The initial thoughts I get when I read poetry:
-Deep
-Shallow
-Too simplistic
-Way too much depth
-There's too many allusions I cannot make connections
-Oh--I think I know where the author is talking about--oh wait...I really don't. Do I?
It seems that there are antithetical ways of viewing poetry that coexists in a paradoxical swirling of emotional and cognitive knee jerk reactions.
Mr. Staunton mentioned that it was frustrating teaching poetry with a either/or method. Either students read poetry and TRULY UNDERSTAND the truth about the poem through neatly package processes skills. OR they write poetry or write about the poetry in non-poetic form.
What interests me about this article is the motivation for the study: it was fueled by an interest in learning about poetry as well as noticing the frustrations about poetry himself.
As I've learned in this class, whenever something is confusing or frustrating, it usually is IMPORTANT.
I really like the definition of poetry being a concise ordering of word choice. I'd like to take a poem and have my kids cut up all the words and RE-CREATE a poem using ONLY the words used in the poem. I'd have them be required to use at least 90% of the words.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Monday, April 9, 2012
Teaching Outside of Your Ethnicity--Minefield or Goldmine?
In Lucy's article, I found a particularly interesting answer to WHY teaching African American Literature IS NOT appropriate for the non-black:
"some knowledge is inaccessible to those of us who have not lived the experience of being black"
--this is NOT Lucy's ideology, but a counterpart at the University level where she originally formulated her doctoral thesis and dissertation.
My thoughts: In my research paper, I used Meyer's critiquing of authoritative voices in the classroom. He argues that the "privileged" and "unprivileged" statuses in the classroom are hindrances to making greater strides forward in education.
I think that this notion of "who is privileged?" does not just involve teacher and student, but when it comes to race, or any other human experience--let's say the Holocaust or the My Lai Massacre--for that matter, that ONLY those who have been THROUGH it or EXPERIENCED, or "know a lot about it" have the privileged voice on the topic.
It is true that race is a sensitive topic in our world--especially because of the loaded terms and ideologies that we've been exposed to regarding each race. It seems to be a wonderful opportunity to explore those boundaries (because our aim as students and teachers should be to deconstruct prejudices and not fortify them).
Literature TEACHES me as well as it teaches my students. I think that we can use literature as a voice in the classroom and treat IT as privileged and we are the participants in the literature.
In a very strict sense--no one is privileged in the classroom except the texts we teach. We have our experiences that can help us UNDERSTAND the text and perhaps the historical context that they speak from.
"I also aim to create a space in which students can learn to theorize and talk about race: its construction and its effects, how and why it is constituted and shapes our everyday and individual experiences."
This quote from Lucy was very insightful. Key words that jump out at me is SPACE; THEORIZE; SHAPES EVERYDAY/INDIVIDUAL experiences.
These are loaded words: What kinds of space? What does theorizing look like? Will someone be criticized for theorizing something that may/may not be appropriate? What parts of race or racial experiences shape our lives? How can sharing those stories be helpful or enrage others?
I shared a poem last week that I KNOW was controversial (Paul Lawrence Dunbar's "We Wear the Mask") and I thought that more of my classmates could have and might have shared ideas if my text was not so "racial."
Why is that so? What's the harm in sharing texts? Sometimes I think that bringing in sensitive material is taboo! I've felt that way with my students and when discussions crop up, I am quick to segway if I'M NOT PREPARED for the dialogue.
-Travis
"some knowledge is inaccessible to those of us who have not lived the experience of being black"
--this is NOT Lucy's ideology, but a counterpart at the University level where she originally formulated her doctoral thesis and dissertation.
My thoughts: In my research paper, I used Meyer's critiquing of authoritative voices in the classroom. He argues that the "privileged" and "unprivileged" statuses in the classroom are hindrances to making greater strides forward in education.
I think that this notion of "who is privileged?" does not just involve teacher and student, but when it comes to race, or any other human experience--let's say the Holocaust or the My Lai Massacre--for that matter, that ONLY those who have been THROUGH it or EXPERIENCED, or "know a lot about it" have the privileged voice on the topic.
It is true that race is a sensitive topic in our world--especially because of the loaded terms and ideologies that we've been exposed to regarding each race. It seems to be a wonderful opportunity to explore those boundaries (because our aim as students and teachers should be to deconstruct prejudices and not fortify them).
Literature TEACHES me as well as it teaches my students. I think that we can use literature as a voice in the classroom and treat IT as privileged and we are the participants in the literature.
In a very strict sense--no one is privileged in the classroom except the texts we teach. We have our experiences that can help us UNDERSTAND the text and perhaps the historical context that they speak from.
"I also aim to create a space in which students can learn to theorize and talk about race: its construction and its effects, how and why it is constituted and shapes our everyday and individual experiences."
This quote from Lucy was very insightful. Key words that jump out at me is SPACE; THEORIZE; SHAPES EVERYDAY/INDIVIDUAL experiences.
These are loaded words: What kinds of space? What does theorizing look like? Will someone be criticized for theorizing something that may/may not be appropriate? What parts of race or racial experiences shape our lives? How can sharing those stories be helpful or enrage others?
I shared a poem last week that I KNOW was controversial (Paul Lawrence Dunbar's "We Wear the Mask") and I thought that more of my classmates could have and might have shared ideas if my text was not so "racial."
Why is that so? What's the harm in sharing texts? Sometimes I think that bringing in sensitive material is taboo! I've felt that way with my students and when discussions crop up, I am quick to segway if I'M NOT PREPARED for the dialogue.
-Travis
Sunday, March 25, 2012
What Am I Supposed to Teach?
Brauer and Clark's work, "The Trouble Is English: Reframing English Studies in Secondary Schools," presents an interesting claim at the beginning of the article: English Education has an identity crisis. B and C point out that English Education in our current system is so broad that there is a lack of definitive quality. "
Given this variety of purposes, what subject or curricular content do English teachers teach? Skills and content driven by state tests? Character development? Literary theory and criticism? Self-knowledge? Class-based literacies providing upward mobility? Charged with educating students in terms of academic literacy, moral development, cultural tolerance, media savvy, literature appreciation, standards achievement, and civic responsibility, most English teachers (ourselves included) frequently end up feeling like the so-called jacks-of-all-trades—and masters of none" (296).
After reading this passage, I totally identified with the feeling that I am teaching with many of these objectives in mind. Does this "thing" called English Education feel like a grab bag of sorts to anyone else? In my department, there is debate over what books to teach, what to do with each book, how to be creative and yet get our kids read for the standardized tests. In the end, I am at a loss to REALLY know what my kids should be getting and what it looks like when they get there.
B and C are encouraging teachers to understand the frames of influence that shape their methods and objectives in the classroom. I think the most interesting one was that we teach texts as windows and position students as tourists/witnesses. I've been inclined to read vicariously and I encourage my students to do so as well. I do have to take into account a major issue--the way in which I teach is never void of bias. When I teach a text, I am superimposing information that may or may not be present based on my background/experiences. Being aware of that bias can also help me to teach more effectively--partly because I can neutralize the bias, but also because I can help students realize that we are all biased in some fashion.
What will English Education look like in the future? That's up for grabs.
Given this variety of purposes, what subject or curricular content do English teachers teach? Skills and content driven by state tests? Character development? Literary theory and criticism? Self-knowledge? Class-based literacies providing upward mobility? Charged with educating students in terms of academic literacy, moral development, cultural tolerance, media savvy, literature appreciation, standards achievement, and civic responsibility, most English teachers (ourselves included) frequently end up feeling like the so-called jacks-of-all-trades—and masters of none" (296).
After reading this passage, I totally identified with the feeling that I am teaching with many of these objectives in mind. Does this "thing" called English Education feel like a grab bag of sorts to anyone else? In my department, there is debate over what books to teach, what to do with each book, how to be creative and yet get our kids read for the standardized tests. In the end, I am at a loss to REALLY know what my kids should be getting and what it looks like when they get there.
B and C are encouraging teachers to understand the frames of influence that shape their methods and objectives in the classroom. I think the most interesting one was that we teach texts as windows and position students as tourists/witnesses. I've been inclined to read vicariously and I encourage my students to do so as well. I do have to take into account a major issue--the way in which I teach is never void of bias. When I teach a text, I am superimposing information that may or may not be present based on my background/experiences. Being aware of that bias can also help me to teach more effectively--partly because I can neutralize the bias, but also because I can help students realize that we are all biased in some fashion.
What will English Education look like in the future? That's up for grabs.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
American Literature is Male Literature and Black Matters
Fettery's article made me think of the literature that I have on my shelves in my study. How many of the texts contain female perspective? What about the movies as moving texts that I watch?
We live in a patriarchal system that has affected every facet of American life. The key phrase that struck me in her work was: To be American means to be male. A woman's only option for identifying herself with an American ideal is to associate male symbols and schemas.
I just wanted to post a few books I have and the male perspective they present:
1) Hatchet--Brian, a boy, learns how to live in the wild after his plane crashes.
2) Lord of the Flies
3) Animal Farm
4) The Inheritance Collection
I haven't done an exhaustive count of all my books, but in looking at these key texts, it's apparent that a male perspective is definitely dominant.
Toni Morrison, a well known poet and essayist wrote this piece with a similar motif--the repression of a people group in literature.
Morrison points out that Black identify in literature and life is being overshadowed by whiteness. She reveals points of political historical moments and movements as being rooted in blackness. I was intrigued with this argument and found it fascinating. I've always been an avid reader of "black literature," but I never really made the connection that Morrison made in relation to how blackness is infused in all writings because it provides the lens that we view/interpret other events.
The American Civil War--literature devoted to this topic must be interpreted through the lens of black slaves.
The Civil Rights Movement--which lead to better public schools for all--must be interpreted through the black identity as well.
Overall, Morrison makes the claim that literary criticism is not making room for the black lens of literary scholarship to be fully recognized and embraced.
We live in a patriarchal system that has affected every facet of American life. The key phrase that struck me in her work was: To be American means to be male. A woman's only option for identifying herself with an American ideal is to associate male symbols and schemas.
I just wanted to post a few books I have and the male perspective they present:
1) Hatchet--Brian, a boy, learns how to live in the wild after his plane crashes.
2) Lord of the Flies
3) Animal Farm
4) The Inheritance Collection
I haven't done an exhaustive count of all my books, but in looking at these key texts, it's apparent that a male perspective is definitely dominant.
Toni Morrison, a well known poet and essayist wrote this piece with a similar motif--the repression of a people group in literature.
Morrison points out that Black identify in literature and life is being overshadowed by whiteness. She reveals points of political historical moments and movements as being rooted in blackness. I was intrigued with this argument and found it fascinating. I've always been an avid reader of "black literature," but I never really made the connection that Morrison made in relation to how blackness is infused in all writings because it provides the lens that we view/interpret other events.
The American Civil War--literature devoted to this topic must be interpreted through the lens of black slaves.
The Civil Rights Movement--which lead to better public schools for all--must be interpreted through the black identity as well.
Overall, Morrison makes the claim that literary criticism is not making room for the black lens of literary scholarship to be fully recognized and embraced.
Snow, Snow, Snow, and Snow
These four stories contain the imagery of "snow" and do so in creatively different fashions.
The first two selections by Butler and Alvarez provide similar metaphors for snow.
I noticed in Butler's piece that to the Vietnamese restaurant worker and the Jewish lawyer, snow was a symbol of death. The Vietnamese woman had seen and thought of snow as covering and killing the wonderful items beneath it. She also thought of herself as dead because of the snow covering the shelter where she was staying in St. Louis. Similarly, the Jewish lawyer associated snow with the death of his father. Every time it snowed, he remembered the moment when his father sent him away from the ever-nearing Nazi regime that planned on killing all Jews. He threw himself onto the frigid snow in protest to his father, and this desperate act of defiance was the symbol that represented his father's death--that he intuitively knew well before news was delivered.
In Alvarez's piece, Yolanda, a young immigrant attending a Catholic school during the Cold War, experiences snow for the first time but interprets snow as nuclear missiles. She is a taught to be afraid of objects falling out the sky and to conduct fall-out drills in preparation for "the end." I thought this piece was interesting because of key terms/ideas: snow and Cold War. Snow is a symbol in Yolanda's mind for a disturbing event on the horizon. It is my inferential judgment that Yolanda, if she was a real person, would associate snow with her first impression of it as being a sign of the end of her life.
Overall, the two stories both connect the "snow" as being related to fear, death, and loss.
Baxter's piece contains snow--based on the setting. However, I noticed the term "snowed" as a synonym for being impressed. "She will be snowed!" (47). I also noticed that the brothers saw Stephanie get snowed (50) as they when on the snowy, icy lake to view the car that broke through the ice.
Beattie--this piece was difficult to follow. I interpreted snow in the last paragraph of the piece as a metaphor for the life span of a person. Snow was used to conceptualize the large mass of life that is unnoticed and that the small, meaningful parts are covered and lost by the enormity, like bird seed being thrown outside while it's snowing heavily.
In closing--all four stories relate snow as being a primarily negative object. Loss, death, somber, and ubiquitously engulfing everything important.
It was interesting and enjoyable to read all four selections and seeing the connections they share.
The first two selections by Butler and Alvarez provide similar metaphors for snow.
I noticed in Butler's piece that to the Vietnamese restaurant worker and the Jewish lawyer, snow was a symbol of death. The Vietnamese woman had seen and thought of snow as covering and killing the wonderful items beneath it. She also thought of herself as dead because of the snow covering the shelter where she was staying in St. Louis. Similarly, the Jewish lawyer associated snow with the death of his father. Every time it snowed, he remembered the moment when his father sent him away from the ever-nearing Nazi regime that planned on killing all Jews. He threw himself onto the frigid snow in protest to his father, and this desperate act of defiance was the symbol that represented his father's death--that he intuitively knew well before news was delivered.
In Alvarez's piece, Yolanda, a young immigrant attending a Catholic school during the Cold War, experiences snow for the first time but interprets snow as nuclear missiles. She is a taught to be afraid of objects falling out the sky and to conduct fall-out drills in preparation for "the end." I thought this piece was interesting because of key terms/ideas: snow and Cold War. Snow is a symbol in Yolanda's mind for a disturbing event on the horizon. It is my inferential judgment that Yolanda, if she was a real person, would associate snow with her first impression of it as being a sign of the end of her life.
Overall, the two stories both connect the "snow" as being related to fear, death, and loss.
Baxter's piece contains snow--based on the setting. However, I noticed the term "snowed" as a synonym for being impressed. "She will be snowed!" (47). I also noticed that the brothers saw Stephanie get snowed (50) as they when on the snowy, icy lake to view the car that broke through the ice.
Beattie--this piece was difficult to follow. I interpreted snow in the last paragraph of the piece as a metaphor for the life span of a person. Snow was used to conceptualize the large mass of life that is unnoticed and that the small, meaningful parts are covered and lost by the enormity, like bird seed being thrown outside while it's snowing heavily.
In closing--all four stories relate snow as being a primarily negative object. Loss, death, somber, and ubiquitously engulfing everything important.
It was interesting and enjoyable to read all four selections and seeing the connections they share.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Travis Dalsis--Testing and Engagement with Literature Response
A key idea that I was intrigued by is this idea of "text repoduction" within the framework of whole-class discussions.
Initially, when I think of discussions in a classroom, I DO think of text reproduction as a way to "test" whether or not my students comprehend and read what they were supposed to read. As the study shows, this is not student engagement with texts.
What about making connections, finding passionate positions to stand on and argue about, or inserting your own dilemmas and working them out?
I just wanted to share this important idea and how we sometimes think that students are really "learning" when all they are doing is comprehending. Comprehension is an important part of learning to become a critical reader, but with standardized testing, it limits the ability to extend beyond those boundaries because the standardize testing is a calculated a,b,c,d opportunity that only involves knowing an answer. It doesn't ask students to engage in the themes and determine what about them connect or challenge them as humans.
Initially, when I think of discussions in a classroom, I DO think of text reproduction as a way to "test" whether or not my students comprehend and read what they were supposed to read. As the study shows, this is not student engagement with texts.
What about making connections, finding passionate positions to stand on and argue about, or inserting your own dilemmas and working them out?
I just wanted to share this important idea and how we sometimes think that students are really "learning" when all they are doing is comprehending. Comprehension is an important part of learning to become a critical reader, but with standardized testing, it limits the ability to extend beyond those boundaries because the standardize testing is a calculated a,b,c,d opportunity that only involves knowing an answer. It doesn't ask students to engage in the themes and determine what about them connect or challenge them as humans.
Travis Dalsis--Transitions of High School to College Readings
Claim: Most college students are not preparing by reading articles, chapters, and books for class.
Students who were invested into reading practices were so for other purposes than college classes.
For the study:
1) Questionnaire
2) Reading journal
3) Interpreting Journals
What this article is mainly trying to expose is the lack of depth students are experiencing in their readership as college students. It "urges faculty members and program administrators at [their] institution to think differently about reading in their courses.
What were the conclusions this article draws?
1) College students are reading, but not studiously as it relates to their courses. They are using reading practices to pursue areas of deeper interest than those presented in the classroom. Reading for the classroom was "uninspiring, painfully required, and dull."
2) Few students made text to self/world connections. They didn't take time to think about the text as a social document speaking to them about their own lives and the innate implications it provides.
3) Texts that students interact with most are technology based. "The majority of their time reading for pleasure is spent reading and writing emails, instant messaging, or creating and perusing Facebook and MySpace profiles."
Suggestions for faculty:
1) Explicity teach reading practices that engage reading with the kinds of texts college students are being required to read. This is connected to the lack of support that the Common Core Standards are moving away from. The METACOGNITIVE aspect of reading needs to be explicit in all levels.
2) Integrate technology to the reading experience for classes as well as technology that allows discussions to take place (Blackboard).
My personal commentary: I am very intrigued by this article for a couple reasons. One, it made me think of the connection with my last blog post regarding how we teach at the secondary level. Also, it helps us to critically think about emergent tools that technology provides. Literacy today is defined differently than it was 10 years ago. Today, digital literacies and multi-modal literacies are very fascinating items to consider.
I also am intrigued by a recent TED Talk related to using interactive texts.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/shilo_shiv_suleman_using_tech_to_enable_dreaming.html
Check out the link if interested!
Students who were invested into reading practices were so for other purposes than college classes.
For the study:
1) Questionnaire
2) Reading journal
3) Interpreting Journals
What this article is mainly trying to expose is the lack of depth students are experiencing in their readership as college students. It "urges faculty members and program administrators at [their] institution to think differently about reading in their courses.
What were the conclusions this article draws?
1) College students are reading, but not studiously as it relates to their courses. They are using reading practices to pursue areas of deeper interest than those presented in the classroom. Reading for the classroom was "uninspiring, painfully required, and dull."
2) Few students made text to self/world connections. They didn't take time to think about the text as a social document speaking to them about their own lives and the innate implications it provides.
3) Texts that students interact with most are technology based. "The majority of their time reading for pleasure is spent reading and writing emails, instant messaging, or creating and perusing Facebook and MySpace profiles."
Suggestions for faculty:
1) Explicity teach reading practices that engage reading with the kinds of texts college students are being required to read. This is connected to the lack of support that the Common Core Standards are moving away from. The METACOGNITIVE aspect of reading needs to be explicit in all levels.
2) Integrate technology to the reading experience for classes as well as technology that allows discussions to take place (Blackboard).
My personal commentary: I am very intrigued by this article for a couple reasons. One, it made me think of the connection with my last blog post regarding how we teach at the secondary level. Also, it helps us to critically think about emergent tools that technology provides. Literacy today is defined differently than it was 10 years ago. Today, digital literacies and multi-modal literacies are very fascinating items to consider.
I also am intrigued by a recent TED Talk related to using interactive texts.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/shilo_shiv_suleman_using_tech_to_enable_dreaming.html
Check out the link if interested!
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