhode Island Comic Con dressed as Speed Racers, Waldos, Power Rangers, Luke Skywalkers, Hulks, Green Honets, Spidermans, Ghostbusters and others. These attendees were easily identified by masks and spandex.  

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As I approached one of the ballrooms, a pair of ninja-attired ushers looked me up and down, and without a word pointed me to the left lane, down the “boring” hallway.

Was my dress that obvious? I looked around. My brand? Coldwater Creek. Their brand? Marvel.

I walked past the long lines of patient Comic Con attendees; spandex, glitter, togas, masks, and capes abounded. I heard an announcement, “Jedi training in this room!” Jedi training? I looked at my program to the upcoming session I would be attending: Writing the Persuasive Essay. Jedi training looked far more interesting.

And then it hit me. There is a deep bond between the educators who busily rushed from session to session with oversized bags and the strutting costume clad participants who preened through the lobbies. There is a literacy foundation for both conventions. Everyone in the convention center was there because of the power of story.

Comic Con celebrates of the characters of stories; stories are the ways educators build literacy.

Yes, the love of story is what drew two unlikely groups together. The love of story transcended age and wardrobe…I looked around with new perspective. These were my people!

Throughout the day, we shared the same lobby areas and escalators…Pincachu in front of me, Katniss behind me.

“Look,” I remarked as we got off at the top floor, “It’s the Red Power Ranger!”

“That’s Deadpool,”  the young man behind me sneered. I tried to laugh off my error, but I had obviously touched a nerve.

“I stand corrected,” I apologized.

This is Deadpool…NOT the Red Power Ranger.

I quickly looked up up Deadpool. According to the Marvel Universe website, Deadpool (aka Wade Winston Wilson) is an anti-hero, a disfigured and mentally unstable mercenary whose power is an accelerated healing factor,which provides him with regenerative healing powers for all known diseases including cancer. He first appeared as a villain in The New Mutants #98 (Feb. 1991). Deadpool’s complicated back story alternates from a possible genesis as character with a stolen identity or as the crazed son of a war hero. Reading his lengthy biography is as challenging as some classic literary texts. Deadpool‘s history is as complicated as Shakespeare’s Richard III, Mary Shelley’s Monster, or Emily Bronte’s Heathcliff…all classical anti-heroes.

While I am familiar with each of these literary characters, I simply did not recognize many of the costumes that passed me; my literacy level for Comic Con was seriously limited. I reflected how regularly, and with the same disdain as the young man so boldly corrected me, I had regularly corrected anyone who was mistaken about the relationship of Oedipus to Antigone (“He’s her father AND her grandfather”) about Romeo to Juliet (“She’s a Capulet not a Montague!”) or for George to Lenny (“Remember? Lenny needs George as a protector!”). Now I was the one at a loss for identifying characters or relationships.

Sadly, I was Comic Con illiterate. Apparently, so are many of my fellow educators, but that is changing as research is demonstrating the growth of the literacies associated with graphic novels, comic books, and video games. Several studies are collected in The Handbook of Research on New Literacies edited by Julie Coiro (‪Taylor & Francis, 2008)  Chapter 23 is titled A Literacy of Expertise by Kurt D. Squire and features a study at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

As critics lament the “decline of the book” (with Harry Potter presumably not counting as literature), those few scholars who have touched video-game controllers are noting that games are surprisingly long, difficult, and complex,requiring and developing new digital literacies” (246).

Squires defends these new literacies as complementing more traditional reading materials:

Perhaps the alarm bells sounding the decline of “reading” do not signal a “loss” of literacy, but the emergence of a new constellation of literacy practices that could someday transform our social institutions. If the history of media holds true, video games, like film or television, are not going to replace books but live along side them.  (666).

In the article, When Gaming is Good for You (3/5/12) on the Wall Street Journal online edition explained how  researchers at Michigan State University’s Children and Technology Project reported on a three year study of video games:

491 middle school students found that the more children played computer games the higher their scores on a standardized test of creativity—regardless of race, gender, or the kind of game played. The researchers ranked students on a widely used measure called the Torrance Test of Creativity, which involves such tasks as drawing an “interesting and exciting” picture from a curved shape on a sheet of paper, giving the picture a title, and then writing a story about it.

Lucy and Sarah, my nieces, at a Comic Con in Idaho. Their literacy levels are off the charts!

I should be more aware of the significant contributions that these new literacies are having on my students. I also should have been more prepared for the epiphany I experienced at this aptly named Literacy for All conference. My own nieces, Lucy and Sarah, participate regularly at Comic Cons organized in Idaho. Both young women are articulate advocates for anime characters and transform themselves in appearance and attitude. The reading level of some of their texts? 11.8 lexiles. The enjoyment they receive from sharing their knowledge with other like-minded people? Priceless.

The floor lobby areas of the convention center were probably more accurate in reflecting the literacy of today: traditional literacy standard bearers milling about with highly engaged new literacy consumers. These newer literacies may not be for all of my students, but the literacy demands on students who are involved in video games, graphic novels, comic books should be recognized. While teachers may not adopt the spandex, we all understand the importance role of story in our lives.

Who knows if there would be another convergence of the twain at the Literacy For All in future years, but I would like the opportunity to see what that Jedi training is all about.

Continue Reading…

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Meeting Jon Scieszka, “Rock Star”

November 24, 2012 — Leave a comment

In the classroom, the authors of children’s books are celebrities; the authors of young adult literature are rock stars. So when the National Conference of English Teachers (NCTE) and associated independent organizations the Council of English Leadership (CEL) and the The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) converged on Las Vegas last week, publishers made sure their authors were front and center, delivering keynote addresses and personally meeting and signing books for some of their greatest fans-teachers.

Highlights of the convention included Sherman Alexie (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian) delivering a keynote address to an enthusiastic audience of readers who know how he can reach their reluctant readers. Scott Westerfield (Uglies, Pretties) was there representing the oh-so-popular dystopian fiction. Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook) was there for the older readers, including the teachers themselves, with new educational materials for high school classrooms. Newbery Award winning Lois Lowery (The Giver, Number the Stars) spoke to an enthralled crowd of middle school teachers at ALAN.

The convention had invited many authors; book publishers arranged to bring even more to the exhibition hall. There were over 200 “signing” stations in exhibitor booths advertised in the conference program to alert teachers where to purchase and get books autographed.

Most booths were mobbed, but on Sunday morning, I came upon a table where a solitary Jon Scieszka sat with a exhibitor. I could not believe my luck. For those who do not know, Scieszka is the author of  Math Curse,  The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales,and the series The Time Warp Trio, which was made into a TV series. His retelling of the The Three Little Pigs is told from the point of view of A.Wolf. The True Story of the Three Little Pigs was my first Scieszka book experience.In the book, A. Wolf explains how his requests for a cup of sugar from each of the pigs eventually led to his “sneezing” not “huffing and puffing” which sets off the unfortunate demise of the pigs. Illustrated by Lane Smith, this book was one of the “Top 100 Picture Books” of all time in a 2012 poll by School Library Journal. I concur, and I use the book to explain literary point of view to all grade levels. In 2008, Scieszka was named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Librarian of Congress.

There Jon Scieszka sat, and there was no teacher in sight!

“Jon Scieszka!” I exclaimed, ” I can’t believe you are alone!”
“Neither can I,” he grinned.
“Me either,” said the exhibitor with him, much more uncomfortably..
“Well, now that I have you all to myself,” I was ready with a question I had asked so many times in my head, “Can I ask how you know so much about my brothers?” I was referring to his hilarious YA memoir Knuckleheads in which Scieszka relates his

experiences growing up. The publisher’s review:

“Growing up as one of six brothers was a good start, but that was just the beginning. Throw in Catholic school, lots of comic books, lazy summers at the lake with time to kill, babysitting misadventures, TV shows, jokes told at family dinner, and the result is Knucklehead. Part memoir, part scrapbook, this hilarious trip down memory lane provides a unique glimpse into the formation of a creative mind and a free spirit.”

The book is almost a mirror reflection of watching my younger siblings compete with each other, set fire to things, and survive Catholic school (with fewer nuns). “I swear you must have been watching my three brothers grow up!” I babbled on.
“You’d be surprised how many people say that,” he chuckled.
“And your short stories in Guy’s Read?” By this time, I was positively gushing, “they are exactly what I need for my 9th grade boys who only want a short read.”
“That’s why we wrote them,” he nodded appreciatively, “for short reads. Now, what name do you want in this book?”
Yes, I got a signed book Spaceheadz by Jon Scieszka! For free. A conversation and a book.

20 minutes later, I passed by the table again, but I caught only a glimpse of him. He was surrounded by a throng of teachers,the serpentine line of fans waiting to talk to him went down the long aisle. My brief and personal moment was obviously a fluke. That’s because he’s Jon Scieszka, children’s book author. Jon Scieszka, Rock Star.

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“Out of the Public School Grows The Greatness of the Nation”; the 112th Anniversary of Mark Twain’s Boxer Speech

November 19, 2012 — 1 Comment

The health of the American Public school system is under debate in many different arenas: political, financial, social, ideological, and now, technological. At the root of these debates is our collective recognition or understanding confirmed by the author Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens):

“We believe that out of the public school grows the greatness of a nation.”

I have used this quote many times myself, but I had never researched the quotation’s context until recently. This quote comes from an address given to the Public Education Association at a Meeting of the Berkeley Lyceum, New York, November 23, 1900. The speech was given the title, “I am a Boxer”, and its brief 588 word composition means that Twain spoke onstage for all of six minutes, applause aside.

The historical background for the speech deals with European colonization in Africa and Asia, and the American efforts to annex the Philippines.  Predictably, there was resistance by the natives of a country resulting in serious and costly conflicts such as the Boer War in South Africa and the Boxer Rebellion in China. Twain had joined with a number of other Americans including William Jennings Bryan, Andrew Carnegie, John Dewey, and William James in an effort to stop a new rush to colonize. They formed the Anti-Imperialist League, and for a short time they coordinated efforts to stop the developing American Empire. Twain’s speech also referenced Russia’s involvement in the Boxer Rebellion in joint operations with US Marines and British troops.

On that Friday, Twain opened the speech to the Public Education Association with his familiar self-deprecating humor:

“I don’t suppose that I am called here as an expert on education, for that would show a lack of foresight on your part and a deliberate intention to remind me of my shortcomings.”

He explains that his extensive travels had improved his understanding of other cultures, and that may be a primary reason for the invitation to have him speak. His best seller The Innocents Abroad had been published the previous year (1899), and he was lecturing extensively on this travelogue. But he also considered his audience and noted another reason for this address:

“The other reason that I can see is that you have called me to show by way of contrast what education can accomplish if administered in the right sort of doses.”

His argument against Anti-Imperialism was satirically addressed in the next two paragraphs suggesting if the Public Education Association’s pictures that had been sent to an exhibition in Paris could convince Russia and France to withdraw troops from colonial conflict-how quickly world peace could be achieved!

He then illustrated his Anti-Imperialistic philosophy using the Boxer Rebellion by opening with a rhetorical question:

“Why should not China be free from the foreigners, who are only making trouble on her soil? If they would only all go home, what a pleasant place China would be for the Chinese! We do not allow Chinamen to come here, and I say in all seriousness that it would be a graceful thing to let China decide who shall go there.”

The last sentences in this section of the speech are the source for the title of this speech, “The Boxer believes in driving us out of his country. I am a Boxer too, for I believe in driving him out of our country.”

The anti-immigrant declaration of “I believe in driving him out of our country” is surprising coming from the liberal Twain. One hopes he was playing to the sentiments of his audience rather than some xenophobic desire to keep America free of the Chinese. The Boxers’s fierce opposition to Christianity did not make them popular in the United States. However, the statement could also be read as a converse to the statement that the Boxer is “driving us out of his country”, a form of quid pro quo.

So how does Twain get from the Boxer Rebellion to public schools? In the paragraph that follows the declaration of commonality with the Boxer, Twain updates his satirical comments to note that, sadly, Russia would not be withdrawing its troops; there would be no world peace. Russia could choose to  have an army or public schools, and as it could not afford both, Russia had chosen the army. Twain decries the choice:

“This is a monstrous idea to us. We believe that out of the public school grows the greatness of a nation.”

In using the pronouns “us” and “we” Twain joins the service of the Public Education Association. As he committed himself to the cause of the Boxer, Twain commits himself to the cause of the educator. Immediately after this statement, Twain includes a paragraph so prescient, a reader might think it came out of a recent town hall meeting:

“It is curious to reflect how history repeats itself the world over. Why, I remember the same thing was done when I was a boy on the Mississippi River. There was a proposition in a township there to discontinue public schools because they were too expensive. An old farmer spoke up and said if they stopped the schools they would not save anything, because every time a school was closed a jail had to be built.”

Twain wryly commented on his own anecdote with a familiar “Twain-ism”, commenting that the practice of not funding schools was  “like feeding a dog on his own tail. He’ll never get fat. I believe it is better to support schools than jails.”

He ended the speech with an off-handed compliment to the Public Education Association:

“The work of your association is better and shows more wisdom than the Czar of Russia and all his people. This is not much of a compliment, but it’s the best I’ve got in stock.”

Twain’s short address connected two unlikely ideas: the Boxer Rebellion and the American public school system. The speech is humorous, highly political, and frighteningly prescient. The thesis of his argument is not found in the title, but is found in the concerns he has about the funding of public education in America and abroad. In summary, Twain believed that nations who choose to fund armies over education will not be great. Education is necessary for world peace.

Mark Twain may have claimed that “I am a Boxer” in this short address, but he communicated quite clearly “I am an Educator.” Public education already had wonderful resources in the literature of Twain with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. This speech solidly affirms his belief in the importance of our public education system. His contributions to the profession of education have not been matched since.

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“You shall know us by our shoes”- The National Council of Teachers of English Conference in Las Vegas

November 18, 2012 — 2 Comments

Sensible shoes dominate the NCTE Conference.

Spotting an English teacher in the crowds moving through the glitzy MGM Conference Center in Las Vegas is easy. Just look for the sensible shoes.

English teacher stamina is the stuff of legend, built up through hours of standing in front of a class, negotiating the space between groups of students and book bags tossed casually on the  classroom floor. We have perfected the quick sprint down a hallway to the copier for extra copies of a quiz or test.  Yes, we have learned from experience the necessitiy of wearing sensible, comfortable shoes. Our footwear choices came from our hard fought classroom experience, and that training was key to participation at the National Council of Teachers of English Conference (NCTE) since the MGM conference center has cavernous corridors and sessions are scattered over several acres of property. We walk, we walk, and we walk…quickly! There are hundreds of sessions, and only a few days to share new ideas and improvements to pedagogy.

“Dreams. Connect. Ignite.” is the motto of this NCTE 102nd Conference. While I have not personally witnessed much in the way of dreaming, the igniting is thankfully limited to the videos of pyrotechnics that are an element in the  Cirque de Soleil show “Ka.”. But I have participated in and witnessed plenty of connecting. My year of tweeting on Twitter has paid off!

Twitter gives teachers the opportunity to communicate with other teachers; to form communities of educators who ” follow” other educators. This is a very individualized form of professional development since I can pick those educators who are most helpful to me in helping me improve my practice. While I am attending sessions, I tweet what I am learning as notes to myself and to others.I  use the hashtag #NCTE12 to share my thoughts with other attendees. I have discovered many educators through the English Companion Ning and specific Twitter streams with hashtags such as  #engchat, #edchat, and #sschat. I follow the Twitter stream of conferences I attend, and my own school district’s stream #rsd6.

Here at the conference I have met other educators with whom I have been communicating over the past year, and the conversations we have had face to face are simply an extention of what we have been saying online. I have enthusiastically shared my use of Twitter with other attendees; “Look, you have to get on Twitter and follow this (speaker, educator)!” I greet those who tweet to me or follow me with the same enthusiasm I would greet old teaching companions. Meeting at this conference, we are free of the 140 character limit, the constant trimming of thought. Face to face we can complete a sentence without an abbreviation or a hashtag.

There are so many offerings at this conference that am I rushing from session to session. I do try and pay attention, however, to those who pass me in the maze of hallways and lobbies, scanning a name tag looking to see if one of attendees passing me might be one of my twitter “friends.” How do I know who to look at? Well, first, I look at the shoes.

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Off to Vegas with “You Ain’t Nothing but a Blog Hound!” and Two Others

November 15, 2012 — 2 Comments

The National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention and the Council on English Leadership Convention begin this weekend (11/15-21) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, and I am so delighted to have the opportunity to present with my fellow faculty member, Stephanie Pixley, at three separate sessions. We are able to present to other teachers because of the great support and training our Regional School District #6 (Administration and Board of Education) has given its teachers in the use of technology in classrooms to improve student learning and develop 21st Century skills.

Wamogo High School in Litchfield, Connecticut, is a 1:1 Bring Your Own Digital Device (BYOD) school for grades 9-12, and we are learning everyday how our students’ use of technology has helped us differentiate our instruction, increase our students’ independence, and allow us to provide authentic tasks for our students. Last year, we used netbooks in our English and Social Studies classes and found how successfully technology could be used in reading and writing workshops at every grade level. This year, those netbooks have been moved to grades 7 and 8 for their use, and the high school students either provide their own devices or rent one from the school’s technology department..

The first session we will be offering is devoted to Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road. We will feature work that the students have completed in using Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” as a way to analyze characters in this post-apocalyptic novel. We will be demonstrating how our students, “Explore the poetic language of survival in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road the potential of 21st century connectivity and collaboration, and the use of mysteries to enhance students’ critical thinking abilities as presenters share literature experiences in three high school classrooms.”

Navigating the Mind: The Road Meets Maslow’s Hierarchy
Time:  Saturday 11/17 8:00 AM – 9:15 AM
Level:  Secondary (9-12)
Topic of Interest: Literature
Location:  Studio Room 6, Grand Arena, Main Floor by Grand Garden Arena, MGM Grand

The other two sessions will be offered to the Council on English Leadership:

You Ain’t Nothing but a Blog Hound
Monday 11/19 4-5:00 PM
D.3 Room 106

Description: You may already know that a blog platform offers students at all grade levels an opportunity to engage in an authentic writing experience in or outside the classroom. This workshop demonstrates the use of a blog platform for students to engage in thoughtful discussion on whole class or independent reading. This workshop will also feature how to organize, moderate, and assess both blog posts and comments on a variety of blog platforms. There will also be a focus on improving a student’s awareness of audience and purpose in a written response, and strategies will be provided so student comments are more sophisticated than a standard “I liked what you wrote.”

Writer’s Workshop Graduates to High Tech Literature Circles
Tuesday  11/20 10-11:00 AM
F.2  Room 106

Description: This session will feature strategies used in the teaching of writing at the middle and high school levels using a variety of 2.0 technologies, including blogs, wikis, and document sharing software. The emphasis will be on providing examples of differentiated student-centered activities that will develop independence in the writer’s transition from middle school to high school. High-tech writing provides opportunities for student accountability, group collaboration, and whole class communication

(NOTE: This session was presented this at Literacy for All Convention, 11/5 & 11/6 in Providence, RI)

We are looking forward to presenting and attending the wonderful selection of sessions over the next few days. This is certainly a wonderful opportunity for our own professional development and a chance for us to showcase our small but very forward thinking school district-Regional School District #6 !

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James Bond, Agent 007 and Standardized Testing: Shaken, not Spurred

November 11, 2012 — Leave a comment

Bond.

James Bond.

007.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and (surprise!) a metaphor for why relying on the standardized test is flawed.

Honestly, I was not expecting Skyfall, the latest James Bond blockbuster, to resonate with issues being discussed in educational reform today, but sitting in the darkened theatre, I suddenly heard the same concerns about the validity of tests used in assessing secret agents that I hear in assessing students.

Apparently, M-I 6 wrestles with the question: Do tests really measure ability?

Spoiler Alert! If you are someone who intends to see the film, I may be giving away a few facts; not major plot points, but a few incidental pieces of information. Bond Purists-stop reading now, please.

Before Bond (Daniel Craig) returns to work for M (Dame Judi Dench), he needs to pass a set of standardized performance tests. He is first put through a series of grueling fitness tests. He is tested on his ability to shoot a pistol at various distances in a firing range. Finally, he faces a series of psychological tests. The results of how well he succeeded in this battery of objective tests is initially kept from the audience, but the viewers are not surprised when he eventually returns to service.

Painting at the National Gallery in London

The film’s screenwriters saw fit to combine the concerns about the results of these tests with M-I 6’s concerns about Bond’s age. No scene is more direct in confronting Bond’s age than in his first meeting with the young gadget supplier “Q”. The filmmakers placed Bond at a British National Gallery sitting on a bench looking at J.M.W. Turner’s painting Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth To Be Broken Up, 1838 .

Turner’s symbolic message of the painting depicts the shift from sail power to coal engine, the billowing white clouds swirling like sails a stark contrast to the blackened smokestack of the tug in the forefront of the painting.  Q enters, sits next to Bond, and strikes up a conversation:

Q: It always makes me feel a bit melancholy. Grand old war ship. being ignominiously haunted away to scrap… The inevitability of time, don’t you think? What do you see?
Bond:  A bloody big ship. Excuse me.
Q: 007. I’m your new Quartermaster.
Bond: You must be joking.
Q:  Why, because I’m not wearing a lab coat?
Bond: Because you still have spots.
Q: My complexion is hardly relevant.
Bond: Your competence is.
Q: Age is no guarantee of efficiency.
Bond:  And youth is no guarantee of innovation.

Skyfall (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1074638/quotes)

Of course, the M-I 6 tests are designed to determine if Bond is too old, if his brand of “boots on the ground” spying should be replaced by agents in command of newer technologies. And of course, M is obligated to submit Bond to the required standardized tests, tests given on one particular day. However, she is not obligated to act on the results of the tests.

M’s response, therefore, is to weigh what audiences know are the 50 years of evidence on Bond’s unconventional performance as a creative problem solver. She recognizes that Bond possesses those intangible qualities of initiative and drive, and while a standardized test does measure a level of ability, what makes Bond a valuable British agent is his ability to confound a standard.

Watching James Bond puzzle the test-driven establishment is a large part of the enjoyment for the audience. Agent 007 cannot be limited by a test score if he is going to save the free world.

Which brings me back to the shared message about testing from Skyfall and its application to education reform. The audience understands that the testing in Skyfall is flawed because of the limited results; standardized testing in education is similarly limited. Like M, educators should not let their students be defined by test scores from standardized tests, those single metric assessments given on one day. Like M, educators should pay more attention to having students develop problem-solving skills and to consider other assessments that measure students’ critical thinking skills.  Students should have the opportunity to be evaluated on the intangible qualities of initiative and drive through project-based learning. Like Agent 007, students should be allowed the opportunity to confound those standards measured by objective testing.

Oh, and maybe they could also ask for their chocolate milk shaken, not stirred.

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Jack Gantos Wants the The Library of Congress in Your Brain

November 6, 2012 — 1 Comment

Jack Gantos stood on the steps of the altar at NYC Riverside Chapel blinking through large black glasses as he addressed the large crowd of educators who sat eager to hear him speak, “I feel compelled to throw a little fairy dust teaching into this…to educate and illuminate simultaneously.” Then, looking back at the large screen that projected the cover of his Newbery Award winning book, Dead End in Norvelt, he grinned broadly, “Yes, I wrote this book!”

Jack Gantos was the final keynote speaker at the Teachers College 83rd Saturday Reunion on Saturday, October 27th, and he was clearly enjoying this opportunity to talk about his evolution as a reader and as a writer.  The large screen projected other images, handwritten notes and neatly drawn “spy” maps. “Here are some pages from a journal I kept,” explained Gantos, “ and you should know, that the boy that wrote this journal in fifth grade is the same man who writes today.” And write he does. Gantos is the author of the Rotten Ralph series and several books dedicated to the character Joey Pigza. In addition to this most recent Newbery Award, Gantos has also won Michael L. Printz and Robert F. Sibert honors, and he has been a National Book Award Finalist.

“The very first award you give yourself to set the bar high,” he intoned earnestly. “What everybody needs to do is to honestly come to some sense of literary standards, and those standards are defined by your reading.”

As a teacher, I am most familiar with Gantos’s memoir A Hole in My Life, which is a core text for our 12th grade Memoir elective. At 208 pages, the small paperback is much less intimidating than other memoirs, but its small size packs an amazing punch. With brutal honesty, Gantos details the year when just out of high school he became involved in smuggling drugs, and how he survived his prison sentence. A pattern of his prison mug shots covers the front of the text, and Gantos remarks about that picture early in the memoir:

“The prisoner in the photograph is me. The ID number is mine. Th ephoto was taken in 1972 at the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, Kentucky. I was twenty-one years old and had been locked up for a year already -the bleakest year of my life-and I had more time ahead of me” (3).

The memoir also chronicles Gantos’s development as a writer, and how, “dedicating himself more fully to the thing he most wanted to do helped him endure and ultimately overcome the worst experience of his life.” (Amazon)

I have one class set (30) of these memoirs, and I occasionally find additional copies at used book sales which indicates that the book is often assigned for summer reading.

When they read A Hole in My Life, many students have strong reactions to the prison scenes, which take place in the last third of the memoir. “This is NOT a kid’s book,” more than one of them has told me, “this guy cannot be a children’s author!”  They are notorious for trying to “protect” younger readers from any sordid incidents recounted in a book, and Gantos spares no details in describing some of the violent injuries he witnessed while working in the prison’s hospital ward. A Hole in My Life carries differences in age recommendations. Publisher’s Weekly suggests ages 12 and up, the book is a 2003 Bank Street – Best Children’s Book of the Year, and the Amazon recommendation is for ages 14 and up.

During his address, Gantos talked about the importance talking to teachers and students had in his creative process. Pointing to a picture of the cover, he said proudly, “This is the book that gets me into the front door of some high school where I can I get to talk about books and writing. This book is just like a key where I get to meet those high school kids.”

Usually, I usually assign the memoir to be read and discussed in literature circles and frequently students take these instructions to simply restate plot, “what happened? What happened next?” However, since Gantos was eager to share his structure with his audience, I may employ this strategy with this text. “When you think about a story,” he paused to show a graph projected on the big screen, ”you don’t think about the 50% invisible side called the structure. When I write, I draw 16 boxes and I fill them” he gestured to his sketches, “Beginning, middle,…action, story, character,” proving to this audience that their time pushing graphic organizers onto their students is still a worthwhile endeavor. As for the ending? “A book always has a double ending; the first is the physical ending, but the second is the emotional ending.” This is true in A Hole in My Life. Gantos relates the heartbreaking loss of his prison diary, written in between the lines of The Brother’s Karamazov, Gantos sharing the page space with the words of Dostoevsky. This diary was the more expensive the price to pay for his felonious actions, not the physical time he had spent behind bars.

He explained to his audience, “the reader wants to know how has the character been changed by an experience…the reader wants to have been inspired.” Gantos continued with more passion as he continued, “You read a book, and the next day, the book will be the same, but that you won’t. The that book will infects you and add to that little Library of Congress you have in your head.”

Gantos’s use of the Library of Congress, with the marble and beautiful domed ceiling as a metaphor for the reader’s brain is particularly vivid. The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts in its collections. That powerful image is one every teacher in the room hopes for their students.  After all, what could be better than producing a nation of graduates who have the resources of Library of Congress readily available in their brains?

In 12th grade, Books, Education, Memoir, Young Adult YA literature , , , , , , , , ,
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Frankenstein-Frightening Choice for Halloween (or any other day!)

October 31, 2012 — 2 Comments

It’s Halloween…what is the most frightening story you have ever read?

“I busied myself to think of a story, — a story to rival those which had excited us to this task. One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror — one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart. ……. I thought and pondered — vainly. I felt that blank incapability of invention which is the greatest misery of authorship, when dull Nothing replies to our anxious invocations. Have you thought of a story?” (Shelley, Preface)

Yes. Frankenstein. Mary Shelley’s masterpiece drafted when she was18 years old.  Teaching Mary Shelley’s “ghost story” always elicits the most interesting responses from my students. I have taught the novel every year for the past 12 years to students in grades 10-12, in AP or unleveled curriculums, and the results are always satisfying.

Note: I did not say easy.

Since I am now familiar enough with the text and the pitfalls that catch most students, I know that I will need to summon an enormous amount of energy to begin teaching Frankenstein. First, there is the baggage of the pop culture monster with its green skin, bolted neck and squared boots. That baggage must be “unpacked” first. Then, there is Robert Walton’s epistolary start of the novel, coupled with Victor Frankenstein’s lengthy autobiography.  References to Cornelius Agrippa, Lake Geneva, and Galvanism are more stumbling blocks.

  • “So, where is the Monster?”
  • “When does this book get good?”
  • “I’m sorry, but this is just boring!”

Okay, Chapter Five.  On a dark and stormy night,

“With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs”(Shelley, 5).

The Monster lives! Like the Creator in Genesis who “formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (Genesis 2:8), Shelley breathes life into her creation without regard to hard science.  In both stories, the empirical data or formulas, which led to these creations, express leaps of faith understood by the reader. The spark of life is imbued; the creation lives and breathes. The Creator of Genesis differs immediately from Victor when he, “planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed”(Genesis 2:8), In contrast, the reader can hear Victor’s sudden gasp, “Beautiful!–Great God!” so repulsed is he once the creature comes to life. Victor weakly admits that all this work has been a failure, and comments almost apologetically, “The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature” (Shelley, 5). Unfortunately, the creation has been loosed upon the earth; he will not easily be unmade simply because his creator has changed his mind.

Exhausted, Victor sleeps only to be wakened by

“when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch — the miserable monster whom I had created… His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped, and rushed down stairs” (Shelley, 5).

Rejection! Abandonment! Isolation.

The Creator in Genesis does not abandon his creations, despite their disastrous decision to disobey. Rather, the reader finds this Creator “made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them (Genesis 3:21) before banishing them from the Garden.Victor, in contrast, flees from the sound and the touch of the Monster who was trying to say….what? Creator?….Father?

  • “Daddy.”
  • “Victor is a jerk.”
  • “He ran away because he didn’t want the responsibility.”

Exactly. And that is why Frankenstein gets to the heart of so many of the issues that our students, our culture, our world must deal with today. There are questions of responsibility. The responsibilities of a creator for the created can be extended to include the responsibilities of parents to children, of scientists to inventions, of writers to literature, of politicians to policies, and of pundits to sound bytes. What happens when the “creation” goes bad?

  • “If Victor kills the Monster, is it murder?”
  • “It’s Victor’s fault that the Monster is a murderer.”

Is the Monster a human? Shelley allows that the Monster eats, reads, and pines for a companion; he is alone, and miserable. A critical scene has the Monster pleading with Victor for a friend, a companion, a mate. Shelley has her Monster claim to have a soul; is the Monster a human? What makes a human a human?

  • “Having a mate will mean monster babies!”
  • “Why didn’t Victor think about what the Monster would do?”
  • “This is just like Jurassic Park !”

Shelley’s novel also considers related ethical questions. These include what is the result of unleashing a new technology on earth? Because the technology exists to create, should the technology be used? How far should technology go in helping humanity?

In our brave new world, the “lyger” has been created because geographically separated tigers and lions can be crossbred in labs. Genetically altered crops are in the mainstream food source. These technological advancements have moved into our world with a ripple. But what of the advancements that will follow? Will human cloning become a reality, and will society deal ethically with clones? How far are we from artificial intelligence and should-or can- this intelligence be controlled? What does Frankenstein teach the reader about making ethical decisions today or in the near future? Why is literature such a great predictor for what will happen in the future?

We feel pathos. The Monster’s story is one of tragedy.

  • “Victor is the real monster.”
  • “I feel bad for the Monster…he didn’t want to be a Monster.”

By the end of the novel, my students have dealt with some very profound ideas. They have asked some very important questions about responsibility, humanity, and ethical behavior. They feel a sense of accomplishment in reading a difficult 19th Century text. They have confronted contemporary issues through literature, and isn’t that what is supposed to happen in the classroom?

Mary Shelley was only 18 years old when she attempted to answer some of the questions about the limits of man.  She was young and ambitious, like many of our students. Her “hideous progeny” is extraordinarily prescient; then novel is in every way a Modern Prometheus-a modern myth. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a must read, and a cautiously frightening tale, for Halloween or for any other day.

In 10th Grade, 12th grade, Advanced Placement Literature, Books, Education, Reading, World Literature , ,
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“We are in the ‘Perfect Storm’ in Education”-Lucy Calkins and the Common Core

October 29, 2012 — Leave a comment

The impending Hurricane Sandy did little to stop over 2000 teachers from attending the 83rd Saturday Reunion at Teacher’s College at Columbia University on Saturday, October 27. Taking up the microphone in a set of informal welcoming remarks, Lucy Calkins complimented the crowd that had gathered in the Nave in Riverside Church, “So many of you have come here…instead of clearing out storm drains or without stocking up on toilet paper. You have weathered the trip despite the predictions of this ‘Franken-storm’.” The crowd laughed appreciatively.

“Yes. We are in a storm,” she continued with growing seriousness. “Today, we are in a ‘Perfect Storm’ in education, and we must learn to travel these hurricane winds and sail.”

Calkins was referencing the convergence of the Common Core State Standards with educational reform efforts that emphasize standardized testing. Newly designed teacher evaluations tied to single metric tests combined with cuts in funding for public school education because of a stagnent economy have also contributed to this ‘Perfect Storm’. This audience understood her metaphor.

Lucy Calkins is the Founding Director of the Reading and Writing Project LLC and the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project as well as the Robinson Professor in Children’s Literature at Teachers College where she co-directs the Literacy Specialist Program.

Co-authors Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth and Christopher Lehman all led sessions at the 83rd Saturday Reunion of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project on Saturday, October 27, 2012

At a session that followed her welcoming remarks titled, “Implementing the Common Core: What’s Working, in Big Exciting Ways, to Engine Dramatic Reforms,” Calkins explained that she would not be delivering a big keynote at this conference on the Common Core, despite her belief that she considers this “most important document in the history of American education.” Instead, she plans to take time off from teaching to tour the country speaking on the Common Core and the book she co-authored, Pathways to the Common Core, in ordercto help school districts with the real work of accelerating students to perform at the level required by the Common Core, noting that “85% of our students are not there.”

Calkins also expressed her concerns that our nation’s history of large-scale educational reform is not good. “We have been sent many times to reform school,” she continued, “we have to be worried that this [Common Core] may be just one more reform.” However, Calkins stated that what works in this particular reform’s effort is the “absolute and total appreciation that what will make the difference is the teacher.” She directly confronted all the teachers in attendance and directed, “You need to be knowledgeable, and read the actual Common Core, not the ‘Publisher’s Guide to the Common Core’.” Her concerns at this conference echo her remarks in March 2012 at the 82nd Saturday reunion where she specifically called out David Coleman, co-founder and CEO of Student Achievement Partners  and who, according to Pathways to the Common Core, “received a  four-year 18 million dollar grant from the GE Foundation to develop materials and do teacher training around the CCSS” (6). Coleman has since moved on to take a position as the President of the College Board. Pathways to the Common Core, co- authored with Mary Ehrenworth and Christopher Lehman, details concerns that this enormous grant and any additional grant money will result supporting those who are “spelling out implications and specifying what they wish the Common Core had said,”(5). Already there has been a growing body of materials that contradict the intentions of the standards:

“There will certainly be additional materials and documents that emerge following this new round of money, with the potential to make similar claims as the Publisher’s Criteria for the Common Core Standards in English Language Arts and Literacy, Grades 3-12 (Coleman and Pimentel 2011)  and the Rubrics for Evaluating Open Education Resources (OER) Objects (Achieve 2011). When documents are presented as if they’ve gone through the process of review and been ratified by the states on subcommittees, it is troubling”(6).

Calkins reminded participants that the crucial difference will be the professional teachers who bring colleagues into their work to build a community of teachers, and that this community should know the Common Core standards.

Turning to the topic of her session, Calkins also explained that some of the most exciting work that was recently taking place on the Common Core  at the Teachers College was with their work with students in argument and debate.

She described the success teachers at the Reading and Writing Project were having with students who participated in read-aloud by gathering evidence for one position or another. For example, students had listened to a reading of The Stray and took notes on different positions. Following the basic rules of debate, students were given the opportunity to caucus with those who held their opinions before debating or refuting their debate partner’s position. In order to model the process with Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, teachers taking one position that the tree was strong stood to caucus with like-minded participants, while those seated conferred with those who agreed with the different opinion that the tree was weak. Calkins directed teachers to stand, sit, debate or caucus, modeling how this might work in a classroom in one 45-50 minute period. She showed several video clips showed students participating in the same process demonstrating the success of using these techniques. “The results were fantastic,” Calkins exclaimed as the videos played, “so exciting to see the students gathering evidence and using the text in their arguments.”

What was evident during her sessions at this conference was that during this ‘Perfect Storm’ in education, Calkins is confidently empowering teachers to sail through what seems to feel like hurricane force changes in the profession. Her efforts in preparing teachers to navigate these new challenges can help insure that while these controversial storms may rage outside, inside the classroom day after day, the teacher is prepared to be the captain of the ship.

In Common Core, Common Core-CCSS, Education, Education reform, Professional Development, Teacher, Writing , , , , , , , , , ,
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For 9th Grade Zombie Fans: “World War Z” and “Rot and Ruin”

October 24, 2012 — Leave a comment

The cover is not at all frightening, but the contents are. I had found two copies of Max Brooks’s World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie Wars at summer book sales ($1.00 each) and placed them on the 9th grade independent reading book carts.  There was not much interest; the paperback measures a hefty 342 pages. But lately, the book is gaining some tractions with some of the freshmen boys.

“It’s about these interviews with survivors of the Zombie apocalypse ” explained Paul to the class yesterday when he volunteered to share what he was reading, “and it is really realistic. You hear how the zombie plague started and how the governments are corrupt.”

When a classmate endorses a book, the other students listen; first person testimonials are very powerful in our independent reading program. I had touted the book early in September to students when they were first perusing the book carts  The storyline was compelling enough for me, a squeamish reader, to appreciate how Brooks made a zombie war a study in political science. How would governments react to an epidemiological disaster? What would our military do to contain a potent virus? What rules would govern the survivors? I found the book to be a heart pounding read, and I read a few paragraphs to the class who listened with interest.

World War Z is told through a series of eye-witness accounts that occasionally connect characters and events. For example, there is the testimony of the fictional Dr. Kwang Jingshu, Greater Chongqing, United Federation of China:

“I found ‘Patient Zero’ behind the locked door of an abandoned apartment across town. . . . His wrists and feet were bound with plastic packing twine. Although he’d rubbed off the skin around his bonds, there was no blood. There was also no blood on his other wounds. . . . He was writhing like an animal; a gag muffled his growls. At first the villagers tried to hold me back. They warned me not to touch him, that he was ‘cursed.’ I shrugged them off and reached for my mask and gloves. The boy’s skin was . . . cold and gray . . . I could find neither his heartbeat nor his pulse.”

There is also very realistic testimony from the fictional General Travis D’Ambrosia, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe:

“Two hundred million zombies. Who can even visualize that type of number, let alone combat it? . . . For the first time in history, we faced an enemy that was actively waging total war. They had no limits of endurance. They would never negotiate, never surrender. They would fight until the very end because, unlike us, every single one of them, every second of every day, was devoted to consuming all life on Earth.”

What was most frightening as I read was my increasing doubt that the hundreds of characters interviewed in this story were fictional at all. Brooks has written post-zombie war interviews of doctors, generals, mayors, and newspaper reporters with remarkable authenticity.

But World War Z is not the only post-apocolyptic zombie book making the rounds in class. Another popular book making the rounds is Jonathan Mayberry’s Rot and Ruin (Benny Imura) the first novel in a series. I often see the rather grotesque cover art sitting on a desk, one eyeball staring up at the ceiling.

A review of Rot and Ruin on Amazon states:
In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn’t want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash, but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human.
Zombie literature seems to cross our class’s gender lines, although Rot and Ruin seems to be more popular with the girls in the class. At present, there are only a few copies available through our school library, so I will be looking out for it at book sales. In addition to these titles, we also have several copies of James Dashner’s The Maze Runner, a series also loosely connected to the zombie phenomenon.
I am not entirely sure what my students’ fascination with zombies means. There are always trends or fads in literature; several years ago handsome vampires were all the rage, and several year before that, wizards ruled the reading lists. So I am aware that this infatuation with all things zombie will eventually fade, but maybe I can convince them to use their own brains as “food” for thought.
In 9th Grade, Books, Reading, Silent Sustained Reading -SSR, Young Adult YA literature , , , , , , , ,
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