Critical Reflection Post (Session 6)

This Critical Reflection post is for ECI 521, a graduate class at North Carolina State University.

Nothing withers my soul as efficiently as trying to slog through crowded, tiny print that masks complex, confusing text. It’s exhausting! Pictures, glossy pages, stories, and history, on the other hand, are like streams of water spilling onto parched ground–a smile for the soul. Sugar Changed the World, by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos, was a refreshing oasis in the midst of my stacks of academic journals and textbooks.

From the moment I pulled this book from the shelf, I was intrigued: a picture book, a school assignment? Why were we exploring sugar?

Then Aronson displayed the authors’ connection to sugar, and the realization dawned that this was not a discrete dissertation on a white sweetener; it was an examination of the interconnectedness of every aspect of life, ever-expanding ripples that instigate events the catalyst never foresaw.

Even before I was halfway through the book, I was planning units around industrialization, genealogy, government, slavery, and civil rights. The way the authors wove their stories, drawings and pictures, world history, geography, diary entries and newspaper clippings, and the voices of the participants around something as seemingly nondescript as sugar fascinated me.

This is how I want to teach: to show the story where no one’s looking, to instigate exploration and discovery, to uncover context instead of remaining chained to the cells of rote memorization of disconnected facts.

I love to research, but I’ve never included maps or so many perspectives or my personal story. Aronson inspired me to research more widely than I ever have, thinking deeply and planning from many angles so I can lead my students on a much more meaningful, complex, fascinating journey, hopefully sparking their interest in life beyond the classroom.

Seriously, I want to create a Sugar-Changed-the-World level of exploration for every subject that interests me, and use that research as a springboard for what I teach in the classroom. First, I need to prioritize my most pressing interests. Meanwhile, I’m accepting grants.

#bookhenge

The Printz of Literary Quality CCI

This Collaborative Critical Inquiry post is for ECI 521, a graduate class at North Carolina State University.

Who should judge the literary quality of Young Adult Literature? American founders considered taxation without representation tyranny; now the right to voice our opinions on issues that affect us is as familiar as waking each morning.

If literature is marketed directly toward a specific group, it seems obvious that one would court the opinions of the target consumers. After all, the quality of literature might align flawlessly with superior standards, but if interest in the books is paltry at best, or–yikes!–nonexistent, the goals of the marketers have dismally failed. For the genre to survive, young adults must get a vote in determining the characteristics that comprise Young Adult Literature.

Like in a democracy, it makes sense for teenagers to speak for their peers in identifying what makes Young Adult Literature compelling. But could adult direction regarding literary criteria be beneficial? Could our instruction scaffold our youth toward a more complex understanding of literature than would otherwise exist? What is the balance between advising and aloofness? Because I feel claustrophobic when I’m put in a box, I don’t want to seem domineering by imposing rules that could incite a revolution.

#bookhenge

Critical Reflection Post (Session 5)

This Critical Reflection post is for ECI 521, a graduate class at North Carolina State University.

Communication–whether verbal or nonverbal–is necessary for interaction between every living creature: dogs bark to frighten potential threats, turn signals indicate to other drivers that a vehicle will soon alter course, and averted eyes discourage conversation. At any given moment, most of us are trying to send or receive a message. Composing a message sometimes demands thought, but serious complications arise when even a carefully-crafted message is garbled or delayed in transit.

So far in ECI 521, assignments have been thought-provoking, yet interesting. I have mused, juggled possibilities, and explored options. Eventually, I craft a message of which I’m proud. That’s when the glitch occurs. Without exception, my looming frustration has revolved around my inexperience with the various modes of technology foundational to this class. It is the technology monster that taints my perception of the past week.

Please understand: if I never tried new modes, I would still be swaddled in a blanket, unable to support the weight of my own head, let alone able to crawl or walk. I realize that muscle development demands stretching and pain and practice and discouragement and triumph. I know that the more I continue to experiment and expand my horizons and exercise these new skills, the more familiar they will become.

I will be able to walk, sit, and teleport in Second Life without referencing the Orientation Notecard (maybe I will even set aside my mannequin stare to engage in a facial expression or two). I will be able to transmit my thoughts through a multimedia format without spending hours assembling the various aspects; recording, editing, and uploading the video; and trying to figure out how to embed it in my blog and tweet legibly about the entire process. I will be able to absorb the information contained in the myriad links, without missing a vital element.

For now, however, the process of converting my message into the appropriate technological form is painful and exhausting. Even what seems like a simple task takes hours. “No pain, no gain,” right? Now where are those muscles?

#bookhenge

Bookcast on The Drowned Cities

This Critical Reflection post is for ECI 521, a graduate class at North Carolina State University.

All of us have experienced the sting of rejection, the loneliness of feeling isolated while in the midst of a group . . . but how many of us (and how many of our students) are fed a constant stream of disparaging messages, locked within the grasp of an abuser whose tenacious manipulation causes us to question our sanity?

In my bookcast on The Drowned Cities, by Paolo Bacigalupi, I compare the emotions displayed by Mahlia, Mouse, and Tool to those commonly experienced by victims of abuse.

Although some people consider psychological/emotional abuse to be not as serious as physical abuse because no bones are broken and no bruises are visible, the effects of long-term verbal abuse linger, resulting in “enduring negative effects on brain development” (Teicher, 2000). Since our brains just can’t reconcile the horror of our situation, many people who were abused as children develop psychiatric disorders to separate the pain from reality. Common disorders seen in victims of long-term abuse include psychosomatic disorder (experiencing symptoms of illnesses without medical diagnoses), panic disorder, dissociative identity disorder (“multiple-personality”), and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Ongoing poor health is also common, with respiratory difficulties, high blood pressure, and allergies just a few of the associated consequences of psychological abuse (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2008).

While psychological abuse can exist without accompanying physical abuse, almost all physical or sexual abuse is accompanied by psychological abuse, and psychological abuse is often the first stage in an escalation toward physical or sexual abuse (The Public Policy Office of NCADV, n.d.).

Don’t underestimate the devastation that crouches behind a white picket fence. Sometimes an ideal setting is only a facade that hides intense trauma.

References

Child Welfare Information Gateway (2008). Long-Term Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Administration for Children and Families. Retrieved September 15, 2012, from http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/long_term_consequences.cfm

Teicher, M. H. (2000). Wounds That Time Won’t Heal: The Neurobiology of Child Abuse.Cerebrum: The Dana Forum on Brain Science, 2(4). Retrieved September 15, 2012, from http://192.211.16.13/curricular/hhd2006/news/wounds.pdf.

The Public Policy Office of NCADV (n.d.). Domestic Violence Facts. National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Retrieved September 15, 2012, from http://www.ncadv.org/files/DomesticViolenceFactSheet(National).pdf

#bookhenge

Critical Reflection Post (Session 4)

This Critical Reflection post is for ECI 521, a graduate class at North Carolina State University.

As I reflect on the first few weeks of class, I realize that I’ve experienced a paradigm shift in my assumptions regarding Young Adult Literature, student presentations, and graduate classes.

Prior to beginning this class, I LOVED reading but had largely neglected the genre of Young Adult Literature, considering teenage-centered books as lacking the depth found in “real” literature. The Printz criteria and selections changed my mind. With low expectations, I opened The Drowned Cities and my curiosity was piqued with the introductory escape scene of the “dog face,” Tool. Although I had to steal minutes throughout my days to race through the book, I couldn’t stop thinking about the story whenever I wasn’t reading, and my thoughts were consumed for days after I finished. “Shallow” books don’t usually have such a hold on a person. The Scorpio Races and The Fault In Our Stars were equally thought-provoking, with their realistic characters and struggles resonating deep within me. I sheepishly affirm the value of the genre and am eager to explore it further and to include YAL literature in my future classes.

For someone with the shockingly-dull perception that all student assignments took the form of essays in response to prompt questions (is it that obvious that I process best by writing?), since starting ECI 521 I’ve been awash in alternative ideas that appeal to a wider variety of learning styles for student presentations. I like the idea of collaboration through VoiceThread, and SoundCloud presentations add variety to blogposts. It’s actually been fun to announce my assignments through Twitter (although I feel like a poser). I like the time for critical reflections. Next week I’ll have a better idea regarding my thoughts on bookcasts. Through exposure to these innovative ideas I’ve finally crawled out from whatever rock I was living under and joined the modern era–and it feels good!

Before I entered the Moodle on Aug. 16, my perception was that graduate classes were necessary, but dull, flooded with tsunamis of complicated text clinging to academic journals that were suffocating to wade through. This class has been a burst of fresh air: bright colors and pictures and even a painstakingly-hyperlinked separate course site, YAL, book responses, and campfires (or at least the wood?) and Orcas in Second Life. It’s inspiring to see that education can break out of the mold, instigating contemplation instead of lethargy.

Life with unanticipated paradigm shifts is a constant adventure.

#bookhenge

Promise and Peril CCI

This Collaborative Critical Inquiry post is for ECI 521, a graduate class at North Carolina State University.

What is Young Adult Literature?
Young Adult Literature has several characterizations. Days after reading my Printz selections, I was still musing about the different stories when the realization blindsided me: each plot centered around young adults—what a random coincidence (and glaring observation of my tiredness)! My second realization crashed into me just a moment behind the first: duh! That’s why this genre is called “Young Adult Literature”! The age of the fictional characters is one characteristic of young adult literature.

Another characteristic also shared by each of my Printz selections is the prevalence of first-person narrators who are unreliable; the audience often isn’t sure how trustworthy is the narrator’s depiction of reality (although typically the narrator increases in reliability by the end of the book, as the character develops and grows).

Since Young Adult Literature is intended to appeal to the confused, changing, exploring mass of current teenagers, it must be timely and seem relevant to them—quite a feat without seeming dated in a few months or years.

Basically, as Marc Aronson poignantly pointed out in “What is a Young Adult Book, Anyway?”, Young Adult Literature “is any book” that resonates with teenagers (p. 96).

Where am I on the Literary or Moralist Continuum? How should my belief in how literature affects the reader guide my teaching and learning through literature with young adults?
So . . . I am totally the idealist, effusive Anne-of-Green-Gables character who is in love with words and books and the beauty of the sound of language, and I want everyone to love reading as much as I do. Even now, stepping into a library feels like entering a portal to another world. Being entrusted with my very own library would be the best kind of fairy-tale, happily-ever-after ending to any story (cue Beauty and the Beast).

When a 10-year-old friend told me he didn’t read, I blinked. My brain couldn’t decode this strange admission. Surely you mean you don’t read much? You don’t read widely? But he confirmed: No, he didn’t read. He had never found an “interesting” book. Convinced I was misunderstanding him, I, bursting with excitement, recommended two different adventure series, both starring teenage boys. As a teenager I had LOVED these books, reading them over and over and over again. Surprisingly, he had read some of the books. Bafflingly, he thought they were “boring.”

This was one of those “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” moments; I literally was unable to comprehend how any person could find reading “boring.” Sure, some texts resonate more with me than do other texts, but honestly, everything with words sparks my imagination—whether a bland scholastic article that arouses a wild, imaginative story line or even curiosity about alternative research options, or a truly engaging work of fiction in which I join the cast of characters and only later discover that my part was not actually written into the book—but to this day I possess vivid images gleaned from my participation in the story.

Stepping into a work of literature lowers the defenses of the participant. Distancing ourselves from our real everyday world yields another perspective. As we observe characters, realizations often pierce our souls, and in “lightbulb moments” we make analogies between the fictional world and reality, and suddenly we start thinking about similarities between fictional situations and our situations, and we begin exploring how to respond to the real issues we’re facing outside the covers of the book, based on the thoughts instigated while within the story world.

This is my experience, anyway. I realize it is anecdotal; however, since this has been my reality I can’t speak to whether this experience is common for all humans or whether I’ve constructed an alternate reality in which my logic and experience is unlike anyone else’s.
Assuming that stories do, indeed, instigate clarity that helps real people explore how to respond to issues in real life, literature can be a powerful vehicle for bridging gaps unreachable by lecture or by guilt trips.

My big question is how to engage those (like my friend) who have not yet felt the hypnotic pull of being whisked to another land through the pages of a book, those who have not yet been literally out of breath from a pounding heart in the midst of an intense section, those who have not sobbed as a dream is torn from their fingers—er, I mean, a character’s fingers.

One idea for ensnaring disbelievers into the joy of literature is to read (at least a section) out loud. I LOVE reading out loud, and will eagerly launch into dramatic reading of even a user’s manual or street signs if I imagine the faintest prompting. To date, this has always resulted in audience mesmerization, not infrequently concluded by sheepish admissions of my audience’s fascination with the tale (and later counts of the many times they re-read the selection in their leisure time). Perhaps hearing the story (or at least the first part of it) will pique their interest to pick up where I left off.

What should be the role of Young Adult Literature in the English Language Arts program?
The role of Young Adult Literature in the English Language Arts program is to pique students’ interest in literature itself. A goal is that, hopefully, students will later expand their reading to include other genres.

While I doubt the American Girl books count as serious Young Adult Literature, each book in each series is skinny with a lot of white space on each page, just a few lines of text, and full-page, beautiful-color illustrations.

As a young teenager, one of my brothers read Curious George books and books on how trucks worked and how to build decks, but we had difficulty getting him to read “real” books . . . until he discovered the American Girl books my sister and I had laying around. Within days, he devoured every book in every series we owned, and just like that he became a voracious reader, always having stacks of books he was plowing through (he still reads how-to books and knows just about everything about fixing cars, wiring houses, and building stuff, but he’s also read more classics than I have, and tons and tons of historical fiction).

This illustrates the role of Young Adult Literature: it is a springboard that sparks students’ awareness of the world of print. It is every bit as legitimate a genre as other novels, because in Young Adult Literature real people relate to characters and experience epiphanies.

Young Adult Literature is useful in English Language Arts to introduce students to books and to begin their quest to self-discovery, exploration, and knowledge.

. . . And anyone who suffered to the end of this seemingly-black-hole blogpost is either a reader, a truly compassionate person, or an insomniac.

#bookhenge

Reflection on The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green

This Book Reflection post is for ECI 521, a graduate class at North Carolina State University.

Why would anyone want to read a book about teenagers who have cancer? When I read the description from the list of Printz books, I laughed sarcastically.

My mom had cancer. My parents told me at my college graduation. A dear friend had died of cancer a few years before. We always heard “It’s not the cancer that kills you; it’s the chemo,” but my mom said, “I have a six-year-old. I’m going to try to beat this.”

I have found that creating alternate realities helps me pretend like I’m not living through horrible situations. I managed to mostly distance myself from my mom’s cancer by living and working halfway across the country. Even now, I still panic when my family calls in the middle of the day. By the time I finally saw my mom again, her hair had begun to grow back.

When I saw The Fault in Our Stars among my stack of library books, I swore. How did it get there? I had my three other YA books. Why would I have requested this one? I firmly added the book to the stack I was getting ready to return to the library. I wanted to read it as much as I wanted to eat raw handfuls of wriggling worms and hideous insects; the sight of the cover repulsed me. I felt seriously nauseated.

Then I was reading the book. I read it in one sitting, frequently surprising myself with bursts of laughter at the matter-of-fact, sarcastic narration, and—of course—crying pretty badly by the last few chapters. People with some horrible situation still have the same yearnings as I do. What am I saying? It’s not just “people,” the vague “them”; all of us eventually confront the reality that life is not as it was meant to be, that it’s gone horribly wrong. Ignoring the problem doesn’t make it go away, no matter how many years we refuse to think about it because it’s just too awful to explore.

Who would want to read a book about teenagers who have cancer? Someone who welcomes witty banter and intellectual arguments, for whom teenage angst is a close memory. Someone who disengages from unbelievable realities.

I owe my mom a phone call. Instead of wanting to pretend like the cancer never happened, I suddenly feel the urge to know what it was like to go through chemo with a house full of young kids, to hear how it felt, to share in her dreams and her triumphs.

I still have no idea how the book made it into my stack. I vividly remember feeling sick, but I don’t remember opening the front cover when I was already absorbed in the story. All I know is that I’m relieved that something finally penetrated the defenses guarding my need to acknowledge the potential (but so far unrealized, thank God) reality of a mom dying while I watched. I am so glad I read The Fault in Our Stars.

#bookhenge

Critical Reflection Post (Session 3)

This Critical Reflection post is for ECI 521, a graduate class at North Carolina State University.

Technology is one of the areas that is the biggest hurdle for me in ECI 521. I’m comfortable on a computer and willing to try new things, but it takes a few attempts before I really feel like I know what I’m doing. An inability to master something on my first attempt is frustrating to this recovering perfectionist, but I know there’s nothing to be ashamed of in several false starts (as long as I keep trying until I “get” it).

This week, I was excited about expressing my second book response in a multimedia format. I decided to try creating a video, since last week I presented by book response via audio file and I didn’t want to appear lazy by duplicating my method of presentation.

Of course, everything took longer than ideal–about five times as long, actually, from distilling content, to determining how I wanted the video to look, to discovering a free video hosting site–but I was very pleased with my blogpost and my video.

While it’s claustrophobic to see how little time I now have left today to complete looming assignments for my other classes, deep within my most secret heart there’s a flutter of satisfaction that I conquered my formidable foe of technology . . . at least for another day. Less secret is my eagerness to create educational videocasts in the format of this first one.

Reflection on The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater

This Book Reflection post is for ECI 521, a graduate class at North Carolina State University.

The wind whips the craggy island of Thisby, where weathered fishermen, hillsides of sheep, and the struggle for survival are as familiar as the capaill uisce–predatory water horses that emerge from the sea every October looking for victims to drown and devour.

The bleak island is littered with families broken by the ruthless water horses; yet each November tourists stream from the mainland and abroad to bet on the Scorpio Races, the brutal dash to the death on the backs of the capaill uisce when island men gamble against the pull of the sea and the teeth of the water horses in pursuit of a monetary reward.

Literary quality was convincingly portrayed through the rotating perspectives of Sean Kendrick, four-time winner of the Scorpio Races and respected trainer of the capaill uisce, and Puck Connolly, girl orphaned by the capaill uisce who was desperately trying to preserve her island life.

Character development was believable, except for a bit of the later relationship dialogue. I especially liked that Sean grounded Puck, giving her the confidence to transition from an acidic, floundering girl to a likeable character who thought of others, and Puck gave Sean hope, even when his reason for living had been ripped away.

My biggest surprise was that the book was more about preparation for the Scorpio Races, which seemed an afterthought when finally described. The Scorpio Races is a masterful tale; I can’t wait to reread it.

My response to this book was a swirl of emotions: loneliness, desperation, and hope. I, too, have subsisted on emptiness and dried beans far more often than I would prefer. I, too, have experienced the horror of nightmares that were actually reality. I, too, have felt the surge of ecstasy at being so, so alive. This is my reflection on the reality that is life.

#bookhenge

Reflection on The Drowned Cities, by Paolo Bacigalupi

This Book Reflection post is for ECI 521, a graduate class at North Carolina State University.

In ECI 521, students read and reflect on three of the top five Young Adult novels voted by the 2012 American Library Association’s official Printz Committee or by the Eva Perry Mock Printz Book Club.

The first book I read was The Drowned Cities, by Paolo Bacigalupi. It was a tough look at life in futuristic war-torn America, where incessant fighting was the only certainty and the beliefs backing the fighting blurred between the Army of God, Freedom Militia, Tulane Company, and United Patriot Front. Main characters are the “war maggots”–crippled half-Chinese, half Drowned-Cities Mahlia, and her brave companion, Mouse–and the half-man Tool.

Here’s my response to the book.

#bookhenge