That Special Movie (Journal 6)

Cantaloupe-colored skin blisters watermelon beneath an onslaught of boiling water; Mozart plays in the background.  Silvery moonlight plays along diamond facets in a pool of wine-red blood; the train inexorably grinds across rail and bone.  The dumbwaiter snicks quietly; a man in a tuxedo stretches fingers, choking the neck of a chilled champagne bottle that explodes, sending glass shards and shrapnel slicing skin like so many tomatoes.  A man who showed no mercy pleads for the very thing he denied others, even as asphalt catches between his teeth and pavement burns across his skin.  Carnage and revenge meet with a smile of self-satisfaction; justice has been served.  For me, The Punisher is that special movie.  It is the outlet for all my frustrations and anxiety.  It is the vehicle through which I channel my pent-up aggression.  It is violent and bloody and full of explosions in a way my life is not allowed to be.  At the close of a bad day, somehow the smashing brings me solace.  I will not stomp feet, slam doors, scream or yell; I will not hit or kick or throw things; I will merely slide that shiny DVD into the player and live vicariously for a couple of hours.  I always feel better at the end; even now my lips curl with satisfaction.

Because Writing Matters (Journal 5)

This is a book that I wish I'd read earlier in my teaching career.  It's also a book that I wish my administrators and district leaders would read right now.  My district is currently in a crisis of sorts.  We have not made AYP in a while (at least not for our economically disadvantaged sub-populations), and I predict that things are getting worse for our general population.  As much as the English Department has tried to remedy this situation: we've led school-wide in-service training sessions about web-quests, graphic organizers, constructed responses, and reading across the curriculum, there has been precious little change in the statistics.  As the research continually stressed in Because Writing Matters, the literacy crisis is not the sole purview of the English Department; other departments share responsibility, and some departments have really been trying to help out.  Because of the importance of writing in building content area knowledge, demonstrating student knowledge, encouraging higher order critical thinking skills, and improving language and communication, I can only hope that more of my colleagues will jump on the writing bandwagon.  As I read this text, it became increasingly clear to me that “students need to write more across all content areas and that schools need to expand their writing curricula to involve students in a range of writing tasks” (6). 

In order for this to happen, though, there needs to be more effort expended in developing a common language, developing common rubrics, and setting common expectations across content areas.  In fact, “improving writing requires a sustained schoolwide effort” (18).  Furthermore, students (and faculty) need to be taught to read as writers and write as readers.  Teachers can't teach what they don't know, and if educators do not develop their own writing lives, how can they possibly be expected to train students in the craft of writing?  In Chapter 6, one principal was described as asking his staff to participate in writing prompts at faculty meetings.  That is something that I cannot imagine happening at my school; our faculty meetings are gruff and rushed affairs where faculty is spoken at rather than spoken with.  There is no real dialogue – unless you consider the half-hearted question asking if anyone has anything else to add, and the expectation is that no one really does. 

As an English teacher, this text restated a lot of information I already knew, maxims that govern my own curriculum development and classroom practice.  For example, it is startlingly clear that “writing is the most visible expression not only of what [my] students know but also of how well they have learned it” (11).  My students write on a daily basis, whether in their response journals, for entrance or exit slips, for the classroom blog, or for homework assignments or processed papers.  I feel like I have a grasp of what competence in writing means and looks like, but there is a lack of common vocabulary and expectations – sometimes even within my department, and definitely across other departments.  For example, in the past few years, junior teachers in English and in Social Studies have assigned annotated bibliographies, but there has been no coordination to ensure common expectations or guidelines in both departments – which can only create confusion for our students.  We have made a move toward a writing handbook, but it is still in its earliest stages – a draft has been circulated among English teachers.  It is a beginning, though, which will hopefully lead to concerted positive change.

As the text points out, though, there can be no change without administrative support.  And as we balance research about best practice, we also need to consider community expectations.  This is true because “people who cannot write and communicate clearly will not be hired and are unlikely to last long enough to be considered for promotion” (17).  As an educator, I clearly see the veracity of this statement, but sometimes it is hard to keep this fact from sounding like a mere platitude to my students.  Partly this is because there is little opportunity because of district and school guidelines for students to write for authentic audiences.

While we can affect change within our school, and perhaps within our district, affecting change at the state level is much more difficult.  As I read sections of this text dealing with the limitations of standardized tests, I became even more concerned (if that's even possible) about our state test: the SAT.  Perhaps the new Smarter Balanced assessments will be an improvement, but I think that remains to be seen.

Choosing the Right Word (Journal 4)

“I do not choose the right word.  I get rid of the wrong one.”  ~A. E. Housman

On the granite bar in my kitchen I keep a magnetic poetry board.  It's a great conversation piece, and it's an interesting boredom buster while I'm waiting for water to boil or the oven to preheat.  The thing with magnetic poetry, though, is that you're limited to the pool of words on the magnets.  No matter how extensive a vocabulary you have, there are words that are forbidden.  Thus, it comes down to choosing the “best” word, rather than the “right” word. 

The poem I wrote the other day, then, is a collection of “best” words, some of which would be “wrong” and which I might replace if I weren't working with a limited pool of pre-selected words.  Even so, though, there are still a lot of words I got rid of or chose not to lose as I was “writing” on that magnet board.

Summer sun, playful beside soil and stream -

wet scent across a poet's ear

orange sound at blossom time

cool murmurs urge: hear the color

dizzy taste as when a sea stone speaks

feel mud over tingly skin and under dirty sky

brilliant river dripping through immense vein

a solitary angel dances to storm music

black rhythm of rain & puddle

wicked night voice of moon and ricochet

ecstatic roar

In this poem I tried playing with synesthesia as a device, one I wouldn't normally choose to work with, but which I was sort of forced into experimenting with because of the words I had (and didn't have) at my disposal.  The poem starts in sunlight and ends in storm and darkness, an interesting passage of time that I might not have entertained otherwise.  I discarded a lot of pre-printed words on those little magnets; there are still a puddle of them left in the tray.  In thinking about Housman's words, though, I wonder how much of getting rid of the wrong word happens automatically as we leave any number of words behind in the tray, so to speak.

Beginning to Write (Journal 3)

Writing is malleable, and clay is a serviceable metaphor.  Words can be shaped, pushed, twisted, formed for any number of purposes.  Contracts and compacts become utilitarian jugs to hold essential words that sustain.  Poetry and figures of speech are crafted like decorative vases and urns.  Fables and stories are the bowls that hold savory deliciousness.  And in the same way that first sentences have license to be stupid, so, too, do those early shapes and forms that emerge as that inchoate lump of clay is transformed.  Progression is key to transformation; early attempts may have to be discarded or re-worked, but those early attempts are necessary for progress.  That progress, however, cannot occur unless you have begun.  Barzun states that “there can be no second paragraph until you have a first.”  Even if that first is moved or removed, transformed, shaved away, or stretched out, that beginning is essential to later progress.  I am not sure if knowing how to begin to write is, as Barzun states, “a great art,” but certainly there is an art in any willingness to work the material in your hands.  The art is in ridding yourself of reluctance and embracing the eagerness to just begin in the first place.  It's like that first cannonball into early June waters; you have to take the plunge all at once, get wet, jump right in, then you can concentrate on enjoying the way the water sluices over your skin, the way it splashes and sprinkles beneath your limbs.  Words work the same way: let loose from your pen or your keyboard.  Take the plunge and begin to shape and sculpt the material in your fingers.  You just have to start.

What Makes Writing Easy (Journal 2)

Writing is easy when I have a pen in my hand or a keyboard beneath my fingertips, a strong sense of purpose and audience, and a fresh idea.  I have always loved writing; it has come easy to me, and I have received praise (in the form of grades or grade-school writing contest awards) for my writing.  As long as I know what I am writing and for whom, I am usually able to use that sense of purpose and audience as a springboard.  From there I am free to fall through the air of the whispered sounds of words and into the waters of thoughts and ideas which surround me and fall away like droplets as I surface.

What Makes Writing Hard (Journal 1)

Writing is only "hard" for me if I am unclear with regard to the purpose motivating the writing.  I need to know why I am writing so that I can formulate ideas with regard to appropriate diction, syntax, style, etc.  There are many different types of writing, and in order for me to feel successful or capable, I have to have a strong idea about the expectations for the piece.  Text messages and grocery lists differ substantially from graduate school papers, lesson plans, emails to parents, or stories I compose for my daughter.  Each piece has a specific audience, and in creating each piece, I have a specific goal in mind, whether to inform, persuade, entertain, assuage, etc.  For me, writing must flow from purpose; if the purpose is unclear, then the writing becomes difficult.