What I Learned Today

For the past year or so, part of my Sunday morning routine is to read the NY Times Book Review and then log onto my public library account and put anything I've found to be of interest on hold. As soon as it's available, I receive an email, and I can pick it up at the branch closest to my house. This is a convenient arrangement for me; the library is within walking distance, it is also next door to the grocery store and right on my way home from work. I can pick up and return my books and never go out of my way, thus significantly decreasing my book budget.

This morning, however, I found an even more convenient way to preview the books that I found interesting, and I owe it all to Ruth at Two Writing Teachers. I read one of her SOL stories this week that mentioned the free Kindle app for i-Phone. When the hold list at the library was longer than I hoped for the book Secret Son by Laila Lalami, I downloaded the app, and within seconds was reading the first chapter of the book, without having spent a cent. I liked it, but I decided to get the audio version for our road trip to Atlanta next weekend (after a free preview of that, too, of course).

I confess to being very skeptical about the Kindle. A few weeks ago, one of the teachers on my team told us how much she loved hers, but I still had my doubts. Don't get me wrong, like most English teachers, I struggle with book clutter, and I also abhor the waste which is an inevitable side-effect of our culture's current rampant consumerism, but I just didn't believe an electronic device could replicate the experience of reading a book.

Today I am a convert-- even on my i-Phone, reading the electronic version of a book feels a lot like reading the traditional version. It's weird, but it's true. This is my testimony.

Vocabulary Lesson

I have the Urban Dictionary word of the day gadget on my Google home page. I think of it as kind of a daily anecdotal look at the evolution of our language, and despite the occasional crassness, the words are often clever and entertaining, and usually informative. (Confession: I'm not very hip.) Who knew, for example, that the child of a baby boomer is an echo boomer, or that "That's crazy" is the perfect response when you haven't really been listening?  (Try it-- it works.) Oh, and I've been working on my undercover six-pack, too.

Anyway, a few days ago, the word was singletasker, and evidently, this term is mostly used ironically. Like if I say, I'm going to try and focus on getting these papers graded, instead of answering my colleagues' questions, checking my e-mail, supervising study hall, planning tomorrow's lesson, and posting my status on facebook.

Then the proper response to me would be, You're such a singletasker!

To which I might reply, I'd answer you, but that would require multitasking.

I laughed when I read the explanation; like many in our profession, I pride myself on my ability to multitask, and I'm familiar with current research that suggests that kids today are not only able to multitask but may function better in such an environment. Even so, there's a lot to be said about quiet time to focus on a single thing, and I'm aware it's an ability I don't often exercise.

Hmm... that's crazy.

I Love the 00's-- Quidditch Edition

As an advocate of self-selected literature for my students, I've ridden the Harry Potter wave for years. Sure, I knew it was losing momentum, but even so, I'm surprised to find myself up here in the dunes, totally high and dry. Seeing all those volumes of The Series of Unfortunate Events  languishing on my shelf where once I could barely keep them should have tipped me off, but I must have been distracted by Percy Jackson and Maximum Ride, and so I never saw this coming.

I realized recently that most sixth graders have not read the whole Harry Potter series. Upon reflection, it's not really that surprising; the majority of them were not even born when the first book was published. With few exceptions, even the most avid and accomplished readers among my students are tepid about the series. "It just doesn't interest me that much," a student told me today.

Potter is widely believed to be a classic-- frequently mentioned in the same breath as Tolkein's trilogy of the ring and Narnia. Are my current students anomalies, then? Are they experiencing a backlash from the Potter overload of the last ten years? Or could it be that Harry Potter was really nothing more than a flash in the pan destined to fade away until it's resurrected in some remember when retrospective of the early years of this century?

Immeasurable Objectives

Today at the swim meet, one of my former students anxiously approached me between events."Did you see where I returned your copy of Catching Fire to the shelf by your desk?" she wanted to know. I assured her that I knew right where it was, and I did, because I could visualize it there once she mentioned it. Truth be told, I do have a check-out system for the books in my classroom library, but I'm not very vigilant about enforcing it. It would take a chunk of class time and some dedicated punitive energy (two things in short supply) to regularly chase everyone down for my unreturned books. In the end, I would rather have books in the kids' hands than not, and so my collection takes a bit of a hit each year. Even so, I add to it regularly, the cost out of my own pocket-- I just think that if my students are excited about a book, they should be able to read it.

"Do you know what books your class might like?" she continued. "I just finished Airhead by Meg Cabot--" She stopped and looked at me suspiciously. "Have you read it? Do you have it already?" I laughed and told her no, so she gave a brief overview of the premise of the series. One of my current students stood at our elbows listening with interest. She and I made eye contact, and she nodded, as if to say, Oh yeah, we would totally love that, so I whipped out my phone and texted a quick memo to myself. (Both girls were duly impressed.)

Every year my main objective is to take the 80-odd sixth graders I will teach and to build a community of literacy. I want to be sure that they leave my class not only with the minimum requirements mandated by state and country, but also with the desire to continue practicing and improving the skills they need to be critical readers and effective writers.  My role is to be a resource and a support as they pursue this important goal, and in light of that , as willing as I am to do whatever I can to make books available to my students, it's a hundred times more gratifying to have them come back and show that they still feel a connection to our community.

Things Are Tough on Saturn, Too

Kids have such imaginations... today I read a story by one of my students which took place on the rings of Saturn. The main character's father lost his job, and even though her mother was still working, her income wasn't enough to pay all the bills, and the family was afraid they would lose their home. So the parents sat the kids down and told them that they were going to have to move. How about Earth? the kids asked. They had been there on vacation and thought it was nice. No, that planet's too expensive, their folks said. They were going to have to move to the planet Juvy, way out of the solar system. That was the only place they could afford. The kids were understandably upset about losing their home, their school, and their friends. The main character went for a walk on the beach to think things through, and only then did she realize how beautiful this place was and how much she would miss it. As she was walking, she found a bottle that happened to contain a genie, but since she damaged the bottle trying to get it open, she only got a single wish. She thought long and hard about all she wanted, but in the end, she wished for both her parents to have jobs they liked where ever they moved, and she knew that they would be happy as long as they were together.

It was a pretty heart-wrenching tale, and considering the author is eleven, you have to wonder where she gets her material.

Abracadabra

My students are taking a closer look at setting in their independent reading in order to apply some of what they notice to the fiction pieces they are writing and revising. The task they had today was deceptively simple... find a rich description of a setting in your book and copy it. Then they had to answer two questions in their small group discussion: Why is that setting important to the book? and Why did the author choose to describe it in those words?

To help them, we did a fishbowl in each class. Volunteers read and discussed the passages that they had selected, and I participated in their conversations, too. I did not expect how this activity would give my English major skills their chance to shine. One student read a description of a house whose hue was "eggish" when the sun shone on it. "Hmm," I wondered out loud. "Why eggish?"

"Um... It's probably white or yellow?" The kid looked at me with some concern. Had I lost my sense of the obvious?

"Yeah, but what happens inside an egg?"

His eyes widened. "Ooohhh-- something grows," he answered, "something hatches!"

"Does that fit in with the book at all?" I asked, and away he went with a really good analysis of that egg symbol.

This went on all day. Me: "Why does he describe the river like a snake?"

Kid: "Because it's twisty?"

Me: "What happens next in the book?"

Kid: "She's betrayed by her friends."

Me: "What do you think of when you think of a snake?"

Astonished Kid: "OOOhhh!"

And so on... Why is she walking through a gathering storm? Why is that golden? Why is that dirty? You get the picture.

Fun for me? Oh yeah. But more importantly, my students are right on the cognitive verge of getting symbolism, and they thought this stuff was pure magic. Which, of course, as any true English major knows, it is.

Hey Daylight Savings Time I Still Hate You

Listen, I did my best to give the curtailing of my weekend and the need to rise an hour earlier in the pitch black a fair shake. I approached it with hardly a whimper. I prudently went to bed early not just last night, but Saturday night, too. I adjusted my clocks and my schedule to accommodate the loss of an hour, stayed positive all day, maybe this won't be so bad, I told myself, maybe I'm finally learning to cope successfully with the inevitable, maybe I won't need to resent everyone who makes this happen, maybe, maybe, blah, blah, blah, today still sucked!  And I doubt tomorrow is going to be any better.