ignite. Kindle. spark.
catalysts for writing
catalysts for writing
Explore your thoughts and opinions regarding something happening in the media. Mrs. Paulsen's Entry: 25 October 2014 Peace Talk: Ending the Violent & Silent Masculinity Narrative This week, during discussion of the dangerous intruder protocol to prepare for drills, I asked a question: Have you ever been held at gunpoint? The surprising answer from two of my girls was yes. In both situations, they were very young children, in the presence of their mothers, when a husband or lover came to their door with a gun. One was too young to remember it, but she has heard the story multiple times in the family. The other was eight years old. To protect her mother, she stood in front of the gun her father was pointing. My point in asking was to remind students to take the training seriously because I assumed they did not have prior experience. I was wrong. This lesson could not be more sobering. Today, I am thankful: that my students are safe and that our dangerous intruder drills on Thursday were just drills. I am thankful that, unlike first-year teacher Megan Silberberger, I have never had to run toward bullets in the course of my teaching day. I am thankful to be alive. I am also troubled. Troubled by my students' lack of seriousness during drills. Troubled by the story of the young shooter, Jaylen Fryberg, and his victims. Troubled by the words "I'm fine." There are many other words and images on this young man's Twitter account likely to cause a stir, particularly the sexual content, as well as the volatile mood swings. We still don't know the whole story, and we may never make sense of it, but these are the words that are festering. I've been teaching teenagers for a long time, and my husband and I have been together even longer. I have three younger brothers and many male cousins. My son is eleven. I'm not an expert on the subject, but I'm a careful observer. I've heard this phrase uttered more times than I can count. In my totally unscientific experience, females who say this usually follow up with elaboration on why they should or shouldn't feel "fine." In general, they verbally process how they are feeling. Because society encourages this. What it usually means, when uttered by males is some variation of: "I'm angry, confused, embarrassed or ashamed, and I don't know what to do about it. Talking about my feelings is a sign of weakness, so I'm going to handle this on my own. I don't want you to think I'm weak. I don't trust you." Society also encourages this. Sometimes, the phrase actually means what it says. The trick is in figuring out which meaning applies. And then, what, if anything, is within your sphere of influence to respond.
Now, I'm not a counselor, and I don't pretend to be one, but I AM a caring adult. I've watched a lot of students, male and female, swallow their pain over the years. Often, I know more about a student's emotional state than the parents do. Sometimes, I know more about a student's emotional state than they know themselves. Behavior choices, body language, and tone of voice are signals to which all good teachers are attuned. But some are such masters at hiding, they fool us--and themselves. A few years back, I had two senior students, we'll call them Jeff and Jane, in my creative writing class who had been dating for two years. They were both attractive and smart, popular and witty. In the middle of the semester, I heard rumors about their breakup, nothing dramatic--a mutual decision, but I wondered how it would affect the class dynamic in a tight learning community of just eighteen students. For the first couple of days, class went smoothly, and everything seemed "fine." But I noticed that males and females both were very solicitous of Jane's feelings and openly discussed how she was coping with this major change. No one, not even his closest friends, talked to Jeff in this manner. Jeff would occasionally linger for a private word or two with me before going to lunch, so I asked him to stay a minute on the third day. I pulled up a chair next to his and asked, "You seem like you're doing okay, but how are you really holding up?" The tears welled up in his eyes immediately, and he dropped his head in his hands. "You're the first person to ask, Mrs. Paulsen." Three days! I was SO ashamed for not asking on the first day. For the next fifteen minutes, I listened to his isolation from his parents and longing for connection to them, to his fears about the future, to his confusion about Jane, to his increasing feelings of separation from his peers. I wonder how many of my students are hiding heavy burdens. How many are "fine"? I wonder how many of my students go three days without anyone asking them how they're feeling, and how many of them would give an authentic response. I missed an opportunity to teach the whole class a valuable lesson about gendered communication. And for two days, I missed the cues that Jeff was feeling awfully alone. But on that day, for Jeff, it was enough that I asked and listened. Maya Angelou said, "The loss of young first love is so painful, it borders on the ludicrous." When I think about my student standing between her parents and a gun, I think how many adults are not equipped with the emotional intelligence to face the pain, grieve a loss, and move on when it comes to love. I think about my two seniors who struggled to grieve their loss, without malice, but still groping their way in the dark unknowns of the human heart. Today I am thinking of a troubled young man who loved (at least in his mind) and lost in ninth grade, who chose the all-too-common murder-suicide ending to the love triangle in which he appeared to be tangled. And I am thinking of his alleged former love, dead on the cafeteria floor, their senseless and preventable deaths lingering in my consciousness. Could this happen at my school? Odds are: Yes. What messages are teens hearing about love, sex, violence, and gender to counter the media's narrative of violent and silent masculinity? If we don't speak up to influence the teens around us with a counter-narrative, the list of shootings will continue. And in the words of Prince Escalus at the end of Romeo & Juliet, "All are punished."
0 Comments
Quick Brain Spill of Moments I Don't Want to Forget Since Thursday (9/8/14):
Disorderly Conduct--My Personal Writing Challenge
13 September 2014 (originally written) "I found her like this, Dad." Tommy's voice drifts into my consciousness as he gently lifts my hand off the keyboard and shuts the laptop. I open my eyes and he's leaning over me in full Boy Scout regalia. There is a smile twitching in one corner of his mouth and his hazel-green eyes are soft with affection. They are striking, like my mother's. My heart melts twice every time I see them. "Mama, you were sleeping at the computer again." I struggle to surface to full brain power, eyes fluttering heavily, as Chuck wanders in to the living room, the same twitching smile in the corner of his mouth, blue eyes bright and piercing even in my drowsy state. "Up to bed, Jen." I must be hallucinating. Is Chuck dressed in a Scout uniform?! While he is a fantastic leader, he has always refused to conform, consenting only to the t-shirt. I croak, "What are you wearing?" He poses like a JCPenny underwear ad. "You like? I'm very stylish." I'm not hallucinating, but now I wish I was. I was looking forward to the mental space of a couple hours to write while Chuck and Tommy were at Boy Scouts. And I promptly fell asleep around 7. Before I could even start the entry. Tommy woke me up at 9:30. Once I was finally upstairs in bed around 10, sleep eluded me. I tossed and turned, writing in my head, fingers itching for the keyboard. So I snuck back downstairs to the computer around 11 and started writing this. And the record of my falling-asleep-typing is below as Exhibit A. I don't know why I am compelled to save it. Perhaps because it says, "I came, I wrote. It was gibberish because I have a sleep disorder. See?" You may have thought I was exaggerating in my last entry--a little hyperbole perhaps--by leaving in the gibberish. You may have thought I was manufacturing it for effect. It's honestly what I typed. I have two sleep disorders. It makes it hard to function as a teacher, much less mother and spouse. So, it is a beautiful Saturday morning. And I'm finally finishing this entry. This week, I hope to write every day without falling asleep. Photo Credit: http://www.conecomm.com/sleeping-at-the-internet-wheel -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Exhibit A kjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 'fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo aeeeeeeeeeeee wneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk myuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu 9999999999999uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu wekkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkklllllll kddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddlllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Twenty-Two Poem Hacks : Carmen Giménez Smith : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2013/11/twenty-two-poem-hacks/ Thanks for the tip, Sherman Alexie! Check out Kirsten Bakis' blog series. The exercises are designed to take a half hour, some are just 10 or 15 minutes. When you finish them in order, you should have a rough draft of a new story. Or you can do any of them with a story you've started and need fresh perspective. Anyone want to try it?! I'm throwing down the gauntlet on a new challenge! Who is with me?? :o)
For the first exercise, The Hand Fate Deals You, using a random number generator, I got the numbers 41, 16, & 24. So the first sentence must include "something burning." The middle of the writing should include "something buried in the ground." The last sentence should contain the phrase "a woman's arm." Intrigued? For the character number, I went with my lucky number 5, so my main character is "a thief." Sweet! Now I must write for 15 minutes. Figure out your numbers and join me!
based on Notebook Know-How by Aimee Buckner (p. 15-16) Here is a professional example!
"My Name" from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing. It was my great-grandmother's name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse--which is supposed to be bad luck if you're born female-but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong. My great-grandmother. I would've liked to have known her, a wild, horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That's the way he did it. And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window. At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister's name Magdalena--which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least- -can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza. would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do. Here's an example: 18 November 2014 Boston: A Wicked Good Time A year ago today, according to my Facebook timeline which now serves as my memory, I was packing for a trip to Boston for NCTE and ALAN. I had no idea how amazing this trip would be and how it would impact my life in big and small ways. It was wicked good! For one, I had yet to discover the most amazing food in the history of the universe: the Florentine cannoli from Mike's Pastry. Where ya been all my life?! Seriously, somebody please ship me a box! I had not yet discovered the place I want to live if I ever leave Iowa. Oh, Boston! You had me when the sun magically appeared as I stumbled down the wrong street from the hotel and discovered Fenway! See the angelic presence in the center of the picture? My whole trip had that halo effect. And I got to wander around this most charming of historical cities with several of my favorite people: Brenna Griffin, Abby Hendrickson, and Kirstey Ewald. A year ago, I had not heard my childhood hero Judy Blume's genius advice on getting kids to read books you love: "Tell them they aren't ready for it yet. And walk away." All my teaching life of twenty years, I have revered the name Nancie Atwell. She has been the shining light of reading & writing workshop in my classroom. Her work In the Middle is amazing. I have every versions. A year ago, I had not met my teaching idol.
I attended the Adolescent Literature Assembly at NCTE, also know as ALAN, for the first time a year ago. I heard amazing talks from so many wonderful authors, it was almost overwhelming. I had yet to hear the most inspirational thoughts on hope from Joan Bauer. I had yet to hear the wisdom of real truths from Laurie Halse Anderson. I had yet to meet Rainbow Rowell, Bill Konigsberg, Chris Crutcher, Swati Avasthi, and a host of other wonderfully literate humans. I had not yet heard Natalie Lloyd's awesomely delicious read aloud of her novel A Snicker of Magic. Could anyone love words more than she does?! A year ago, I had not had an author respond to my Facebook posts WHILE I was reading his book, resulting in a meta-reading experience I will never forget and turning into an unforgettable school visit from the incomparable Matt de la Peña. I have been to NCTE multiple times, but this was a halcyon moment. I'm so thankful to my school district and to ICTE for supporting this trip and my professional development.
Did I mention the life-changing properties of the Florentine cannoli? Sometimes we run across tidbits of wisdom that make us think. Write from one. You never know what kind of story will appear! Here's an example:
Atticus Finch--Mentor Teacher "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." ~Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird There have to be a hundred quotes I choose to live by on any given day and I'm always finding more. Like my mother and grandmother before me, I've been scavenging for and collecting quotations in notebooks nearly all of my life. Words are how I make sense of the insensible and express the inexpressible. Many quotations surface from the deep recesses of memory when I need them. Sometimes they are jolted loose at random, or become new again in a fresh context. Today, I tried to pick the one that's had the longest and strongest impact on who I am as a person, as well as who I am as a teacher. When I first read these words from Atticus to Scout as an 8th grader, I knew immediately how powerful they were, for Atticus is the finest of teachers. These words have echoed in my heart and mind ever since. Understanding others is probably my biggest barrier to success in the classroom. I just don't get some kids. When I find myself irritated or at odds with a student, I try to figure out what walking around in their skin would be like. At the beginning of the year, I wasn't sure I could like a young man who was very negative. Everything we did was stupid or boring. When writing their on-demand narrative, he tossed his hair out of his eyes and asked, "Does it have to be good?" Everyone laughed and his neighbor fist-bumped him. "Does your best work have to be good? You tell me, Charlie." (Not his real name.) My voice dripped with venom. He flinched and hunched over his keyboard, painfully pecking out one word at a time with just his index fingers, mumbling about his best work never being good enough. Why did it take me nearly 24 hours to process the fear in his statement? To recognize the odds of his success in a timed, typed writing task were greatly stacked against him? When my anger receded, when I crawled into his skin, I realized how so much of his negativity was a mask. When I put myself in his place, I shriveled at the negativity in my own voice. I couldn't change his negativity maybe, but I could change mine. The next day, I sat with him at his table and asked some curious questions about his blog and his interests. When he dropped the mask and shyly chattered away about movies and football and his friends, he glowed with joy. I was determined to help him find that glow when reading and writing. Today, he sat in the blue leather recliner, deeply lost in The Sea of Monsters. He has finished two Trent Reedy books and The Lightning Thief. When I asked if anyone needed help with "The Tell-Tale Heart" or their Notice and Note blog posts, he wandered over with his Chromebook, sat down next to me at my table and said, "I need some help. I don't understand what to do with the quotes." I marveled at the change. Here he was, of his own volition, articulating his uncertainty--no mask. As we talked through the first paragraph of "The Tell-Tale Heart," and wondered together about the "you" the narrator is addressing in the line "you fancy me mad," I watched his fingers flit around on the keyboard. He was on home row! It was still slow going, but the improvement was marked. I complimented him on his progress and was treated to the same sunny smile I got for complimenting one of his touchdowns. (Turns out, he's quite good!) Then he said, "For the second quote, I was thinking maybe the line about the Evil Eye. Don't you think that shows being compelled by irresistible force?" If I had a football, I would've spiked it right there in the end zone and then performed some silly dance moves. I settled for a high five, said, "You've got this, Charlie." And I walked away. Writing is still hard work for him. And he has a long way to go before he masters elaboration and craft. But he's got a growth mindset about it. He's no longer defeated before he starts. He's not afraid he won't measure up. He's confident he can build his skills. "Mrs. Paulsen, can I have the blog post checklist? I want to make sure I meet all the requirements. The notice and note part can be a tough question, right? Because I noticed Percy is asking some tough questions here." He plops the book open, flips the hair out of his eyes, and points to a page where Percy does indeed ask himself some tough questions. Inside my head, the crowd goes wild. Create a page in your notebook to collect 100 things you love. Pick one and then write! You'll never be at a loss for writing topics! Source: http://cathyzielske.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5c3753ef016302c052f1970d-popup What does Christmas mean to you? What memories do you have of Christmas? What sensory details remind you of Christmas? What objects? Take it wherever you wish!
|
AuthorMrs. Paulsen writes, reads, knits and shoots arrows. Archives
November 2015
Categories
All
|