Melinda Awards Reflection, bookhenge

Once again, I was thankful for the livestream that allows us to go back and experience the classroom setting even if we've missed it. I wish I had been there for these awards! Everyone seemed like they had a lot of fun and we could see a number of young students speaking unabashedly about the books that they've read. I highly enjoyed the fact that students, teachers, and potential teachers meshed so well during the awards. Here are some highlights from watching the archived version:

1) Hearing about all the books... If I didn't read a certain book, I now have a feel for what kind of book it is and whether or not it's worth reading. Unfortunately, a lot of the books on the list that I had wanted to read had been difficult to find in the libraries. I had really wanted to read Rot and Ruin, and from all the reports and discussion that happened at the Melinda Awards, that desire seems justified.

2) Seeing students confidently talk about literature. They didn't have to worry about what the group would think or what people watching live might think, they just had to defend why they enjoyed something. That alone made this a worthy night to me.

3) Collaboration. So many different people working together for the sake of literature.

4) It was kind of hilarious. Perhaps not with the comedic flair that backs the Oscars or Grammy's, but it was enjoyable to watch and I know I would have been laughing if I had been there.

All in all, I thought the night seemed tremendous. I'm not sure how many students were there (it seemed like a number of the same ones came up with regularity), but for those students it is sure to be a memorable experience. I think it also gives us a great idea of how to run a book club in whatever local areas we end up being teachers and the best way to try and honor those books through ceremony and fun. Thanks for the example of a good time and a good literary book club.

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Speaking to a Young Writing Club- bookhenge

The following is the general outline I used for speaking to a Young Writers club at Carrboro High School yesterday. They took it a lot of different, great directions with their questions, but I got to relay just about all of this information to them.

Writing Group Tomorrow

First off, I’m not some stud writer… I’m not published… and I’m not even yet licensed to teach, though I’m working on all three. My goal, for right now, is just to write. To make it a habit, to make it second nature (A habitual writer is someone who writes while they're not writing... you walk into a room and what you see can be salvaged for literary purposes, your experiences funnel into the creation of your works)… and as hard as those first three are, writing everyday can still be hard. But I have to write, I remember I was a junior in high school and I slaved over the first chapter to a book… It was the fantasy series I’d always dreamed of writing, and I very shyly asked my teacher to read it. And the next day she surprised me by saying it was one of the best things she’d ever read. She then forced me to drop Spanish and get in the Creative writing class where I spent 2 wonderful years and wrote 150 pages of one book, before deciding it wouldn’t work and writing 150 of another book… that I later decided wouldn’t work. So whats the point? I can’t stop writing, my teachers taught me that I had a unique perspective and a creation to offer that no one else would… And that’s the first thing I’d have you guys walk away with today.

-          You have a unique perspective

o   You see things, notice things, experience things differently

o   Even if we all went through the same exact events, same exact  life: what you pull out of it is different? Scene: One notices a tree, one notices the bird, one notices the sun reflecting off the water.

o   Go to any art gallery and for the most part, when you look at a landscape painting or a painting of a small village, you’re going to choose different things. What does this mean?

-          1) You offer a unique perspective, and if you choose not to write, we’ll never get to learn from it, we’ll never get to see what you would have seen, we’ll never hear that story they way you would have told it, and we wanted to, because here’s the other thing

-          You go to that same painting and you both notice different things right? One of you see’s the beautiful birds that are barely specks that the artist drew, and one loves the way the light falls on a barn at the edge of the village… And you might not have noticed that, but when they say it… you really look at another perspective, another side of the painting. In essence, you get reminded that there was more than one beautiful part of that painting.

SO, I know that’s a pretty deep start and from there its going to get a little more on the practical side… what can we do? How do we become more effective? How do we take this “unique perspective” and actually write?

My second piece of advice: Just write.

-          Journal, write poems, write short stories, work on novels.

Why?

1)      If you’re not writing 3 times a week (but why not more) it’s harder to come up with topics, its harder to sustain projects, and it’s harder to behave as writers

2)      Our power is patience… You just never know when it comes to inspiration. Sometimes it will take writing a whole book before you get to the really good idea that’s actually worth writing about.

a.       Anne Lamott- “Just get it all down on paper because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten by more rational, grown-up means. There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go—but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages.”

b.      Personal example: I wrote 150 pages of a certain book, and realized I wanted the story to go differently… I sat down and wrote 150 more pages. After re-reading them both in the months that followed… I knew neither would be a publishable work. Just no chance. BUT, still today there are things in there worth salvaging. I take a character, or a setting, or a reaction, or a scene and I find a perfectly good use for it in writing that is much crisper, much more likely to be read by someone. You never know, until you’ve written and written what will be useful to you and what won’t. But never throw things away, because you don’t know when that character on page 33 will want to come bursting into another story you have… and it will be that much easier to re-create him if you have the source.

3)      Don’t limit yourself to form! Stuart Dybek's story "Paper Lantern"- Started as a poem, longer poem, short story, then full story. It released images he might not have had otherwise.

4)      Another reason to always be writing… Beyond the Pale, it’s by an editor/publisher that is speaking on YA literature. Disconnect between the writers and the teenage life they want to capture. Its been so long that their much improved writing skill cannot connect with actually being a teenager… Journal, write down your feelings and ideas and thoughts and struggles and keep that with you because one day you’ll look back, and have a much better perspective perhaps of how to capture all of that and turn it into literature. And there you are, in the pages of that journal waiting to be funneled into a real work that can actually connect with teenagers, or whoever your audience might be.

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Prep for Peril and Promise of YA Literature- bookhenge

         YA literature continues to remain a mystery to me. Aronson, in section 4 of Beyond the Pale, suggests that any book can be YA literature. His final quote in the chapter reads, "To return to the publishing dilemma, a YA book is one that offers art and ideas in a fashion that communicates especially well to teenagers. A book a teenager should read, is any book". We have to keep in mind that this is from the standpoint of a publisher. I look at the book that I'm working on and assume that it isn't meant directly for teenagers. Could teenagers read it? Certainly. In the same way that a teenager might pick up a book like Tolkien's and really dive into it. However, YA authors will clearly be gearing their content and work towards a YA crowd and must offer as he says "art and ideas" in a way that "communicates especially well to teenagers".
        However, in his other article, Aronson seems to struggle with what it is that really communicates and connects well with teenagers. His article addresses the disconnect we find between knowing that YA literature is popular and what it is that kids get out of these books. Aronson says, "We know that young people respond to books. And we know that authors, parents, and teachers all try hard to mold that responsiveness through the art and text in books". So there is response and there is a host of different people trying to make literature that brings out a good quality in that response. But Aronson asserts that everything else involved in the process of YA literature is somewhat of a mystery.
         I still belive that there is something in each person, some unique perspective, that is unpredictable. Based on the myriad of experiences, dreams, hopes, and passions that each person experiences, it is hard to know what they will highlight in any given work. What they find beautiful about a certain novel or piece of art is going to be different than what any of us might see. That is why we must work on what we do control as teachers and writers. One, we can help to encourage reading and writing in every high schooler/middle schooler we meet. Two, we can continually address the content of the books we write and suggest to make sure they are positively reinforcing.
        I would clearly be a little more on the literary side of the continuum. I do have a sense of morals and I know there are certain books that contain some information that is simply not appropriate for certain high school ages and certain middle school ages to read. How would I operate then? I'd give students as many opportunities to read as possible. I'd find ways to enliven texts that really do find themselves in the canon and I would also do my best to find out what students are looking for. I might not have a book like Nothing or Will Grayson, Will Grayson involved in my classroom. However, if I know it is the type of book that would relate very clearly to one of my students that is struggling to get into the text that we're currently studying, I'd suggest it just for the sake of keeping them on their literary toes.
       I also think that Aronson makes a good point about the disconnect between YA literature creation and target audiences. He seems to suggest that by the time most writers have the writing ability necessary to go back and write about their experiences, they have lost touch with what it was like to be that age. Thus, the target audience is much harder to connect with. I had the pleasure of meeting with a young writers club at Carrboro High School the other afternoon and I encouraged them to journal, journal, and then journal some more. I showed them the quotes by Aronson about how these writers struggle to really connect to young teens. I then suggested that the more they journal, the more they write down feelings, struggles, hopes, and dreams; the easier it will be for them to look back at this time and capture it with the ever-increasing writing skill they experience as they grow as writers. They seemed extremely excited about this fact.
        It is our responsibility to encourage students towards writing and reading as often as we possiblly can. I think a lot of YA literature needs to be incorporated. Certainly, some of the classics should never go untaught, but why not use literature that has managed to connect with a rising, transforming generation.
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Back to Class, bookhenge

The title of this blog is a reference to the fact that I had to go BACK to visit our class and experienced it via the transcript and going through the archives. I wasn't there for the live session, the interaction, and I missed out on that to be sure. I love being able to react live, but it was still a wonder that our class can be made so available. I did feel like I missed the portion of live interaction, but enjoyed the fact that I didn't "miss" the content and the conversation of my classmates.
         Now, to the actual class. I thought any conversation on literary quality and the value of books for our lives, and the lives of teenagers, is a worthy one. I really enjoyed the thoughts of my classmates and how well they argued for certain books, characters, and writing to be considered. I continue to see that different people just have different perspectives. That is why we read and write. Because the things we notice and see and experience will be different than anyone else. I might have felt one thing while reading Will Grayson, Will Grayson, but I'm assured that my classmates noticed something else and I can only learn about that through sharing and conversation. I made such an effort to talk about the Cardturner because I had a perspective that I thought was worth sharing. I'm glad my classmates felt the same about the various books and points they made about them. Great class leading up to the awards.
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Thoughts on the Cardturner ( bookhenge )

 

The Cardturner by Louis Sachar. When I reflected on the number of "literary quality" ramifications that I personally set for books in my blog, this seemed to be the standout choice. I mentioned that I liked a book that eludes standards cleverly and works both with and against the general framework of most novels. The cardturner was mostly linear, but it dropped back into certain memories and kept certain knowledge hidden from us throughout the book. It was a wonderful display of understanding what to tell the reader and when to tell them. I also mentioned liking an "unlikely" plot that is made interesting through creativity, style, and character. What a fine example of that process. Sachar has taken bridge, a notoriously boring card game that upon picking up the book few people of my generation would have found interesting or worthy of our time and he has made it both. The subject is bridge... BRIDGE. And yet Sachar gives us just enough information about the game and strings it out so that we stay interested. We eventually WANT to know the next card played and wish we were there, guessing Trapp's next move. I went on to mention that literary quality involved a clear voice. I think Sachar sticks very well to our image of who Alton Richards really is. The information that is given to us only further emphasizes the fact that we are hearing from our narrator. It reminded me, quite honestly, of The Great Gatsby. A narrator that seems to be surrounded by something mighty and is trying to figure out his own way in the midst of those who have already tread loftier paths than himself. I also identified the unreliability of Alton, we have a biased view of this story and we are very specifically seeing one angle and one perspective. Sachar does well to stick to this perspective. The setting acts exactly as it is supposed to; as a backdrop. I cannot remember much detail about the various house, roads, or towns. I do have an image of the bridge tournaments, of the people, etc. This is what he wanted for his setting. The real world that sticks with us is that of bridge. The last thing I'd say is that most good stories are character driven. The plot should fall into place and everything should make sense, but the characters should be the nucleus. I think that happens in this story. Sachar quickly fleshes out characters for us to love, dislike, and be unsure of. The only criticism being that some of his characters seem too set in their despicable nature. His parents, for instance, seem overly unlikeable at points. No one can be like that all the time can they? I would have liked to see at least one or two redeeming qualities (same thing with cliff)

 

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Literature as a Performing Art- bookhenge

I have to admit that I had my doubts about this feature of the class. I saw bookcasts as a way to double check that we were expanding our knowledge of and experience with YA literature. Unfortunately, the idea of making these seemed phony to me. To report a "stirring" up inside of me and to link it to past events or present thoughts just seemed phony to me. Certainly, certain books I have read make that happen and link me back to the past in a way that I couldn't experience elsewhere. However, the thought of reading these books and just forcing a response seemed like something I could not do.

However, I broke through on my second book cast and really enjoyed creating my own story from the story that we read. It just was an interesting way to have kids thinking about something other than a summary. They have to connect the characters feelings and story to their own. It was an empowering release for me, but it also presents 2 problems in my opinion.

1) Students being afraid. They haven't experienced as much as a lot of us have (though I'm aware that some might have experienced more). A lot of kids won't know what to bookcast, they won't have an experience that the literature draws them towards. What do we do about those disconnects?

2) Why I think the disconnect is an issue is because I think it leads to a false front. High school students don't want to dig deep emotionally most of the time. I'd say that most of them might take an assignment like this and completely make some experience up that sounds like it works. We have no way of checking if the experience is authentic and moving; or just another way for that student to bs their way for a good grade. I don't see how we can check those things.

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