Exploration – Page 2 – Mrs. Kelly Love

Books You Should Read:

Chapter 20: Dying Languages

Speaking, writing, and signing are the three ways in which a language lives and breathes. They are the three mediums through which a language is passed on from one generation to the next. If a language is a healthy language, this is happening all the time. Parents pass their language on to their children, who pass it on to their children … and the language lives on.

Languages like English, Spanish, and Chinese are healthy languages. They exist in spoken, written, and signed forms, and they’re used by hundreds of millions of people all over the world. But most of the 6,000 or so of the world’s languages aren’t in such a healthy state. They’re used by very few people. The children aren’t learning them from their parents. And as a result the languages are in real danger of dying out.

When does a language die?

Shows You Should Watch: Mythbusters

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/06/15/127855894/-the-question-is-more-complicated-than-the-answer-making-mythbusters

Summer romance.

My sister wrote that “summer” and “sun” have a fickle romance, and have recently broken up. If those two had a Facebook page, their statuses would be changed to “It’s complicated.”

I love her personified images of sun and summer; here in the Northwest, those two just can’t seem to get along. It’s almost the official start of summer, the summer solstice, (aka longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere) on June 21, but ol’ Mr. Downpour has washed a lot of this away.

Living in the Northwest has its drawbacks for some people. And on a gloomy, rainy day, right before summer break, I realize it’s difficult to get excited about summer plans. BUT…if you can talk your parent(s) into planning something fun, sometimes that scrubs the mold out, so to speak:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/flatpages/travel/summerguide.html

http://kidsturncentral.com/summer/summer.htm

http://parentingteens.about.com/od/summerfun/Summer_Fun_Safety_for_Teens.htm

http://teens.lovetoknow.com/Fun_Activities_for_Teenagers

http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf74567539.tip.html

And, my all-time favorite:

http://www.kerismith.com/blog/

And, remember all those ways to be more creative we talked about this year? How about starting your own composition book journal – make it a memoir of this summer between your 8th grade and 9th grade years. I guarantee you, when you read it in a few years, you will be astounded.

List 100 things you can do this summer. On the list, includes things that:

1. Are free

2. Don’t consume anything but air/water

3. Require a real conversation

4. Use technology that’s over 20 years old

5. Doesn’t kill a bug, tree, or cephalopod.

Now, Summer, Sun: kiss and make up!

Engraved.

What do you remember?

What do you forget?

Do you find that you sometimes remember the most silly things, facts and memories that have no meaning or effect on your life in the present tense? Why do you remember these random thoughts, yet, trying to remember how to spell “conscious” or “commitment” (does it have one t or two?) or what you just read in science class eludes you? (Turns out, with spell check, commitment is indeed, one ‘t’.)

My guess was, that memories get tagged with some sort of emotion or association. I’m not a psychologist, but I still like to think about brains. One book I’ve been reading off and on over the past few months is Daniel Willingham’s Why Don’t Students Like School: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom. I say off and on because I’ve been reading many other books in my spare reading time – The Lacunaby Barbara Kingsolver, just finished Paper Towns by John Green, and Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving. (And no, I don’t get any money from Amazon.com if you buy these books. Don’t buy them. Borrow them from me, with parent’s permission. Some of them are PG-13.)

So far, I really like Lacuna…but I can’t figure out how Kingsolver is going to end it…I’m two-thirds finished, and it already feels finished. What else can she do to that poor protagonist, Harrison Shepherd? And Paper Towns – I never warmed up to Margo Roth Spiegelman, though I immediately remembered her name, because Green uses it in almost mythological terms – her full, three-word name. She is an unlikeable character, in my opinion, but worshipped by the protagonist, whose name, um, escapes me now. And Night in Twisted River – darn it, Irving! Rehash, dude! But I remember everything, because it’s basically the same plot you’ve used for over twenty years. It’s engraved in my literary heart.

(Get to the point, Love.) Books are like chance acquaintances. I don’t expect or desire that you produce that time-honored tradition of a book report. You can copy and paste those off of the Internet. But I do want you to be able to have some sort of memory, some sort of connection to what you read. So, when you read, take a moment and do your quick reflection. What did you like about it? What choices did the author make that you question? Do you like a character? Do you dislike a character? (Not a big fan of Margo Roth Spiegelman, obviously.)

Many of you ask me if I’ve read every book in my classroom library, and the answer is no. I’ve read most of them, though; I read them as soon as I get them,or over summer break. I want to be able to talk about these books, because when you’re looking to me to be your ‘book match-maker’ I want to find a good fit.

In Why Don’t Students Like School: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom, the author does a very good job of explaining brain, learning, and memory in layman’s terms. (That means I can understand it.) Memories and learning that sticks with us usually has some sort of emotional trigger associated with it. That makes sense – we remember with our whole minds, our whole selves. If I spelled ‘commitment’ correctly at the local spelling bee and won $75 in prize money, I bet I’d never misspell it again.

I’m not suggesting that you use emotions to remember everything, or even that remembering everything is even important. There are people who can do that, and it drives them crazy. Literally. But, try to remember a few things. Remember the levels of knowledge, and be cognizant of your thinking.

And, you may be asking why I’m using Albrecht Durer’s image in this post. He was a 16th century artist/engraver/printmaker, and it was he who inspired me to pursue printmaking in college. He produced intricate engravings, and when he reached a certain master status, had his journeymen do the engraving in the copper plates. Beauty out of metal. He looks to be somewhat vain and egotistical, but hey, when you’re a rock star artist, you can look that way, too. I read everything I could about him, and wrote a graduate-level paper that received an A. I still have that paper, and I’m still proud of it. I remember that.

Remember your successes, too.

Wired.

No, this isn’t a post about drinking too many Red Bulls or Monsters.

This is about how we’re wired. What makes us go. What makes us stop. What makes us unsure.

Now, if we were all automatons, robots, gizmos, or devices, we would be wired to turn on when a human decided we should, programmed us to, or determined when we would be turned off. We would boot up at their discretion. They would push our buttons. The tragedy and bliss would be that if we were those robots, those motherboards, we wouldn’t care. We work for them. If I was an i-Pod and someone loaded me full of Lawrence Welk accordion music or Slim Whitman (look them up, kids) I wouldn’t have any say about it. I would play the music, and not have the opportunity to weigh in with my likes and dislikes.

Not so with people.

We LOVE to let everyone know what we think, how we feel, how others make us feel, all the time. That’s all we do. We are in our own little mortal coil packages, wired uniquely from all others. No one else knows what it’s like to be us, and we cannot ever completely imagine what it’s like to be them.

The tragedy and bliss comes from when we attempt to understand others, when we’re sympathetic, empathic, or antithetic. There’s the rub. When others think they are allowed just as much freedom as we are to weigh in with opinions, positions, ideas, and viewpoints, we think they’re geniuses when they agree with us, knuckleheads when they don’t.

That’s the very essence of tolerance. We do not have to agree with each other, but if we want to hang onto our humanity, we have to at least provide the free speech, free press, and basic human rights to each other. Otherwise, we might just be powered down.

Love letters…

From: The Writer’s Almanac, February 8, 2010:

Valentine’s Day is coming up on Sunday, and we’re celebrating all week with love letters from the literary world.

Poet John Keats (books by this author) lived to be just 25 years old, but in that time he wrote some of the most exquisite love letters in the English language. The letters were to Fanny Brawne to whom he became engaged.

He was 23 years old, recently back from a walking tour of Scotland, England, and Ireland (during which time he’d probably caught the tuberculosis that would soon kill him), and had moved back to a grassy area of London, where he met and fell in love with Fanny Brawne. During this time, he composed a number of his great poems, including Ode to a Nightingale. And one Wednesday in the autumn, he wrote this letter, considered by many the most beautiful in the English language:

My dearest Girl,
This moment I have set myself to copy some verses out fair. I cannot proceed with any degree of content. I must write you a line or two and see if that will assist in dismissing you from my Mind for ever so short a time. Upon my soul I can think of nothing else. The time is passed when I had power to advise and warn you against the unpromising morning of my Life. My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you. I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again — my Life seems to stop there — I see no further. You have absorb’d me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving — I should exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you. I should be afraid to separate myself far from you. My sweet Fanny, will your heart never change? My love, will it? I have no limit now to my love … I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion — I have shudder’d at it. I shudder no more. I could be martyr’d for my religion — love is my religion — I could die for that. I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet. You have ravish’d me away by a Power I cannot resist; and yet I could resist till I saw you; and even since I have seen you I have endeavored often “to reason against the reasons of my Love.” I can do that no more — the pain would be too great. My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you.

Yours for ever
John Keats

The following spring, Keats wrote: “My dear Girl, I love you ever and ever and without reserve. The more I have known you the more I have lov’d. … You are always new. The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest. When you pass’d my window home yesterday, I was filled with as much admiration as if I had then seen you for the first time.”

Keats and Brawne became engaged. He wanted to earn some money for them before they got married. But then he began coughing up blood. When he saw it, he said: “I know the color of that blood; it is arterial blood. I cannot be deceived in that color. That drop of blood is my death warrant. I must die.” He wrote to tell her that she was free to break off their engagement since he would likely not survive. But she would not, and he was hugely relieved. But he died before they married.

Allusions are no illusions.

In the Simpsons’ episode, “Lisa Gets An A,”, Homer becomes discouraged by the price per pound of fresh lobster, and seeks to “grow” his own lobster for his consumption. However, he bonds with the lobster, caring, feeding, talking to it, and even taking it for walks.

As I’m watching the episode, it strikes me as odd that Homer would grow to care for his potential dinner so much that he would take it for a walk, but it’s funny nonetheless.

As most things, I didn’t realize really how clever the good writers of the Simpsons were at the time, until….

…I was reading Mary Karr’s novel, Lit.

It’s a definitely a “grown up” book–she battles her long-standing deep emotional scars of her past. Her crazy, butcher-knife wielding mother and wild-cat, alcoholic daddy play key roles, and she must come to terms with her own choices, and try to improve on being a wife and mother, before it’s too late. She’s trying to find the power of prayer right now; and it dawned on me, that if you’re battling demons, you probably need a few angels on your side, in whatever manifestation that takes.

ANYWAY…..(sorry). There is a section where she ALLUDES to the father of surrealism, who, YOU GUESSED IT…used to take his PET LOBSTER FOR WALKS.

I thought I bookmarked that passage in my Kindle, but I didn’t. However, because of the POWER OF THE E-READER, I can do a search for “lobster,” and voila! It was “Apollinaire in Paris, just in from walking his lobster down the street on a leash.”

In fact, three instances of the word “lobster” appear in Karr’s novel: 1. lobster grip, location 2167; 2. lobster down the street, location 3392; 3. we boil lobsters and stuff ourselves with…location 4856.

So, now the reference to Homer being such as Apollinaire in the early 20th century Paris, is even funnier. I get it. And that is the power of allusions – increasing comprehension by increasing and deepening connections.

Now, I am even more curious. Who was the father of surrealism? And who was Apollinaire?

When I searched for the “father of surrealism” I found: http://www.vincesear.com/giuseppe-arcimboldo-father-of-surrealism/

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who painted paintings such as this example:

But, Karr is referring to Guillaume Apollinaire: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/737

From continuing research, it seems like he liked to draw poems:

Today we call this Shape Poetry.

Want to know more about “surrealism?” Check this out:

http://library.thinkquest.org/J001159/artstyle.htm

Salvador Dali, Henri Matisse, Rene Magritte are a few artists who created in the style of surrealism.

Caffeinated.

I am sensing a disturbance in the force.

Really.

What are typical behaviors in the spring–nervousness, anxiety, an atmosphere of expectation and bedlam, we are experiencing here and now: my 8th grade students act like it’s spring. It’s not. Now, granted we are having one of the warmest winters in years. And everyone is jumping up out of their holes like Whack-A-Moles.

But what is making me grumpy is they are actually resentful and disgruntled when I try to keep the lid on them, using the mallet of my brilliant teaching to hit them over the head and get them to learn, LEARN! WHAM! NOW!

But they are not cooperating.

They are challenging, cantankerous, contrary, edgy, and larcenous. Yes, I have noticed all year they, in general, behave like little magpies and steal whatever they think is “shiny, pretty.” When I opened a drawer and found an empty highlighter packet, with all three highlighters taken and nothing left but the over-produced packaging, I felt more than a “tsk tsk.” I paid for those highlighters, and yet someone felt that the lines between what’s mine and theirs were fuzzy.

I am not happy.

But I don’t want to play martyr either. This is one of those days when I realize that I need to stop and reflect myself. What made me lose my temper? Apparently asking them to work quietly a few times on their final projects (due tomorrow) was not a reasonable request. But they’re not able to tell me what IS a reasonable request. They are only 14 after all. I must put myself in their shoes and figure out what I would consider reasonable. Hmmmm….

The larceny doesn’t stop with my highlighters. (And it’s not just about highlighters; that’s just the latest example.) There was a Red Bull incident. Let’s not go into details. But it’s not good.

And when I tried to explain to a particular demographic of students why drinking highly caffeinated/sugary drinks is not healthy for a young growing human, I get flak.

And I’m tired of flak.

But…deeeeeeeeeep breath…….in…….out……..in……out……let me set my Iced Venti Americano with cream and shots over ice down, and think about this: middle school students are very much like toddlers that can get their own juice. All I can do at this point is try to keep my own blood pressure down.

And maybe choose water next time instead.

Joshua Dysart

http://www.joshuadysart.com/wp/

No excuses book blogs…

Please don’t ever say to me you can’t find SOMETHING to read. After we’ve exhausted the possibilities in my classroom library, and in the school’s library, you may want to check out these blogs. In reality, you should be checking them out anyway to keep up with new titles, authors you love, new authors, new genres, etc.:

Featured book blog: http://missprint.wordpress.com/

Glancing over a few of the reviews on this blog, I had the feeling that here is someone who really reads the books, and enjoys YA (young adult) literature (that would be you, kids).

One of my other favorite book blogs is: Dog Ear, which goes under the URL: http://nicolepoliti.wordpress.com/